Museums, on the other hand, place a greater emphasis upon theme, interpretation and explanation. Galleries on the WWW provide schools with a fine opportunity to display and publish student writing and art. Museums can take us much farther, offering a chance for students to plan, develop and publish a multimedia collection around some question, topic or era which deserves exploration and illumination. Students act as curators and designers. Virtual museums surpass galleries in their capacity to support constructivist learning.
Museums are the student work.
Examples of Virtual Galleries To develop a clear sense of what a virtual gallery might offer a school, it pays to visit a dozen sites, some of which are adult galleries intended to display and market the work of professional artists and some of which are school Web sites proudly sharing the art and writing of students. There is no text to accompany the large JPEG files. Our next site offers vivid images of work by painters, sculptors and photographers all displayed on a single page with large graphics and a paragraph of descriptive text accompanying each work. The text also provides contact information for those who wish to reach the artist. The art work is very impressive and enjoyable, but one wishes for a menu system and thumb nail miniatures rather than the slowly loading large works.