RFI_Learning Lab.pdf

Smithsonian Institution

Request for Information (RFI)

816229241

Smithsonian Learning Lab

Office of Educational Technology

600 Maryland Ave SW, Suite 105W

Washington, DC 20024

December 16, 2025

I. INTRODUCTION

A. About Smithsonian

The Smithsonian Institution is a non-profit trust instrumentality that was created by act of Congress of the United States in 1846. The Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum and research complex consisting of 21 museums and galleries, the

National Zoological Park, and nine research facilities. In fiscal year 2024, 16.9 million people from around the world visited the museums and the National Zoo;

there were 150 million website visits. The total number of objects, works of art, and specimens at the Smithsonian is estimated at more than 157.5 million. The

Smithsonian collections are the basis for research, exhibitions, and public programs in the arts, history and culture, and the sciences. The Institution’s mission is the “increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

B. About The Office of Educational Technology

The Smithsonian’s Office of Educational Technology (OET) connects educators and educational communities to the Smithsonian’s vast ecosystem of digital educational resources. They accomplish this with Smithsonian Learning Lab, an education platform where educators can incorporate Smithsonian museum objects, archives, and resources into their classroom; by connecting PK12 teachers with Smithsonian museum educators through professional development sessions and education resources; serving as a resource for internal Smithsonian educators, providing guidance and support on best practices in educational technology; and building partnerships to expand reach.

C. About Smithsonian Learning Lab

The Smithsonian Learning Lab was launched in 2016, with the goal of providing a central access point to Smithsonian digital educational resources. On this free, interactive platform, educators and students can discover millions of authentic digital museum resources, create interactive learning experiences with online tools, and share discoveries and creations with others. To date, museum and classroom educators have created and shared over 12,000 learning “collections” that incorporate digitized museum objects, artifacts, artworks, recordings, primary source documents, 3D objects, videos, and more, from across the Smithsonian.

Approximately 2,900 were created by Smithsonian educators; the rest were created by outside users, including classroom teachers and students. As the

Smithsonian seeks to play a significant role in every classroom in the nation and be the industry leader in object-based learning, the time is right to rethink how to make the Smithsonian’s digitized museum resources—and interactive learning experiences based on them—more discoverable, usable, and accessible for all

PK12 educators.

II. PROJECT SCOPE

This is a request for information (“RFI”) only and does not constitute a request for proposals or a commitment, implied or otherwise, that the Smithsonian will issue a solicitation for this project.

The Smithsonian seeks out a creative and strategic thought-partner in reimagining Learning Lab.

Learning Lab has an annual reach of 600,000+ users. However, from 2016 to 2025, the digital landscape has changed. The Smithsonian has set a goal to reach every classroom in the nation, which would entail connecting with nearly 4 million teachers, who then connect with over 49 million PreK-12 students. Learning Lab is one of the Smithsonian’s primary tools for this endeavor. Learning Lab was initially conceived as a place that would have “everything under the sun,” with over 6 million museum objects, primary resources, artifacts, and digital media, along with over 50,000 collections of user-created and curated content. However, this online platform is also a challenge as the sheer volume creates barriers and friction points in efficiently and effectively searching for, locating, and incorporating content quickly into instructional strategies.

To make the Smithsonian’s digital educational resources accessible, discoverable, usable, and meaningful for teachers, the Office of Educational Technology is embarking on a significant examination and rethink of the Smithsonian’s Learning Lab platform. The goals are to increase usage of Smithsonian digital learning assets, meet the current needs of PreK-12 teachers, and ultimately reach every classroom across the Nation with the rich and robust content that the

Smithsonian has to offer.

Project Goals:

The revamp of the Learning Lab platform supports the Smithsonian’s ability to reach every

PreK-12 classroom in the Nation, a core initiative in the Smithsonian’s Strategic Plan. The goals for the new platform include:

1. To be a one-stop, easy-to-use learning platform that is uniquely transdisciplinary, readily accessible, and indispensable to a wide range of teachers by making Smithsonian content easily discoverable to support utilization and incorporation into instruction.

2. To provide tools and scaffolding for educators working in a range of disciplines across the country to effectively teach with objects and to seamlessly incorporate authentic learning experiences into their curriculum on a regular basis.

3. To work in harmony with the learning tools and platforms that educators are already using and expand our reach through platform integration and partnerships.

Target Audience:

• Primary audience: PreK-12 teachers o The primary user of the revamped Learning Lab will be PK12 teachers. As we develop a content strategy and use it to develop new wire frames/a prototype for the new site, we will test it with teachers to understand how they navigate, if it is intuitive, and if it gives them the results they are looking for. (See Appendix 1 for user persona about how a teacher might engage with the new Learning Lab).

• Secondary audience: PK12 student o Students will engage with the site through supplemental materials (quizzes, assessments, etc) teachers can send to students, that align with what they are teaching.

