J. Paul Getty Museum and Khan Academy to Offer Free Arts Education Online

Getty will work with Khan's art historians to develop a personalized learning environment across a variety of topics

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Nov 07, 2013

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The J. Paul Getty Museum and Khan Academy announced today a partnership that will provide expanded free online arts education on the Khan Academy website.

Through an arrangement with Khan Academy, the Getty Museum will work with the non-profit educational resource’s art historians, Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, to develop a rich personalized learning environment across a broad variety of topics, from the making of a medieval manuscript to the conservation of Old Master paintings. The content released today on www.khanacademy.org includes seven tutorials with more than 80 videos.

“This new relationship with Khan Academy represents a major step forward in the Museum’s ability to foster an enjoyment of the visual arts, and a richer understanding of their history and impact across cultures and societies,” says Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Making our videos available online multiplies enormously the impact that our research, exhibitions and educational programs can have locally, nationally and indeed around the world, fulfilling our mission to be a truly global museum.”

Khan Academy seeks to provide free world class education to anyone anywhere. It offers lessons in a variety of subjects, including math, science and the humanities, and features lectures from noted educators. The new tutorials from the Getty Museum complement Khan Academy’s existing art history content of 60 tutorials, which include more than 500 videos, 200 articles, and 60 quizzes. This content has already been viewed over 9 million times by users around the world.

“Khan Academy is excited to partner with the Getty Museum to help make art education more accessible,” says Salman Khan, founder & executive director of Khan Academy. “Khan Academy has historically focused on math and science and now with the help of the Getty Museum, one of the world’s premier museums, we will be able to more quickly scale great art content to the world.”

The partnership with Khan Academy is being managed by the Getty Museum’s Education department, which offers a range of award-winning programming and resources for a variety of audiences, including K-12 teachers and their students, adults and families, and museum educators. Resources include free online curricula and interactive activities, tours, workshops, lectures, performances and a robust program of school visits. In the last year alone, more than 135,000 students visited the Getty’s two locations, a majority from Title One schools.

In recent years, the Getty has actively sought to make its educational programs available to a larger online audience. This has included the launch of the Open Content Program, which makes available for use without restriction more than 10,000 high-resolution images from the Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute collections. It has also increased video production, with dozens of videos about various aspects of the Getty’s international activities made available on YouTube and primarily created by the Museum’s Collection Information and Access department.

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