Virtual museums offer multi-sensory opportunities appealing to a variety of learning styles and multiple intelligences. One can see a Picasso. Virtual museums have great advantages over textbooks - bringing vitality, color and motion to student exploration. In the past, schooling has been too divorced from real life. The study of life through textbooks and teacher lectures was all too often a case of artificial intelligence and virtual reality.
Virtual museums offer a different kind of learning - one which is fresh and vibrant.
As schools first begin to put together museums on the World Wide Web they will rapidly recognize how much they need to learn about the work of museums. The partnership helps teachers and students learn about the complicated work which goes on behind the scenes. Curator Researcher Collection Manager Exhibition Designer Exhibition Fabricator Educator Public Relations Fund Raiser Editor Graphic Designer Photographer Students need to learn about the thoughtful display and interpretation of artifacts. The challenge of communicating accurately and sensitively about historical events is immense for the adult museum professionals such as those who created the controversial Hiroshima exhibit for the Smithsonian and those who have encountered serious anger from Native American groups which have protested the display of tribal treasures. School people have much to learn from their museum partners about the job of sharing treasures with the world.