Needs We Are Trying To Meet:

• Educators are stressed and time strapped. They need reliable “ready-to-go” teaching resources that they can both find and access quickly and easily deliver to students without additional time to prepare and create.

• Educators need to find teaching content that aligns with their content and instructional standards.

• Educators need to find resources according to the grade level and subject they teach.

Who Are Our Industry Comparisons?

The educational technology market of learning platforms available to educators is wide-ranging and diverse. As a part of the department’s research on the rethink of Learning Lab, they worked with WONDRUS to evaluate how Learning Lab compares to other market competitors (see

Appendix 2). The edtech market continues to rapidly evolve, striving to meet the needs of a teaching force practiced at using digital tools and online content to realize their instructional goals and meet students’ needs. During the 2021-2022 school year, the average teacher used 148 unique edtech products.

Aside from their daily use of learning management systems and similar classroom tools, educators seek out supplemental resources to complement their curriculum (such as student or classroom activities, lesson plans, interactives, multimedia, or background information) on a variety of platforms. These include brand names often compared to Smithsonian; sites known and trusted by teachers as leaders in high quality and engaging supplemental content in their subject areas; tools that support user-generated, classroom content; tools that support flexible learning implementation models; and, those from cultural institutions drawing on similarly large collections of artifacts and documents.

What Differentiates Our Product From Competitors?

The WONDRUS study identified key areas that differentiate Smithsonian from its competitors:

• The Smithsonian holds an unrivaled collection of objects and artifacts that can be useful as teaching tools across a broad range of disciplines.

• The Smithsonian is uniquely positioned to become the leader in object-based learning approaches since object-based learning and its associated strategies have yet to permeate the PreK-12 educational technology market in a systematic, formal way.

• The Smithsonian can lean on the expertise of its hundreds of museum educators and develop a clear content strategy that delivers content that is both aligned to curriculum standards and excites students about learning with digital objects, artworks, and other

Smithsonian assets.

• The Smithsonian can lean on the expertise of its curators, scientists, and other experts to provide trusted information and context.

This RFI seeks information on:

• How the vendor would potentially work with the Smithsonian to accomplish the goals and objectives as described above in the Project Scope.

• The vendor’s recommended approach to developing a strategy and roadmap that would inform the content strategy and selection of technology solutions that will best serve the target audiences and meet the Smithsonian’s requirements.

III. PROJECT DETAILS & CONSIDERATIONS

A. The project is anticipated to encompass the following:

1. Identification and alignment with user journeys and needs: Respond to what they need most from the site.

2. Functionality Prioritization: Identify features that are essential for launch and plan for additional features that could be added in later.

3. Technical Considerations: Identify what existing systems and integrations the new site needs to support.

4. Audit of existing resources.

5. Building, testing, and launching new site.

6. Measuring Success: Identify key metrics we will use to measure intended outcomes and how we will track progress on an on-going basis.

B. Type of Contract and Term.

The Smithsonian anticipates a multi-year contract with the selected vendor for the development and launch of Smithsonian Learning Lab. Depending on how the RFP is structured, separate agreement(s) with the selected contractors may also be required to work on specific aspects of the project.

The design and backend systems will need to comply with the Smithsonian design and security review and approval processes. Additional steps may need to be taken with the

Privacy Office if the site plans to use AI.

The scope of work and associated budget will be subject to the mutual agreement of the

Smithsonian and the selected contractor.

IV. RFI QUESTIONS

Smithsonian is requesting responses to the following:

1. What is your company’s mission and core business areas? What specific areas of expertise does your company offer? What makes your company stand out from competitors?

2. What experience do you have with similar projects?

3. Who would be responsible for this project?

4. What features of the new Learning Lab are essential for launch and what could be phased in later?

5. What role can AI play in the new site? How can the use of AI in Learning Lab align with how teachers are starting to use it in the classroom? How can we use AI to deliver a better education tool that doesn’t compromise the quality standards of

Smithsonian?

6. How can we create a site that can evolve and respond as technology changes? How can your firm help Smithsonian Learning Lab incorporate emerging technology into the platform over time?

7. Does your company have the expertise to complete the entire scope of the project, or do you have a particular area of specialization you feel you could bring to a specific aspect of the project?

8. What is the role of user-generated content? Should it have a place in the new site? If yes, how can we best distinguish it from Smithsonian-generated content? Is there a way for users to create collections and curate a virtual experience that isn’t published to the larger public?

V. RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS.

A. Written Responses. Please provide written responses to the above questions.

Please send an email to the attention of Anne Brittingham at

BrittinghamA@si.edu by 2PM on or before January 30, 2026. Include “RFI

Response” in the subject line.

B. Questions. Inquiries regarding this RFI may be submitted by email to the attention of Anne Brittingham at BrittinghamA@si.edu with a copy to Thomas

Dempsey at dempseyt@si.edu.

