Simulations familiarize students with "real-world" use of museum objects

Bob Bain [1], School of Education, uses two electronic tools, Virtual Curator and Virtual Expedition, to support students' use of museum objects and to learn history.

The Virtual Curator allows students to take of the role of a museum curator. They are asked to review a number of primary sources in order for the Henry Ford Museum to reconstruct one of the houses purchased for Greenfield Village. The Virtual Expedition allows students to explore a number of the houses on the ground of Greenfield Village in order to support students learning of history and/or science.

These tools were developed in the Primary Sources Network project, a collaboration between the Henry Ford Museum, Henry Ford Academy, Melvindale Schools, and University of Michigan's Center for Highly Interactive computing in Education (hi-ce)