Online Museum: Over 450 Participants During Covid-19!

For Telemark Museum, Covid-19 required a big turn-around. This sparked the idea of creating an online museum.

According to Erine Amundal who works at the museum, they were expecting around 1400 pupils for school visits during the spring.

– We realized that we needed to digitalize our program in one way or another. That’s when I came to think of Simplylearn, that I knew had the features so we could combine videos and assignments that the pupils could answer. 

«Ibsen Labyrinth» and «The Wild Duck»

Telemark Museum began with creating an «Ibsen Labyrinth» that consisted of a video followed by a quiz. 

They have also created a course about Henrik Ibsen’s famous play, The Wild Duck.

– We created two videos that tell the story, but the pupils don’t get to know the ending. After the videos, they are asked how they think the story ended. Almost 200 have answered and there are many creative responses! We wouldn’t have had this if they only came visiting, because it would be practically very difficult, especially with that many people.

The Students Are Well Pleased

630 sixth graders were supposed to come to the museum and learn about food and class distinctions in 1910.

– We filmed with actors, created a program, and customized it for a digital platform. The course was a lot like originally intended, and the students were given the assignment of cooking at home. The ones whos participated in the course are very pleased with it!

Blended Learning

Erine shares that people often come unprepared to a museum. To use «blended learning», where something happens online and something physical, is very useful, she thinks.

– Of course, we want pupils and others to continue to visit us physically, but if they can go through a course online beforehand, they will be a lot more prepared and able to receive new knowledge. We are looking at the possibility to combine digital learning with physical museum visits, and that we can continue to create programs for school classes.

Online Training for Summer Employees

For the summer season, Telemark Museum has about 40 new employees. They were supposed to be trained during a weekend this spring, but this was canceled due to Covid-19.

– We, therefore, created an online training course, and we can track the student’s progression in the course so that we know if they have done it or not. 

Full control with «Video Progression»

With Simplylearn the administrator of the course platform has full control over the progression of each participant, and by using «video progression» the participants can’t continue in the course before they have watched the whole video.

– In the future, when we can gather as normal, we can still use the online course. It’s incredibly much they need to learn over that weekend. They can prepare and learn a lot online – and then we can do the most important things when we gather physically. 

So far, more than 460 people have done a course with Telemark Museum at onlinemuseum.no. In addition to that, there has most likely been a number of students who have done it together with the teacher in the classroom, after the schools started up again.