C. Although all comments received will be considered for inclusion in any possible procurement action associated with the project, the Smithsonian makes no commitment to include any particular recommendations. Respondents will not be mailto:BrittinghamA@si.edu mailto:dempseyt@si.edu notified of the results of the review.

D. The Smithsonian is not responsible for paying any costs associated with a response to this RFI. This RFI does not obligate the Smithsonian to issue a solicitation or enter into any agreement, nor shall it be construed as authorization for companies to proceed with any work directly or indirectly related hereto.

VI. ATTACHMENTS

1. Learning Lab Personas

2. WONDRUS Report

Attachment 1: Learning Lab Personas

Liz, High School Art Teacher

Liz is a high school art teacher in Marin County, California. She has been teaching for 15 years, in both Texas and California, as well as working for a few years as a museum educator in Washington, DC and San Francisco. She’s 43, and she’s comfortable using websites and digital tools to build a curriculum that’s engaging and relevant for her students. She’s part of a teacher-research AI team at her school, and her district and principal are actively supporting AI integration by both teachers and students. She teaches a course titled “Biological Illustration” and needs resources that can introduce students to basic art concepts but also biological education standards. She often feels overwhelmed by the sheer number of resources available online, and she is frustrated that finding authentic content can take so much time.

In July, she attends a session facilitated by the Office of Educational Technology as a part of the Smithsonian’s Educator Summit. There, she creates a profile in Learning Lab 2.0, where she identifies her subject area, grade levels (primarily 9th), and other teaching interests. She chooses “Elements of Art” and runs a search in LL2.0. The platform, powered by AI, narrows down its thousands of resources and suggests two curated lessons. Liz likes that it’s not overwhelming. She selects a collection from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), which includes artworks, activities, and discussion prompts that she knows will engage her students.

With one click, Liz adds the entire collection—or just individual assets—to her school’s learning management system. The seamless integration means she can use it in her classroom with almost no extra work. LL2.0 also generates an aligned assessment and a few extension options, saving her even more planning time.

Because of her search, the platform learns more about Liz’s instructional goals. It begins to build a teaching arc, suggesting other collections for later in the year like “Shading and Value” and “Contour Line.” Liz sees the potential for LL2.0 not as a one-off tool, but as a year-long curriculum companion.

For the Bio-illustration course Liz is partnering with Sarah, the biology teacher at her school, who is eager to find fresh ideas for her curriculum on an interdisciplinary “Art in Science Pathway.” When Liz uploads a scanned module outline into LL2.0, it generates a customized collection that links art and science content, starting with anatomical drawing.

The collection pulls from both science- and art-based Smithsonian resources, making it easy for the two teachers to co-plan and deliver rich, cross-curricular lessons.

Liz’s classes are a part of a four-year longitudinal study tracking student outcomes.

The goal is to demonstrate how consistent use of Smithsonian content improves performance over time. Her school and district leaders are excited about the visibility this brings to their innovative teaching models. LL2.0 isn’t just a resource—it’s become part of a bigger story about how creativity, collaboration, and thoughtful tech integration can transform the classroom.

Chase, 11th grade history teacher Chase is an 11th grade history teacher at a public high school in Charleston, South

Carolina. He has been teaching for 3 years, having completed his teacher education certificate shortly after the COVID-19 shutdown. He is 26 and is confident using digital tools but has limited time to learn how to use them. It is currently August, and he is preparing project-based units for his “United States History and the Constitution” class in the upcoming school year.

Chase heard about the Learning Lab 2.0 during a history education conference and was inspired by the usefulness of object-based analysis as a means of pedagogy outside of text-based artificial intelligence tools. Chase is specifically seeking out a lesson plan for the Industrial Revolution in the United States, and needs content that is ready-to-go yet modifiable to be justified under South Carolina’s Social Studies Standards.

Upon entering the LL2.0 site for the first time, it is immediately clear to Chase that there is a large host of curated object collections with associated lessons available, and that they can be filtered through search. Chase inputs “industrial revolution” and filters the collections by his desired grade level (11th). A list of collections, with descriptive titles and previews of multiple objects appears. A specific collection that is ranked highly and marked as created by a Smithsonian curator, is titled “Print Advertisements & The Industrial Revolution.”

Chase previews the collection, which combines plain lesson text with clearly designated object components that hold print advertisements from the National Museum of American History (NMAH)’s collection. The lesson demonstrates how analysis of 20th century advertisements showcases novel products and attitudes of the period. He trusts that the analysis is thoughtful given its verified status, but still wants to tailor the lesson to his needs by editing the text and inserting links to media he has saved.

Chase clicks a button to modify the lesson, which prompts him to create a “Teacher” account. Chase efficiently completes the onboarding process, and along the way learns that as a teacher, he can both publish collections and create digital classrooms for his students to submit their own collections. After his account is complete, he intuitively adjusts the lesson to his needs and chooses to publish it. The new lesson is shareable to both his students and other educators with a “Teacher” author designation attached.

