Peer Review

Google Arts & Culture

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Jul 23, 2018 by Teacher Education

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

Explore collections and stories from around the world with Google Arts & Culture. The site began as the Google Art Project. It has grown tremendously over the years to include both museums, sites, and historic video clips. The three areas include collections, themes, and experiments.

Type of Material:

Collection

Recommended Uses:

Users can explore the art of a particular artist; view museum collections around the world; see experiments; take a tour of places like concert halls, historical sites, and world heritage sites. Timelines are included so that history classes can view world events in context. Users can create their own favorites and then create galleries as a class project.

The site can be overwhelming but with some faculty guidance, students can be directed to a particular theme or topic for focus.

From investigating world heritage sites in 360-video recordings to viewing famous artworks zoomable high-definition, to using VR devices in museums far from your location, users can investigate content, develop research reports and presentations, and simply learn new things.

Technical Requirements:

To get full benefits, you should log in with your Google account. This allows you to create your own galleries, and explore nearby.

An App is available. A web browser is necessary on a computer and any popular operating system works. Chrome seems to work especially well. For App iOS 10.0 or later; Android 4.4 and up.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

There are so many possibilities for learning goals for this site.

Users are able to explore a vast array of images, resources, and collections.

Users can organize their materials for later use. Google Arts and Culture site and App give the user engaging access to history, art, science, and travel from around the world.

Target Student Population:

College General Ed, Graduate School, Professional, Grade School, general population.

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

No particular skills are needed.

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

The quality and diversity of materials is exceptional and rich. Examples are world-wide and world-class. The information can be investigated by featured themes, featured stories, time, color, themes, street-view, artists, and museums, heritage sites, and cultural institutions. There are 3-D elements available in Open Heritage.

The site has a wealth of material in arts, science, history, world heritage and more. The use of current technologies in presenting this information makes the site very engaging for children and adults.

Concerns:

Users should preview what they intend to share for age appropriateness and school requirements.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

Because of the rich and vast content, there is the possibility of great teaching potential with this site. The content is highly engaging. The materials can easily be integrated into a variety of discipines. Students can use the materials to create individual reports and presentations, and team projects. The themes can help users generate ideas for research and projects. Once logged in, users can find materials in their geographic area. When you visit museums or cultural institutions, you can visit them via street-view and take a virtual tour inside the site.

Educators can develop lessons and assignments in so many ways and on so many levels with this site. From the daily digest, to taking virtual tours, to searching items by time and color there is much to explore. Using a Google Cardboard viewer and the App, users can immerse themselves in one of 10 currently available (6/2018) virtual reality tours.

Concerns:

The sheer expansiveness of the site could be daunting for some users, but with preparation, the site can be effective for a variety of disciplines.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

The site is very user friendly. There are multiple entry points to search---themes, colors, artists, places. Users are able to share their findings with others via email, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and K-12 teachers can also share via Google Classroom.

Although the site is massive, users can easily find a variety of ways to start exploring information. Tabs for identifying Home, Explore, Nearby, Profile, and Search are found in the upper right corner of the page. A quick reference drop-down menu can be found in the upper left corner for targeting a specific focus in the vast array of images and resources.

Concerns:

As with most internet collections, there are some broken links to outside resources. Organizations change their link information periodically and any teacher using the material should check the links before using the materials in class.

Other Issues and Comments:: This is an amazing site. Google updates the site regularly; so it is important to check it before use in a classroom.
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