New Resource: “Museums for Digital Learning” Site for K-12 Educators Launches

From the Institute for Muesum and Library Services:

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is pleased to announce the launch of a new online resource center featuring dynamic digital museum content for K-12 educators searchable by subject and grade. Teachers across the country can now find resources that feature engaging activities from a growing number of museums all aligned with national education standards.

Originally funded as a pilot project through an FY 2018 National Leadership Grant to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Museums for Digital Learning (MDL) is a collaboration of IMLS, Newfields, the Field Museum, and History Colorado. The project brings together museums of various disciplines, sizes, and geographic regions to contribute to a shared digital platform offering K-12 educational resource kits developed from museum collection.

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With the website’s official launch, hundreds of museums have the opportunity to contribute to MDL, making it a rich resource for K-12. MDL features and opportunities for contributing museums and K-12 educators include:

• Inquiry-Based, Interactive Learning: Resource Kits are made up of several activity types through which museums can choose to present their content. These may include narratives, hotspots, slideshows, annotations, timelines, games, and e-books. Museums decide on the number of digitized objects they want to use in a kit and the types of activities they want to include.
• Curriculum Aligned: All Resource Kits are curriculum aligned and searchable by grade level and subject.
• Collaboration: MDL offers a unique opportunity for two or more museums to co-create a Resource Kit with digital assets from their institutions around a single theme or topic.
• Flexible Content: MDL welcomes museums of all kinds: collecting and non-collecting, and those with inanimate or living collections. Museums can use objects, audio, video, and even exhibition panel texts.
• Power of the Whole: A shared platform makes it easy for educators to visit, browse, and gather teaching resources from one place, rather than having to explore hundreds of individual sites. Time and ease of access are two key needs of teachers.

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