Inspired by the ease of use and the thoughtfulness of the content, Chase decides to use LL2.0 not just for an individual lesson, but as a project tool for his unit. He modifies the ending of his new LL2.0 collection to prompt a project in which students are asked to search through the NMAH’s collection for unique print advertisements and create annotated collections of their own.

During the school year, when Chase’s students complete their curation projects and publish them to a shared digital classroom, they now have a permanent learning resource that connects primary sources from the Smithsonian’s collection to their diverse and specific interests. In this way, LL2.0 provides a platform for learning that is rooted in both objects and community-building. Chase becomes an advocate for the platform, and his project is now available to other history teachers across the United States.

Miguel, Afterschool Science Educator

Miguel is an afterschool science educator at the Boys and Girls Club of Seattle, Washington. He has taught afterschool for the previous 4 years, with a background in Computer Science, Robotics, and hands on STEM Education. Miguel works with a range of age groups, teaching a group of 7th graders and a group of 2nd graders throughout the week.

He hears about a recent lesson his colleague taught on the engineering design process, using Smithsonian’s Learning Lab 2.0. Miguel is curious about using the collection for his classes; however, this collection was initially designed for 4th grade students. To learn more about how to use Learning Lab 2.0, Miguel navigates to the site and is welcomed with various demo videos on how to use, navigate, and create on the platform. He additionally sees professional development workshops offered on a monthly basis and signs up for one to get a better idea of how to maximize the tool.

Following initial learning and experimenting with the platform, Miguel intends to use his colleague’s collection for his afterschool lesson plan. Using LL2.0’s built in AI modification feature, Miguel utilizes this functionality to tailor the already existing collection to better fit his 7th grade and 2nd grade classes. The modification feature takes the 4th grade collection material and alters it into new collections for suitable reading level, comprehension, and usability for his respective classes. With this same feature, Miguel considers a learning accommodation for his ESL student and likewise modifies for the collection to be altered into Spanish material. Using the personalized learning materials, Miguel is able to prepare lessons for various student needs.

Beyond the automated modification features, Miguel seeks to make the learning content in the collections fit place-based pedagogy, featuring greater elements of Seattle and local knowledge for students to resonate with and understand. With manual authorship abilities, he is able to edit, refine, and add interactive elements that better suit his students’ learning. Miguel finds a resource from the National Museum of American History detailing the history of innovation and design in Seattle and showcases historic innovations born out of the local area to inspire his class of students. In addition to this, Miguel adds free response questions he hopes his students will be able to understand throughout the lesson.

In class, students use a code to join Miguel’s Learning Lab 2.0 classroom. Miguel has designated spaces for his 7th grade class and 2nd grade class to organize and track his students’ engagement with the digital content. In this digital classroom space, Miguel is able to see which students have viewed and completed the collection, while also being able to monitor how his students are responding to the open-ended questions he previously incorporated.

Suzie – High School Social Sciences and Special Education Teacher

Suzie teaches high school social sciences and special education and has been teaching for over 30 years in and around Maryland and Washington, D.C. She is 60 years old and likes to find supplemental resources and activities for her class. She likes resources that have clear instructions and objectives but is willing to sift through some material if she has time. She attended a free teacher workshop in early May with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and American Art Archives. In addition to touring some exhibition spaces, Suzie also received a physical packet of educational resources to take back to her classroom, which included links to primary sources to analyze and provide discussion questions.

She likes the packet and contacts the units to ask if there is any more material like the packet available. She is directed to Learning Lab 2.0. In LL2.0, Suzie is able to search for Asian American artists and find educational resources that meet the standards she’s trying to supplement in her existing lesson plans. These Learning Labs are easily scannable with clear headers and subsections. She is able to see primary documents and artworks (both available as downloadable jpegs), suggestions on how to engage with the documents in class (like content discussion questions / definition of any tricky vocab / Think, pair share / close looking activities / knowledge checks), and related resources to documents or artwork (links to Smithsonian articles/blogs/websites that go into more relevant background history [artists’ life, historical events, etc.]). LL2.0 can export to a Learning Management System like Canvas, Blackboard, or Google Classroom. LL2.0 also supports downloading content as a PDF or .docx so that Suzie is able to copy and paste text and use the downloaded images to add to her own powerpoint or word document.

Lola – Smithsonian Education Specialist Lola is an education specialist at the Smithsonian. Her unit is relatively small and a majority of her education colleagues at her unit are contractors. She helps create educational resources including but not limited to in-person tours for school groups, public tours, and education guides and activities to accompany exhibitions or programs.

Lola’s unit has created Learning Labs before but has put them on the backburner since it was difficult to collaborate on a Learning Lab between multiple people at the same time and traffic to the existing Learning Labs was low impact. Her team still produces curriculum guides and activity books for teachers and visitors to take with them. Lola has seen colleagues from other Smithsonian museums begin using software like Articulate to create online learning experiences instead of Learning Lab because of its easy collaboration features and sleek user interface. Lola’s unit does not have the funds to use Articulate and her supervisor doesn’t want to get caught in a subscription model.

