Reflections of technology on the educational activities of private museums in Turkey

Museums are places where learning is permanent and enjoyable, both with their diversity and the works or objects they contain. Nowadays, the educational function of museums is considered indispensable, and museums also use changing and developing technological opportunities in their applications for educational purposes. In particular, digital opportunities related to internet technology are used in the educational practices of museums as well as in many museology fields that emerged with the postmodern museum, such as promotion, marketing, brand creation, and visitor relations. As a qualitative study, the digital education activities of private museums in Turkey and their websites and social media platforms were examined within the scope of the research conducted by the scanning method. Istanbul Rahmi M. Koç Industrial Museum, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Istanbul Modern Art Museum, Pera Museum, Ankara Rahmi M. Koç Museum, and Erimtan Archeology and Art Museum, which were selected as the study group were examined and intensively used internet technologies during the pandemic in terms of digital education applications. It was determined that they provided training. It has been observed that museums terminated their online education activities after the pandemic period. It has been understood that most of the identified digital education applications focus on children, young people, adults, teachers, school groups, and individuals with special needs. It has been concluded that workshops, especially on art practices were carried out in the online training. It was determined that Istanbul Modern Art Museum carried out the most digitally focused educational activities among the museums examined.