A new digital museum of learning for educators and children
A new digital museum of learning for educators and children
Can we use the past to bring learning to life for future generations? Can we share the experience of museums and cultural heritage with classrooms? The new Digital Museum of Learning is a global online museum that offers free digital access to artifacts and artworks from museums and cultural heritage institutions worldwide, bringing them to life on screen. It collaborates with museums worldwide to digitize and spark interest in their content, telling child-friendly and interactive stories about the history and future of learning.
The platform is intended to inspire teachers and parents with engaging and free digital resources that encourage children to explore history in a fun and insightful way. The Digital Museum of Learning is an initiative of the Swiss-based Jacobs Foundation. The foundation started the new online museum with the goal of bringing the museum experience to schools around the world and nurturing the children’s joy in learning.
Free digital resources for teachers and schools
Museums are a treasure trove of knowledge, cultural heritage and historical artifacts that tell intriguing and diverse stories about learning and education. Many objects of educational value in museum collections are not easily accessible to educators and children. The Digital Museum of Learning supports teachers and museums by providing schools worldwide with free digital access to these digitized cultural treasures and telling the stories behind them.
By providing interactive and independent content and engaging online stories that capture children's interest in a topic, we can champion educators and help them increase the impact of their work.
Daniela Lozza, Program Manager of the Digital Museum of Learning
Teacher Zone
The Digital Museum of Learning believes learning should be a personalized experience. In the Teacher Zone, teachers can create learning journeys tailored to their students’ needs and lesson plans. Each story comes with teaching resources, including worksheets and links to partner resources to make learning even more engaging.
Meaningful and fun learning activities for children
The carefully curated collections of interactive stories are designed to spark curiosity and nurture the joy of learning in children ages 7 to 12.
The stories bring them meaningful and fun learning experiences along the three “E”s:
Explore: The museum provides interactive content to explore and spark curiosity about history, art, and education
Explain: The museum explains the history of learning through fun and insightful bite-sized information
Engage: The museum encourages children to engage in learning through playful quizzes to test their knowledge and understanding.
Collaborative approach
The Digital Museum of Learning collaborates with a collective of museums, cultural heritage institutions, educators, and researchers to expertly curate and research their exhibitions and stories. The platform offers a new way of broadening access to museums for schools by making their experience and history accessible through digital storytelling.
First online exhibition
The museum’s first online exhibition, titled “Making the environment matter”, invites children and visitors of all ages to dive into the topic of environmental education by bringing educational artifacts and artworks to life on screen. The online exhibition features captivating stories such as the “Dust Bowls and climate migration”, “London Monster Soup”, and other tales about clean water and climate migration that encourage visitors to think critically about their relationship with nature and the environment.
Voting for the next online exhibition
The Digital Museum of Learning takes a participatory approach, where students, teachers, and all visitors are invited to vote on the topics of the next online exhibitions. For the museums second exhibition, voters are invited to choose between the following themes: Playful learning; Learning with technology; Dressing up for school; The power of literacy.
Family friendly exhibitions at the Johann Jacobs Museum
The Digital Museum of Learning together with the Johann Jacobs Museum participated in the Long Night of the Museums in Zurich in September. In collaboration with Axelle Benaich und Machines à Histoires, and based on the online exhibition, a family-friendly exhibition on the theme of “Making the environment matter” was created. More than 1’100 visitors discovered how children can learn to protect our planet. They were able to look inside nesting boxes, create landscapes, and discover fascinating water monsters.
About the Digital Museum of Learning
The new Digital Museum of Learning is an initiative of the Swiss based Jacobs Foundation. It is based at the Johann Jacobs Museum in Zurich. Together, the two museums present the fascinating world of learning and education with interactive online exhibitions and exciting events, also in collaboration with partners from the museum and cultural sector.
Download the PDF press release in English or German.
Media contact
Digital Museum of Learning
Seefeldquai 17, 8008 Zürich
Explore the history and future of learning: www.museumoflearning.org