Museum as an Active Participant in Continuing Education

The article presents a qualitative analysis of museum educational products. These products have been studied in terms of the possibility of their use in formal, non-formal and informal education. Thus, the role of the museum as an actor of continuing education has been determined. The role of continuing education in the educational process is becoming more obvious for most participants, and informal education plays a huge role in this process. It is urgent now to develop high-quality educational environment. Due to museums and their offline and online educational products, it is possible to get success. The author analyzed educational activities of leading Russian and foreign museums. As a result, the possibilities of museums as an educational institution for formal, non-formal and informal education were determined. Formal education is characterized by the network interaction of educational organizations and museums when the museum educational resources are included in the educational process. The largest number of museum educational products in traditional and innovative forms is made for non-formal or supplementary education. The traditional forms of museum educational resources include excursions, game formats for acquaintance with the exposition/exhibition (quests), museum master classes, interactive classes, as well as offline continuing education programs for a professional audience. The innovative forms include intra-museum programs, for example, performances, thematic classes within the museum's profile, and Internet resources such as pages of official museum sites, online academies of museums, museum groups on social media, official museum channels on YouTube, webinars, virtual museums. Thus, non-formal educations could be in onsite or online training forms. Informal education can apply the museum's resources both in traditional forms and in an innovative one. The museum online resources such as online museum games, massive open online courses (MOOC), and podcasts have the highest priority in this area. Museums and universities cooperate to get high-quality competitive educational online resources. In conclusion, it is possible to speak about a new stage in the development of museum educational activity. This stage is characterized by increasing attention to professional education by adding formal and non-formal (supplementary) educational programs, and, simultaneously, increasing the role of informal education due to online technology. It should be emphasized that museum staff could develop museum educational products for formal and non-formal education independently, but it is advisable for museums to intensify cooperation with universities to enter the online education market.

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