Google's Cultural Institute

{Google's Cultural Institute}

History and Art – Nabbing historical artifacts and paintings and putting them into a digital gallery, making notes about why things grabbed your attention:

John Singer Sargent – Creating a chronological study of a single artist:

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum – Touring the museum with the Cultural Institute’s Art Project:

Other museums and locations that are fun to explore.

Reflection:

This was a great tool to use and to play around with. Google's Cultural Institute was something I had heard of. However the ability to explore museums was a feature that I was unaware of. For history teachers, this is an opportunity to let students explore museums and places that would otherwise require fieldtrips with large budgets that they couldn't otherwise afford to take with their students.

I spent a great deal of time playing with the tool in museums that I already knew well because I knew that I would be able to mentally compare the experiences. While the feeling of being in the museum and being able to walk around with ease was slightly missing (because controlling your movement within the museum was a bit more difficult than just being able to walk around), it was able to bring back memories of being there, and it did have some freedom of exploration that is lacking in a gallery of photos.

I did also discover that you could not just explore art museums and archaeological museums, but also archaeological digs and historic places. There was a section of the Cultural Institute (not in the Art Project section, but a different one) that allowed you to wander around Pompeii. All of this would be extremely helpful in the history classroom.