askit, filmit, shareit in Museums

We are working with the Museum of London and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford on a pilot project to pioneer a new approach to engage children with museum collections. Primary schools will make films inspired by their investigation of museum objects and share them with other schools using social media. 

Research has shown that digital technologies, especially film-based technologies, have great potential to motivate children, in particular those who may be under-achieving at school or are disillusioned with more traditional teaching and learning methods. The funders, the Helen Hamlyn Trust, hopes that this approach could become a mainstay of museums’ provision for schools.

Wakefield has a cluster of Open Futures schools, which already use a skills and enquiry based programme for their curriculum. The Learning and Skills team are very excited by the prospect of combining the 'askit' and 'filmit' approaches of Open Futures to enrich museum-based learning.

On January 11th, we met with teachers from a range of schools to work out how the sessions would work best.  It has been decided that our sessions will focus on the Waterton collection - a natural history collection with a twist as some of the creatures were invented to make political points!

Close-up of John Bull and the National Debt - one of Charles Waterton's  creations!

We look forward to pioneering these new sessions in Wakefield's new museum in the autumn.