It’s a paradox: Actually, children should get away from the screen – fewer smartphones and tablets, more board games, books and nature. But in the pandemic, this is often the only way to provide offers anyway. Many museums in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, for example, continue to rely on knowledge transfer, but now digitally. They all try to involve the children interactively, but there is fierce competition online, resources are often scarce and the necessary feedback is often missing.
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The museums in Thuringia: Between active clicks and a lack of feedback
The Thuringian Museum of Prehistory and Early History has created a children’s platform especially. Together with the mole Archie, the children can learn whether Stone Age people liked French fries with ketchup or how you can tell whether a skull is female. Questions that children asked themselves before and during the pandemic and can continue to ask. But so far the questions have only come after a specific request, says museum educator Manuela Tiersch. The inhibition threshold is simply higher than when you watch a video. And the number of clicks is also difficult to interpret: “I can now see that certain topics are clicked on particularly frequently, for example. I don’t know whether this is something that the children are doing or something that is being targeted by the teachers, for example as a question in the room. ”
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The Weimar Classic Foundation nevertheless rates the click figures of their offer as positive. For Instagram, for example, the foundation has developed the # kulTÜRöffner format, a live tour of places that are not open to the public. In the digital workshop, children are introduced to a topic with short video clips and then asked to participate with brief instructions – for example on the subject of bookbinding. These include videos on the Bauhaus, which can also be found on the platforms of the Bauhaus institutions.
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That too would like to actively encourage Lindenau Museum Altenburg. For example with the illustration project “Sea of Thoughts & Funkelflausen” or the campaign “… alone in the studio”, in which the children can come up with their own artistic stories. It is an idea that many museums pursue: the children should be animated on the screen to get away from it again.
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The museums in Saxony: online to get creative offline
That the children become active themselves is also an important concern for them, says Claudia Schmidt from the State Art Collections Dresden. There are therefore a number of interactive offers from the various buildings, such as the Sempergalerie or the Residenzschloss. For example, instructions on how to create a stone painting or a perception exercise at home that involves grasping a gummy bear with all your senses. Digital communication is more difficult, says Claudia Schmidt. One does not know what experiences the children would bring with them. The offers should therefore be somewhat more general, “but the tasks at the same time much more precise”. And it is also important that the children do not lose their interest too quickly.
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The Natural History Museum Leipzig has therefore resorted to a completely different method of teaching: the children can explore the museum in a retro game. “You move through the museum, so to speak, and find small, hidden content there,” says Monika Hegenberg, Head of Education and Mediation at the Natural History Museum. The content ranges from videos about dinosaurs or the ice age, to small audio tracks – for example when you walk past a piano – to explanatory texts and handicraft instructions. The museum and the avatar are designed in 2D and pixelated retro optics. A kind of museum tour, but consciously without actually guiding, says Hegenberg. “It seemed that if I did a tour of the museum and they just filmed me, the interest would not be so great.” Like many others, however, she believes that children are often already saturated with digital offers.
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The museums in Saxony-Anhalt: supplement but not a substitute
You can’t keep up with the mass of offers on the Internet, explains Nina Mütze from the Luthergedenkstätten. They have a few offers that they would otherwise have carried out in museums – e.g. short films, handicraft instructions, puzzles about the Reformation. But the approach “is and remains working with the children on site in our museums, because only here can the original be really experienced.” Franziska Gaumnitz friend from the museums in Magdeburg also confirms this. “A visit to a museum can only be partially replaced.” The animal voice puzzles, shadow games or drawing templates for Gothic windows would only bring the hoped-for feedback to a limited extent.
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That is also the main problem of many museums: The lack of feedback would result in offers without knowing the demand. It is working into the blue, says Theresa Leschber from Moritzburg Museum. “It simply shows more that there is no exchange and that children and young people are impulses for us.” In the Moritzburg Museum, therefore, the target group is consciously brought to the side of action, for example with a youth podcast – by youth for youth. In addition, the children are asked to make shoes out of newspaper or to design their own clothes, like Karl Lagerfeld. A museum cat leads the younger ones through the museum and interacts with what is depicted in the paintings, for example with Franz Marc’s yellow cow. In the best case, this should encourage the children to paint themselves.
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Online, then to get too creative offline. Theresa Leschber believes something that will probably remain even after the pandemic, just like her colleagues from Saxony and Thuringia. Because even without a pandemic, the digital has long been a reality for children. Nevertheless, the museums hope to be able to have personal exchange again soon. The digital is no substitute, but in the long run a beautiful and indispensable addition.
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