One of the foundational questions asked that led to the development of the Learning Lab was: who are we serving now? Who is our audience? Beginning in 2009 and running continuously for 2 years, a user satisfaction survey (using the American Customer Satisfaction Index) was conducted on the Smithsonian’s primary website for teachers, SmithsonianEducation.org. The study was originally intended to highlight areas of improvement t...

The Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access (SCLDA) (formerly the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, and even more formerly the Smithsonian Office of Primary and Secondary Education) focuses on making the Smithsonian more accessible to teachers and their students. In the past this was done primarily through professional development and publishing. For 35 years, the office published, printed, and mailed t...

The Smithsonian Learning Lab project is the result of a major rethinking of how the digital resources from across the Smithsonian's 19 museums, nine major research centers, the National Zoo, and more, can be used together, for learning. It is a big dream, an aspiration to make these resources more accessible and more useful to teachers, students, parents, and anyone on a lifelong quest to learn more. It hopes to deliver the Smiths...