COVID brought me to the British Museum

A reflection of my experience exploring options for virtual museum learning & experiences during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

When taking an introductory course to instructional design and technology I was assigned to visit a museum. This was during a global pandemic so thanks to technology I virtually explored the British Museum in London. Albeit doubtful at first, this digital adventure afforded my brain a nice dose of oxytocin. I received loads of inspiration as a scholar, artist, designer, and member of the human race. I highly recommend checking it out for yourself, but until you travel for yourself here's a narrative of my experience, the accompanying emotional responses, and what I learned about informal learning and instructional design.

I started my afternoon trip by viewing a museum blog post that listed 11 ways to interact with the museum while it was closed due to the pandemic. Rather than focusing on one strategy, I perused all the available resources as each was too tantalizing not to touch (just like in a real museum) and chose my direction from there.

Google's Arts & Culture Website

I started with collections from the British Museum housed on Google's Arts & Culture page. I have long been a fan of this google product. It provides a plethora of specific content with meaningful relationships and connected topics. It’s fun to get lost here due to the ubiquitous amount and specificity of the content which I believe is a hallmark of informal learning content.

"Google Street-view" Tour

Typical of the sporadic behavior of a museum patron I downloaded the Google Arts and Culture app looking for a specific museum and ended up spending most of my time in an unintended location. Namely the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum in Korea (not exactly London) but it was first to pop up when I downloaded the app and it prompted me to take a "google street-view" tour. Which I had never done, and just couldn't resist the immediate opportunity.

At first, despite the dishy translations, I found the "google street-view" tour of the Korean museum informative and exciting. As I navigated the space, pop-ups would appear with additional material on selected works you could see on the screen. I felt disappointed when my curiosity was denied the opportunity to immediately click to “find more information” or when the street view moved too slowly down unadorned (aka boring) hallways. The architecture was probably a work of art itself but this cannot be determined with the limited virtual view.

I recognized a principle of instructional design when reflecting on this experience. The speed of informal learning, while controlled by the user, might best be supported by anticipating the timing of when resources will want resources available, not just the type of resources. This anticipation and planning can help learners gain immediate access to resources to capitalize on the natural motivation inherent in personal curiosity. This speaks to the nature of informal learning as social and direct interaction with the world (Henschel, 2001).

The Museum of the World

I next studied "The Museum of the World," an interactive timeline featuring artifacts from all over the world since 2,000,000 BC. This tool’s delightful sound effects and integration of written descriptions, visuals, audio recordings, and related works made this another digital place to enjoy getting lost. The artifacts were connected to one another visually with lines, sort of a "mind-map" placed over a timeline. The timeline was divided into five sections: Africa, America, Europe, Oceania, & Asia. This layering of the organization on one web-page is extraordinary to me. I believe within informal & museum learning and museum you need several layers of organization that answer the basic questions of what, where, when, & how before users can personalize and answer “What am I consuming? What does it mean to me?”

The British Museum's YouTube Channel

I looked at one other digital resource provided by the British Museum because like a real museum, you cannot take in all of the information, exhibits, or experiences in one visit. But focusing on informal learning I realized I don’t need to stress about exploring only 3 of the 11 options on the blog post if I’ve been given this formal assignment because the experience is focused on my agenda, destination, and speed. I received a great amount of information in a relatively short amount of time and exposure and there was no test. This felt fantastic to me as a learner, I guess this essay is an assessment but let’s leave that out of the equation for now. I believe the reduced focus on formal accountability in informal learning reduces the stress that is often felt in formal instructional settings, the kind of stress that inhibits learning.

The museum's YouTube channel was my favorite! I loved the curator's stories alongside their description of the artifacts and findings. I enjoyed seeing a human face, it felt most similar to receiving a docent tour in person. The audio podcasts and descriptions are great when you are visually impaired or want to exercise while learning about the museum's treasures (a missing benefit of in-person museum visits).

As stated earlier, this was a great experience. Hopes for meaningful learning experiences, even during a time of distanced learning, were awakened for me. Rather than a zoom meeting, email, or word document I was able to follow my curiosity through the exploration of various tools for communication and instruction. Don't let COVID stop you! Take yourself to London and enjoy the British Museum, or any of the museums across the world offering virtual visiting tools. Or at least travel to google.com if you can. ;) That could take you anywhere, even Korea. Let the digital wind take you where you need to go.