Walker Art Center

Interim Report to the Institute of Museum and Library Services

ArtsConnectEd LG-24-06-0090-06

In September 2006, IMLS awarded the Walker Art Center (WAC) and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) a three-year $287,125 grant to support the ArtsConnectEd 2 Project.

Originally launched in 1998, ArtsConnectEd.org is an online resource providing K-12 teachers and their students access to images, information, and classroom materials from its two partner institutions: the Walker and the MIA. During the ArtsConnectEd 2 project, the site will be redesigned as a dynamic, open-source site featuring new core capabilities as defined by its active stakeholders-museum educators and classroom teachers. The site will allow educators at both partner institutions to produce and manage content directly. Project goals include:

• Improve and expand ArtsConnectEd functionality by redesigning the Web site.

• Empower museum educators and classroom teachers to create and manage educational content from museum assets through new online tools.

• Redefine the relationship of museum educators to both their institutions and the K-12 education community by achieving project outcomes.

The resulting redesign will provide museum educators greater flexibility to control their online offerings, strengthen their independence as content creators, and allow increased interaction with their K-12 constituency.

The ArtsConnectEd 2 (ACE 2) project consists of three phases: research, development, and implementation. Each phase focuses on refining, expanding and testing new tools and functionality for museum educators and classroom communities of teachers and students. The project is currently in the tail end of the development phase. The development of ACE 2 will take place in four stages: creation of new system architecture, tool development and integration, user interface design, and data management.

During this reporting period major tasks were accomplished moving us toward the launch of the public beta site on May 4, 2009. The data migration, final design of the user interface, and graphic identity were completed. In preparation for the beta (soft public) launch, a data-stable development version of the site was launched. User testing and elimination of bugs continued throughout this project period. In addition, new educational content and help documents were produced and added to the site. The implementation of the dissemination plan is well underway with several presentations and demonstrations conducted at national conferences and workshops.

Additional information is available on the project web site: http://ace2.artsconnected.org

Project Activities:

November 2008

• A new workgroup met weekly through April 2009 to develop the graphic identity for the site including home page design, and logo design.

• Power User testing conducted.

• The new MIA developer was hired.

December 2008

• Tagging and comment functionality developed and implemented.

• Solr Search functionality implemented.

• Presentation layouts designed.

• Developers attended the Steve: Museum Social Tagging Project meeting.

January 2009

• Culture mapping tool completed.

• Contract signed with a technical writer to develop help documentation.

• ACE Twitter and Facebook accounts set up.

• Help functionality and design was defined and development begun.

• Additional Power User testing conducted.

• User registration functionality completed and tested.

• Art Collector Set submission functionality completed.

February 2009

• First version of the Administrative toolset developed.

• The new ACE logo and branding designed and approved.

• ACE Educational metadata standards defined.

• A second evaluator was added to the team from CAREI.

March 2009

• Presentation of new ArtsConnectEd site at Association of Supervision and Curriculum

Instruction (ASCD) National Conference, Orlando, Florida.

• All media files uploaded and cataloged.

• Help functionality and design completed.

• MIA and WAC data compiled in format compatible with Open Archives (OAI) Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (PMH).

• OCLC COBOAT application installed.

• Homepage elements defined.

• Homepage design and functionality completed.

• Ask an Educator design completed.

• Graphic added to the current ArtsConnectEd site announcing new version.

Note: Treden Wagoner's title changed to Technology and Training Specialist

April 2009

• A new production server was installed.

• National Art Education Association: sessions and workshop, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

• Museums and the Web Conference: paper, demonstration, and session, Indianapolis,

Indiana.

• A data-stable version of the ACE development site released internally.

• Backup strategy defined.

• The converter functionality for legacy Art Collector Sets completed.

• Mass e-mail to all former ArtsConnectEd users announcing upcoming changes in site sent.

Project Outputs:

• Internal data-stable release of new ArtsConnectEd development site dev.artsconnected.org.

• Homepage design (viewable on project management site: http://ace2.artsconnected.org)

Project Outcomes:

In our previous report we noted the project experienced a setback due to the departure of a key developer, the web master at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. This negatively affected the project schedule. Attached is our revised schedule of completion for this project. We will complete the project February 28, 2010. On April 9, 2009, we emailed Dan Lukash requesting an extension of the project.

This was an extremely productive and busy period:

• Museum educators completed preparation of educational content repurposed for the new

site and added metadata to selected items.

• Museum Educators conducted the first teacher workshop on the new ArtsConnectEd site.

• Museum Educators tested and began using Administrative Tools for adding educational

content to the site.

• Power Users conducted two sessions testing the development version of the site.

• We are now poised for our public beta site on May 4, 2009.

Dissemination Activities:

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's annual conference

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Susan Rotilie and Treden Wagoner presented a session entitled "The New ArtsConnectEd: An online Curriculum Tool for Arts Learning." The interactive session introduced participants to the new site and demonstrated models for the development of meaningful teaching and learning products that connect curricula to museum resources.

National Art Education Association (NAEA) Museum Education Pre-Conference

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Treden Wagoner was part of a panel entitled "How's Your Internet Connection? Museum Educators Using the Web to Connect with Audiences." Also on the panel were Ann Isaacson, Associate Educator, MIA; Rachel Dubke, School and Tour Program Coordinator, WAC; and Jehra Patrick, Tour Scheduler, WAC. During the session the panelists discussed how they have been empowered by online tools to create and share their own custom content quickly and directly through: web sites exclusively for museum guides and community volunteers, e-newsletter templates and new tools for contributing content to ArtsConnectEd.org, and media sharing and social networking sites such as Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

NAEA Annual Convention

Friday, April 17, 2009

• Treden Wagoner and Susan Rotilie presented a session along with Willamarie Moore, Museum of Fine Arts Boston entitled "Museums in the Classroom: Online Resources and Tools for Teaching and Learning." The session shared with participants how the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Walker Art Center, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston are bringing the art museum to the classroom using 21st century teaching and learning tools   combined with online access to art collections and classroom resources. Participants learned specifically about ArtsConnectEd and MFA Educators Online, viewed demonstrations, and contributed to a discussion of the use of online museum resources in the classroom led byeducators from the three museums.

• Kris Wetterlund presented a session along with Amanda Kodeck of the Walters Art gallery entitled "Communities of Learning and Art Museum Websites." This session focused on two successful projects in which teachers formed communities of learning connected with art museum education websites.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

NAEA Student Teacher Division

• Treden Wagoner presented on the classroom use of the New ArtsConnectEd.

Saturday April 18

• Robin Dowden, Nate Solas, and Brent Gustafson demonstrated the new ArtsConnectEd site.

• Robin Dowden and Scott Sayre presented a session titled "Tear Down the Walls: The Redesign of ArtsConnectEd.org" Session description: An overview of the research, design, and development strategies employed in the creation of ArtsConnectEd2, particularly focusing on the roles and products of the internal, cross-institutional, and external collaborative teams. Extensive project research generated a unique set of requirements, which illuminate new expectations for museums, staff roles, and technology, all applicable to any museum interested in developing a similar resource. Presentation slides are posted on http://conference.archimuse.com/forum/mw2009_presentation_slides_tear_down_walls_redesign_ar

The full paper is posted on

http://www.archimuse.com/mw2009/papers/dowden/dowden.html

A postcard was printed and distributed at National Art Education Association and Museums and the Web conferences to promote webinars for museum educators on the  rtsConnectEd redesign project. Webinars are scheduled in July, August and September, 2009. Participants can register at http://www.learningtimes.net/museumedwebcasts