Learning Lab 2.0 presents a unique opportunity to win Lola and her unit over to the Smithsonian’s digital education platform. LL2.0 may fall into the same pitfalls, including inconsistency, as the original Learning Lab if their creation is left entirely up to individual education specialists. OET’s support of education teams in creating LL2.0 content will be crucial in seeing units adopt this new platform, especially if other software has already been invested in.

OET, Lola, and Lola’s Department meet and discuss how they could work together to create digital experiences in LL2.0 from their existing curriculum and activity guides. LL2.0 could help break down and organize multiple page curriculum guides into easily digestible modules. These modules could have a predictable flow: introduction w/ learning objectives, background context, object-based activity (close looking, reading primary sources, etc.), discussion questions relating to background, and then reflection.

In LL2.0, collaboration is easy and Lola, her education team, and OET can easily collaborate on creating and editing a resource simultaneously (like Google Docs or Canva).

LL2.0 allows Smithsonian users to upload their own images or import images and metadata from a variety of SI databases.

Similar to ArcGIS StoryMap and Articulate, there are individual template blocks that allow for different features (embedded videos, magnifying pictures, document comparisons, interactive map, hotspots, quizzes/knowledge checks) to be incorporated at a click of the button. All Lola and her team have to do is select one of the templates and plug in the info they want to share. Lola and her team may use the internal SIDECAR database to find complimentary resources from other units to incorporate as “additional resources/activities” into her LL2.0 resource.

Lola and her team see LL2.0 as a way to deliver educational resources in a more engaging package than a regular PDF. If an educator or general visitor wants to learn more about xyz topic from the exhibition, Lola can direct them to their LL2.0 material.

The appeal of recommending LL2.0 to the public, not just educators, to Lola is that it presents material in a more accessible way than a curriculum guide would and could provide an easy to use platform to share information and activities relating to SI collections, while also providing support links and options to adapt the information (downloadable images, citations, links to specific metadata, Smithsonian resources regarding historical context/background). With this in mind, Lola is not focused on LL2.0 being a space for educators to create themselves, rather she sees it as an easily searchable repository for them to look through and adapt in their own way (downloading images, copying text to PowerPoints, viewing and citing linked resources, etc.).

Carly: 1st / 2nd grade teacher

Carly is a 1st and 2nd grade teacher who teaches literacy in Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools. She is 26 and is a relatively new teacher with four years of experience in the classroom. The school she works at is a Title I school. A third of her students are bilingual or have English as a second language. The students do not have access to laptops for class and Carly usually uses her SmartBoard/Projector to show videos, photos, etc. Carly has a supportive Principal that encourages her to get creative with her lessons to meet student needs.

Carly knows about the Smithsonian because she is close to DC but doesn’t know how Smithsonian resources could apply to her literacy curriculum, much of the content seems too advanced for her young students. She finds Learning Lab initially by googling “Smithsonian Education Resources.” At first glance, Learning Lab does not seem to be a resource she could easily adapt for her classroom. She is trying to look for Smithsonian published content and is not interested in other users’ content since she does not know about their background. It took her some time to find “Refine Search” feature.

Carly finds some Learning Labs published by “Get a Head Start with the Smithsonian.” She likes the content she finds but is a little confused by the UX/UI of the platform and she wishes she didn’t have to click on each square to find the information about an object or activity. She eventually clicks on a link that takes her outside of Learning Labs and onto another Smithsonian website.

She lands on the webpage for Get a Head Start with the Smithsonian that has classroom resources like videos and PDF Lesson + Activities. She likes how this webpage has the ELOF standards in the description and recommendations for what ages the lesson is targeted to. She returns to the HeadStart page for supplemental videos for her lesson plans since it didn’t require learning a new interface.

How can Learning Lab 2.0 meet Carly’s needs and keep her coming back?

Carly could utilize Learning Lab 2.0 more if the refine search button was more prominent so she could easily filter her search by Smithsonian made resources, age range, and language options. An improved UX/UI design that is straightforward, has a clear information hierarchy, and less focus on metadata would be helpful. LL2.0 could have an option to create a printable / PDF document of the material to easily scan the material for examples or activities. She might also benefit from a professional development workshop that demonstrates how object-based learning can be incorporated into any classroom curriculum, so she can see examples of how object-based learning can relate to early learner’s literacy curriculum.

Positioning the Smithsonian to be in every classroom:

An environmental scan of the PK-12 educational technology market for the Office of Educational Technology

Prepared by Wondrus Consulting March 9, 2023 bewondrus.com

Shifting the paradigm from "everything under the sun" to "just right" for me

Attachment 2: WONDRUS Report

Positioning the Smithsonian to be in every classroom: An environmental scan of the PK-12 educational technology market for the Office of Educational Technology.

