Museum tagging is a relativity new concept, and its potential to incorporate a building of collective intelligence into an art classroom is an exciting possibility to think about. In short, museum tagging attaches descriptive words to works of art – words that the general public can relate too. Pamela O’Connell mentioned in a recent article that the Metropolitan Museum of Art asked a group of volunteers to supply key words to describe works of art in the museum; after comparing these tags to the museum’s catalog, over 80 percent of the words supplied did not match up (2007). Projects such as www.steve.museum.com are striving to close this gap through tagging, resulting in a catalog of museum images that is more accessible to the general public. Please refer to my fellow group member Julian’s blog, http://acanthus7.blogspot.com, for a more detailed description of museum tagging.
Having access to both already existing museum tags and the software to create your own can have a great impact in the art classroom, at all ages levels. I think first and foremost it has ability to bring art history to a level where it’s easy for children to engage and participate in, at all age levels. The creation of a class generated group of tags for say, a collection at a local art museum, would be a great activity at any level. When a child has the ability to search for images using terms that they are familiar with, generated themselves, and can make a connection to, I believe the personal connections they make with works of art will have a stronger impact and be easier to retain. Students can use museum tagging to easily discover new works of art that they may have never stumbled upon without these tags; younger students will be exposed to a larger range of artworks, and older students may use this as a basis of a research project.
Museum tags also provide a wealth of information that can be used to incorporate educational games into the classroom. Younger students may benefit from games that involve moving actively around the room – for example, a scavenger type hunt of terms, or a mystery-style investigation using terms and an unknown artist – allows the students engage in art history in a more engaging way then for example, a PowerPoint presentation. Many classic board and classroom games can be adapted to utilize the class generated terms, like bingo or jeopardy; the idea is that engaging the students in matching the terms to works of art in a new way will enviably allow them to make a stronger connection to the works.
When working with older students, museum tagging is a great way to introduce the concept of aesthetics and get them engaged in discussions of aesthetic questions. Students can generate their own terms and debate/defend them on teams; or use terms created by an outsider in the same manner. Simply the act of allowing students to attach their own descriptive words to a work can provide opportunities for self and small group reflections, and get them thinking about arts in new ways.
The ways to use museum tagging in the classroom is endless; whichever way it is incorporated, I believe the students will come away being more engaged and hopefully, with a stronger interest in art and art history.
Works Cited:
O'Connell, P. L. (2007, March 28). Innovations; one picture, 1,000 tags. The New York Times, Retrieved March 22, 2009, from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E5D91330F93BA15750C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
