A presentation from Museums and the Web 2010. One of the challenges for museums in the Web era is to complement, enhance and extend on-site learning with on-line learning. Web statistics often indicate a high number of users of schools resources in museums’ Web sites; however, these numbers do not reveal how the resources are being used in the classroom. This paper seeks to gain a better understanding on how to support use of museums’ Web sites for learning in primary art education. It attributes specific importance to the role that museum Web sites can have in promoting positive attitudes in children towards museums and art and in particular it aims to address to what extent the use of museums’ Web resources can enhance learning and engage young people with museums. ‘Tate Kids’ (http://tate.kids.org.uk) was selected as a case study and its Online Collection was explored by two Year 5 classes in a primary school located in greater London. Evidence from the case study suggests that the use of an art museum Web site was beneficial for learning in art and influenced positively children’s attitudes towards art and museums. It is argued that positive attitudes towards art and museums, as well as ‘interpretive skills,’ are critical for children in experiencing meaningful art museum on-line visits and in getting engaged with the museum. Session: Actionable Research [research] see: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/abstracts/prg_335002214.html

1. Museums and the Web 2010 The role of art museum websites in primary art education: a case study of the ‘Tate Kids’ Koula Charitonos [email_address]

5. Case study: ‘Tate Kids’ ‘My Gallery’ http:// kids.tate.org.uk /

8. a. ‘Ophelia’

9. Aris’ first attempt to interpret ‘Ophelia’ “ I thought of nothing, my mind was blank” a. ‘Ophelia’

10. Aris’ second attempt to interpret ‘Ophelia’ “ It’s a woman dead in the river and flowers are falling from the trees above onto her will (while) she is floating down the river colours: green, white, pink and black a. ‘Ophelia’ (continued)

13. b. Tate Kids (continued)

18. Example 2 “ The meeting or have a nice day Mr Hockney” (Peter Blake )