Thursday, December 09, 1999
Project will take kids on virtual tours of Cincinnati Art Museum
BY OWEN FINDSEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati Art Museum is joining with WCET-TV (Channel 48) and the Association for Advancement of Arts Education to take Ohio school children behind the scenes of the museum.
Two years from now, using High Definition Television, Digital Video Disks, computers, interactive television and WCET's Distance Learning equipment, fourth- through sixth- grade students in 200 Ohio schools will be able to talk to curators and conservators, visit the museum's conservation laboratory and examine rarely seen artwork that is in storage.
“It's a great partnership,” museum acting director Anita Ellis says. “The museum has the art. AAAE has the educators and WCET have the technology to put it all together. In all my 25 years at the Art Museum this is the most exciting educational program I've ever seen. We can link the Art Museum to all the schools in Ohio, and perhaps one day, in the nation.”
Called Behind the Scenes at the Cincinnati Art Museum, the two-year project is funded by a $309,000 grant from Ohio Education Telecommunications.
“We're moving education into technology,” said Jack Dominic, WCET senior vice president, education and technology, “and the great part of all this is that it can be done today. The equipment to do this is already in the schools.”
Students in their classrooms will be able to take a virtual tour of the museum.
Using wide-screen HDTV, students can watch conservators use scientific methods to preserve valuable artworks. They will be able to get a close look at African art from the museum's Steckelmann Collection and see far more fine detail than can be seen on normal television. The Steckelmann Collection of more than 1,200 carvings and artifacts came to the CAM before the 20th century and is one of the oldest African collections in an American museum.
Students will be able to talk to curators and conservators live on interactive television. They will use DVD disks and computers to access information about the art and the collection.
Teachers will be trained by AAAE to associate the art to students' studies in math, science reading, writing and citizenship. The program is intended to use the arts to improve student performance in Ohio's fourth- and sixth-grade proficiency tests.
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