Edward and Betty Marcus Digital Education Project

In the first Marcus Fellows grant to the North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts 14 years ago, the Fellows accepted a technological challenge. In collaboration with the Dallas Museum of Art, they developed an interactive CD-ROM to teach fifth graders about art. In more recent years, nearly every proposal to the foundation has included elements of technology. Today, through Marcus Foundation grants, Texas museums routinely send curriculum-based art lessons electronically directly into classrooms, collaborate with teachers across the state to develop lesson plans, and deliver those plans via the Internet to teachers whose schools are often too far from a museum for field trips.

In 2006, we will continue that tradition. The foundation will unveil a major new project: the Edward and Betty Marcus Digital Education Project for Texas Art Museums. The singular focus of the effort is to increase Texas museums' capacity to use digital storytelling tools. Over a two-year period, the project goals are to:

1. introduce Texas museum professionals to Pachyderm 2.0, an open-source authoring platform, and related digital production tools;
2. help them learn to use these tools to tell media-rich stories related to their collections and exhibitions on the Internet or in the museum;
3. pay for some equipment needed to take full advantage of the capabilities Pachyderm offers;
4. stimulate collaboration among the community of museum professionals interested in digital delivery of visual art education;
5. give 25 Texas museums access to a national community interested in digital education.

The New Media Consortium will manage the project. Texas museum professionals will receive scholarships for custom-designed hands-on training support for certain software and equipment installation including servers, access to help desk and support resources, and subsidized participation in a national community of like-minded professionals working in universities and museums. In addition, the project will host two major conferences on Digital Arts Education and subsidize the registration fees for participating Texas museum professionals.

The foundation believes the design for this project will be a model for other states. To that end, project participants will have opportunities to present papers at national conferences and symposia.

First and foremost, however, the primary beneficiaries will be the Texas museum community - museum professionals, visitors, teachers and children - who through this project will share and enjoy the rich collections of Texas art museums more effectively and easily than ever before.