Abstract

Online offerings and resources of art museums have increased rapidly over the past years, with most art museums, regardless of size, having some online presence. The current online offerings tend to focus on digital warehousing of images and games. Many museums have actively increased the constructivist and inquiry-based learning aspects of their on-site education programs allowing learners to construct their own knowledge and form questions about a topic; rather than being passive learners. However, most museums have not yet incorporated those ideas in their online educational offerings. For this present day case study, art educators and art museum educators answered questionnaires and participated in an online discussion to find current usage of and possible next steps for online art museum offerings. Most participants agreed that constructivist and inquiry-based learning theories are appropriate for art education and would like to see them incorporated in online museum education offerings. Roadblocks, possible next steps and suggestions for what this might look like are discussed; as well as real world problems facing both the classroom art educator and the art museum educator.