Washington, DC

Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology Washington, DC 20013-7012 learning@si.edu

Wondrus Consulting, LLC Melrose, MA 02176 info@bewondrus.com

Cite as: Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology and Wondrus Consulting. (2023). Positioning the Smithsonian to be in every classroom: An environmental scan of the PK-12 educational technology market for the Office of Educational Technology. Washington, DC.

To the extent possible under law, the Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Positioning the Smithsonian to be in every classroom: An environmental scan of the PK-12 educational technology market for the Office of Educational Technology. This work is published from: United States.

Attachment 2: WONDRUS Report mailto:learning@si.edu mailto:info@bewondrus.com

Executive summary

The aim of this project was to scan the competitive landscape of PK–12 learning sites in order to gain insight into current trends and best practices in digital learning to inform the redesign of the Learning

Lab–Learning Lab 2.0–with the goal of making its resources, collections, and other targeted learning materials more readily discoverable to, and usable by, PK–12 educators from a range of disciplines.

Smithsonian has set a north star of being in every American classroom. If it truly wishes to fulfill this commitment, it needs to reimagine the Learning Lab for the realities of classrooms today and tomorrow and deliver an experience that supports teachers and students despite a multitude of challenges that will persist into the future.

THE PK-12 CONTEXT

Three years after the mass closure of schools, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is coming into focus and promises to have a lasting effect that will shape digital tools and resources for years to come. Key dynamics that impact the environment in which the Learning Lab exists are: America’s students are struggling academically and emotionally; teachers are experiencing all-time low levels of job satisfaction; and our nation’s deep political divisions are shifting the teaching and learning realities in communities everywhere. At the same time, the educational technology market continues to rapidly evolve, striving to meet the needs of a teaching force already practiced at using digital tools and online content to realize their instructional goals and meet their students' needs.

FINDINGS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN

The findings offer a candid assessment of the Learning Lab. This report identifies the areas ripe for most improvement and the opportunities that afford the Smithsonian the greatest potential to scale use of the

Learning Lab.

Content strategy: The lack of a clear PK-12 content strategy sits at the heart of our critique. Simply put, a stressed and time-strapped PK-12 teacher is unlikely to see the Learning Lab’s millions of images of objects as a practical or effective tool for addressing the learning needs of her students because: 1) There are too many resources on the Learning Lab, many of which are not relevant for or engaging to a

PK-12 audience; 2) Object-based learning is not an established practice for PK-12 teachers; and 3) the

Learning Lab collections are not reliably “ready-to-go.”

Experience of finding content: Finding PK-12 content on the Learning Lab is not only difficult, the process of sifting through search results may undermine the Smithsonian’s attempts to establish itself a PK-12 hub, instead conveying a dated site for dusty artifacts that teachers don't know what to do with and kids won't care about.

Authoring experience: Authoring capabilities for teacher-users are now standard on the edtech market and were present in 73% of the tools included in the scan. While the Learning Lab compares favorably in a feature-by-feature analysis of authoring capabilities, it compares unfavorably in its overall experience. Load times on the site are notably slower than other platforms; collection authoring capabilities provide no built-in support for teachers unfamiliar with how to effectively implement object-based learning experiences; much of the text-based content in existing collections is in fact uneditable. This, combined with the lack of a clear content strategy and difficulties finding content, hinders authoring functionality.

Supporting teacher growth: Supporting teacher use of technology tools through various professional development strategies was ubiquitous across the sites included in the scan. The Smithsonian has the opportunity to use the Learning Lab 2.0 to serve a national teaching corps that is stressed, short on time, and increasingly inexperienced. Providing embedded professional development that builds on a clear set of use cases and nudges towards growing proficiency of teaching with objects, while also integrating key information to equip teachers with enough content knowledge, will maximize impact on teachers.

WHAT COMES NEXT

If the Smithsonian wants to show up in every classroom through the Learning Lab 2.0, the OET should implement an iterative product development process that is anchored by actively listening to a wide range of educators, especially those who have never heard of the Learning Lab and don’t have a habit of using materials from museums. We recommend the prioritization of the following research objectives:

1. Understand more deeply the array of unmet needs in PK-12 classrooms

2. Understand the current experience of PK-12 teachers seeking and using supplemental content and digital tools

3. Understand what most excites students about learning with digital objects, artwork, and other

Smithsonian assets

4. Understand the motivations and goals of other stakeholders in the PK-12 ecosystem

5. Understand if there is a viable approach to using object-based learning as a tool to ameliorate one or more of the challenges teachers currently face

