Most people head to museums to find art or antiques, but one museum in Mountain View offers its visitors a unique experience.
The Computer History Museum not only provides a look at the past, present and future of computers, it offers a full-blown education department that works with local, national and even international students.
The museum’s education staff puts much of its emphasis on students in grades 3-12. There are tours and workshops for students and a series of workshops for teachers. Docent-led tours, mostly for the elementary grades, are free with an appointment.
But these aren’t just regular tours. They offer an overview of computer collections but also discuss the failures, problem solving and challenges inventors faced when designing their machines, says Lauren Silver, vice president of education for the museum.
“The students don’t just walk by and see what other people have done; they discuss prototypes and failures and why some of these ideas sold, why some didn’t and why some ideas were successful and others weren’t,” Silver says.
Many of the docents aren’t just volunteers interested in computing. “Many were pioneers in computer history. They tell their stories making it personal and fun for the students. We have computer rock stars from the present and the past. Some of our young visitors will be the rock stars of the future,” says Silver.
Teachers receive a self-guided tour book in advance to help prepare the students prior to their tour. Aimee Gardner, the museum’s manager of school and teacher programs, works with the teachers to meet the classes’ needs.
The museum also offers teachers a tool kit that can be used without a visit or in conjunction with one. All kits use California State and Common Core standards in math, English language arts and next-generation science standards.
Additional resources the museum’s website include a timeline of computing history from 1939 to 1994; clips from the PBS “Revolutionaries” series that feature conversations with visionaries and leaders from the computing world; and a series of questions on topics in computer history.
“We bring in what’s happening in the classroom. We had a teacher working on California history. I worked with the docent and the teacher to customize the discussion and fit what the students were working on. We integrate the museum experience with what they are learning in class,” Gardner says.
The objective follows the Common Core curriculum mixing other disciplines into the computer history tours. “It’s an interdisciplinary museum where we intersect thinking skills with science and the humanities allowing the students to make innovative inquiries,” Gardner says.
The museum also offers two- to three-hour interactive workshops, she says. During these sessions students identify problems, take steps to solve them and pitch their ideas. The idea is to get them to look at similar problems, how they were addressed, then develop and articulate their ideas and them pitch them to their teacher.
The workshops are designed for middle, high school and college students. A high school program called STEM+ blends design thinking and project based learning to engage students with concepts, challenges, opportunities and the processes involved in innovation and taking risks in business. It’s offered in a 2½-hour workshop or an extended 12-unit program.
Another workshop features tech leaders such as Al Alcorn, inventor of Pong and co-founder of Atari; Genevieve Bell, director of the Interaction and Experience labs at Intel; Rich Hilleman, chief creative officer at Electronic Arts; and Rakesh Bharnia and Tiage Da Costa Silva from Cisco Systems tactical operations/disaster response team.
Teachers don’t just hang around the workshops. They actively participate, facilitate conversations and present and exchange ideas with their students, says Gardner.
In one workshop students theorize and invent a prototype for use now and in the future. Split into teams, the groups collaborate and present to their teachers and the other groups. The teachers and other groups then respond with thorough questions regarding the device.
Museum activities aren’t limited to local schools and colleges. Students have visited from Gilroy, the East Bay and San Francisco as well as Los Angeles, Wisconsin, Mexico and even Kazakhstan.
