Briefly about my thesis

The Finnish Design Museum currently offers informal educational activities for children at daycares but they mostly happen at the museum's premises in Helsinki. This is a major restriction factor for daycares located outside the capital area, since it's not practical to take small children on long distance travels.

In this MA thesis I address this problem by proposing an online service to improve the access of Finnish daycare centers to the educational activities offered by the Design Museum. I aim at two main goals:

Goal one is to help Design Museum to create and distribute online resources for informal learning activities which can happen at the daycare centers and never require the physical presence of the children at the museum. My objective is to build a website where Design Museum can share the resources with daycare educators. This website is now in test phase and can be visited at:
http://www.esajaesineet.com




Goal two is to generate a dialogue between the museum and daycares and between children and educators in different daycares. My objective is that daycare centers share their experiences and the results from the learning activities (such as photos, videos or short stories) with Design Museum and other daycares by using a set of existing social media services and tools. The materials are being shared at:
http://connectedday.com

To achieve these goals I have explored answers to the following research questions:

1. What kind of online services can be created to improve the access of daycare centers to museum's educational activities?


2. How can social media be integrated to improve communication between daycares and museums and benefit the whole experience?

I believe that the museum will benefit from receiving the experiences shared by the daycare educators and children for they will give valuable feedback that can be used to develop their education services further. Daycares will benefit from using the service for it gives a meaningful reason to introduce children to activities involving online digital media tools and initiate them in digital media literacy.



Finally I would like to state that this thesis is not about the methods and activities of teaching. I do not discuss the value of the museum's learning resources and activities. During this project I have worked together with members of the Design Museum's education team, who have focused on all the pedagogic aspects.