6. Understand how the Smithsonian’s holdings and expertise can map on to PK-12 learning expectations and needs

Table of contents

Introduction

Methodology

The K-12 Context

America’s students are struggling

Teacher satisfaction is at an all-time low

The national education landscape reflects divided politics

The pandemic accelerated educators' embrace of technology

Teachers and their online, content-seeking behaviors

Findings of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 scans

Content strategy

Finding content Authoring

Supporting teacher growth

What comes next

Teachers’ hierarchy of supplemental content needs

Partnerships

Areas of additional research

Appendix

Bibliography

Additional data highlights

Feature comparison chart Tier 1 scan criteria and questions for investigation

Introduction A year ago, the Smithsonian introduced the Office of Educational Technology (OET). Born from a recognition that the Institution needs to move in a new direction that keeps pace with advances in educational technology, the OET is now pursuing a line of inquiry related to just that: in an educational landscape that has shifted dramatically since the launch of the Smithsonian’s

Learning Lab platform in 2016, how can the Institution ensure that every classroom in the nation has access to Smithsonian’s digital content?1

This environmental scan report is an initial piece of that puzzle. The aim of this project was to scan the competitive landscape of PK–12 learning sites in order to gain insight into current trends and best practices in digital learning to inform the redesign of the Learning Lab–Learning Lab 2.0–with the goal of making its resources, collections, and other targeted learning materials more readily discoverable to, and usable by, PK–12 educators from a range of disciplines. In short, looking closely at the Learning Lab in this context is central to realizing the Smithsonian's commitment to significantly scale its impact with school-aged children nationwide.

The OET anchored this environmental scan with four central questions:

1. What other organizations or platforms provide educators with the ability to create customized interactive learning experiences for their students?

2. What authoring/creation tools or functionality exist on other learning websites or platforms that are not currently employed by the Learning Lab?

3. What organizations or platforms could Smithsonian partner with to increase our reach to educators and the PK–12 community?

4. What interactive tool sets or learning platforms are available to possibly incorporate into the

Learning Lab or to build Learning Lab 2.0 around?

While this report will provide answers to these questions, our research illuminated a larger reality: in order to compete in the PK-12 educational technology market place, the Learning Lab needs more than new features and well-positioned partners. We believe that to capture the hearts and minds of a diverse and widespread teaching force and deliver on the Smithsonian’s goal of reaching every American classroom, Learning Lab 2.0 must be designed from the ground up. Today’s edtech products are exciting tools, but at their most basic, the best of them do two things: 1) they solve pressing, real-life

1“Smithsonian 2027: Our Shared Future.” Smithsonian Institution. Accessed 16 February 2023.

Milligan, Darren. “Introducing the Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology.” Smithsonian Learning Lab, 16 February 2022. Accessed 16

February 2023.

Attachment 2: WONDRUS Report https://learninglab.si.edu/news/introducing-the-smithsonian-office-of-educational-technology https://www.si.edu/strategicplan-2027#digital https://learninglab.si.edu/news/introducing-the-smithsonian-office-of-educational-technology/ https://learninglab.si.edu/news/introducing-the-smithsonian-office-of-educational-technology/ teaching challenges and 2) they honor the reality that U.S. teachers have much to do and little time to do it. It is our opinion that the Learning Lab in its current form does neither.

The lack of a clear PK-12 content strategy sits at the heart of our critique of the Learning Lab. Simply put, a stressed and time-strapped PK-12 teacher is unlikely to see the Learning Lab’s millions of images of objects and artifacts as a practical or effective tool for addressing the learning needs of her students:

● There are too many resources on the Learning Lab, many of which are not relevant for or engaging to a PK-12 audience. “Everything under the sun” is not an asset to a teacher who needs to find something to use in class tomorrow.

● Object-based learning is not an established practice for PK-12 teachers, and the Learning Lab’s

“collections” do not provide a dependable approach that effectively supports teachers in this practice.

● Learning Lab collections are not reliably “ready-to-go,” requiring teachers to make an investment of time and effort for returns that we suspect they will assess to be high-risk, low-yield.

The Learning Lab feels as though it was built for best-case scenario use: a teacher with a clear sense of how they want students to interact with and synthesize objects to grow knowledge; someone who is willing to spend significant time perusing objects and collections, nabbing bits and pieces from here and there to weave together their own collection; students with the reading skills and the wherewithal to navigate a complex interface and a teacher with the confidence and classroom management skills to let them do so; users patient enough for a slow platform to load. Unfortunately, America’s teachers and students are not operating in anything close to this best-case scenario.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Smithsonian has set a north star of being in every American classroom. If it truly wishes to fulfill this commitment, it needs to reimagine the Learning Lab for the realities of classrooms today and tomorrow and deliver an experience that supports teachers and students despite nonideal conditions that will persist into the future. Many of the products included in the environmental scan are already doing this well, though none have a collection of objects and artifacts to rival the holdings of the Smithsonian, nor have any cracked the code on how to support teachers in delivering high-impact, object-based learning experiences.

These are real opportunities for the Smithsonian to contribute something new to the PK-12 edtech market–but its efforts will fail if it does not center the needs of typical teachers and classrooms and design first for them.

