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KM
by K. Mac1 view·Updated Aug 5, 2021
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  1. Hello. My name is Talia Egan and I was this
  2. summer's environmental education in turn here at Sir, I was
  3. kept busy leading and facilitating virtual and in person programs
  4. for school groups and incoming volunteers.
  5. I was able to be involved in some of the
  6. field and lab research happening in and around Cirque for
  7. my project though I moved back to the virtual space
  8. to work with Smithsonian learning lab and figuring out how
  9. we can best work within their framework to promote all
  10. of the work happening here Here at the Education Department.
  11. We usually bring in 5000 people per year for interactive
  12. field trips where we teach the public all about the
  13. environment and the research that goes on on our campus.
  14. That is not happening now.
  15. The COVID-19 pandemic halted programming for awhile and now has
  16. seriously limited any in person programming that we have.
  17. Even with virtual programming, we are getting a fraction of
  18. that 5000 number.
  19. Learning lab can help us bridge that gap moving forward.
  20. So what is learning lab and how can it do
  21. that? Learning Lab is a digital curation website created by
  22. the Smithsonian.
  23. So users can share, edit and use online Smithsonian content.
  24. All sorts of content can be shared on learning lab
  25. like pictures of artifacts, full lesson plans, guided activities and
  26. video series, cirque education and outreach have been interested in
  27. adopting learning lab to continue reaching the public to enhance
  28. in person programs and to start creating a digital history
  29. of the work happening here at Sir.
  30. Now Learning Lab sounds great but there are some challenges
  31. we have to work through because the website is still
  32. in its early days and they are still making modifications.
  33. Currently it's format works a little bit better for Smithsonian
  34. groups that have physical objects and artifacts and it works
  35. better for that than it does for groups like us
  36. with lots of data and educational materials, It is not
  37. very user friendly right now.
  38. It's not super intuitive and it can be a little
  39. difficult to navigate when you're on for the first time,
  40. but it is the tool that we have to use
  41. and as long as we can account for those challenges,
  42. it is a tool that might really benefit our outreach
  43. efforts, especially now to figure out how we can best
  44. use. Learning lab.
  45. I researched design and organizational best practices for our online
  46. content. I then created a write up for the education
  47. department that explains how to navigate learning lab organizational strategies
  48. to create and edit content on our learning lab page
  49. and recommendations for content creation so that the next person
  50. who works on learning lab for sir can be set
  51. up for success and can start creating content and populating
  52. our page.