Summary of research questions

Table 1: Findings related to four research questions

Key findings

What other organizations or platforms provide educators with the ability to create customized interactive learning experiences for their students?

The majority of platforms and tools included in the scan allowed educators to create some form of “customized, interactive learning experiences for students.” What “customized, interactive learning” looked like varied widely based on the sites–from tools with narrowly-focused use cases and limited interactivity such as Edpuzzle, to those offering a wide range of ways in which students could “interact” with teachers, learning content, and each other (Nearpod, LessonUp, Discovery Education, Desmos, and Pear Deck are all examples). Given the prevalence of these features, it is tempting to draw the conclusion that the ability to create “customized, interactive learning experiences” is now a “threshold” functionality for scaled use in PK-12 classrooms. Wondrus believes such a conclusion is hasty. At minimum, such tools are not a substitute for a well-articulated, classroom-centered content strategy. An example of such as strategy can be seen in

Mystery Science, which does not give subscribers the ability to create interactive experiences,2 but did deliver some of the most satisfying and compelling content and user experiences of the scan.

What authoring/ creation tools or functionality exist on other learning websites or platforms that are not currently employed by the

Learning Lab?

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of the solutions included in the environmental scan supported user authoring in some way. While the Learning Lab compares favorably in a feature-by-feature analysis of the authoring experience, it compares unfavorably in its overall experience because we found that it failed to implicitly or explicitly communicate a clear and compelling classroom centered use case likely to resonate with average PK-12 teachers. In other words, the Learning Lab left our reviewers wondering “Why would a teacher want to author a Learning Lab collection? How does creating or editing a collection help teachers? Who are collections for?” Likewise, the Learning Lab fails to live up to the potential of its existing user authoring functionality in several key ways:

● Load times on the site are notably slower than other platforms, making editing and authoring time-consuming and frustrating.

● Finding, sorting and evaluating Smithsonian assets to incorporate into

PK-12-focused materials is an arduous and unrewarding task. There are simply too many irrelevant resources that obscure the gems.

● Collection authoring capabilities provide no built-in support for teachers unfamiliar with how to effectively implement object-based learning experiences.

● Much of the text-based content in existing collections created by various

Smithsonian units appears to be editable, but actually is an uploaded image file, rendering the editing capabilities moot.

What organizations or platforms could SI

We observed a significant number of partnerships that exist between organizations in the

PK-12 edtech ecosystem–pointing to a real opportunity for the Smithsonian. Wondrus recommends that the OET think expansively and creatively about how it might forge and

2Note that Mystery Science was acquired by Discovery Education in 2020. Our review focused on the features and solution available to teachers and schools who purchase and access the content through the Mystery Science website. Teachers using Mystery Science via Discovery

Education likely have access to Discovery’s digital interactive creation tools.

partner with to increase our reach to educators and the

PK–12

community?

deepen partnerships to broaden its reach. Platforms and tools such as Edpuzzle, Nearpod, Peardeck, Kahoot, and PBS Learning Media could all play host to well-designed

Smithsonian learning content (indeed, a limited amount of Smithsonian content is already on Nearpod and PBS Learning Media). Other platforms with narrow content-focuses offer the potential for more limited partnerships with specific Smithsonian units (e.g., Mystery

Science, iCivics). To maximize the reach and impact of this strategy, however, we believe that the OET would need to invest in first understanding teacher needs in general and then developing and maintaining resources specifically tuned to both the audiences and strengths of each partner. Another pathway to scale that Wondrus believes has potential is for Smithsonian to integrate a curated archive of its objects/digital assets right into the authoring tools of platforms such as Nearpod and PBS Learning Media–allowing teachers to access “the best of” Smithsonian’s holdings via the tools they are already using.

Before OET can begin developing a list of platform requirements for Learning Lab 2.0, Wondrus urges the team to conduct user research and prototyping to determine the optimal content strategy that has mass appeal among PK-12 educators. It is our assessment that “resources” and “collections” do not offer enough to compel the average teacher to afford the Learning Lab more than a passing glance. Once this new strategy takes shape, it will then make sense to evaluate what functionalities best support the use case for this strategy.

However, of the tools in the scan, Pear Deck+Google Slides, Nearpod, and LessonUp all hold great potential as partners to power a reimagined authoring and student content-delivery experience. These are already robust content creation tools that support a high level of digital interactivity in classroom-specific environments and would give teachers the opportunity to work with and ultimately deliver content through familiar content creation tools and interfaces.

What interactive tool sets or learning platforms are available to possibly incorporate into the Learning Lab or to build

Learning Lab 2.0 around?

Methodology Wondrus completed the environmental scan using a two-tiered approach.

The goal of the Tier 1 scan was to determine the key functionality and feature sets of each of the 15 sites under review, make assessment of the predetermined review criteria, and identify those that are viable

Smithsonian…