Museum Affinity Spaces (MAS):
Museum-School Partnerships
for the 21st century through
a Multiliteracies Lens

The MAS project promotes museum-school collaboration in Europe through the use of technology-enhanced learning such as support, tools and services for schools to utilize in order to implement their curriculum. MAS supports communities of teachers and educators seeking to establish museum-school partnerships as network communities by creating an online infrastructure. The intention is to offer opportunities for free and continuing online professional development for educators and museum staff. In particular, the intention is for school teachers and museum educators and other museum staff as well as students to be able to use a virtual platform themselves and in collaboration with other parties from around Cyprus and the world, either through synchronous or asynchronous learning to develop learning activities deriving from museums. There is specific focus on the development of the MAS project to accommodate for culturally and linguistically diverse students’ needs through the development of a particular innovative conceptual framework that will be implemented during all phases of the research. It is anticipated that students will deepen their knowledge of cultural heritage through participation in the partnership, while also becoming motivated to engage in museum learning, whether physically or online in the future. The project is funded by the Cyprus Research Foundation. Primary Investigator is Dr. Nicos Souleles who supervises Dr. Stefania Savva a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (right in the above photo), and the rest of the team comprises Francesca Sella and Zoe Anastasiadou. (October 2018)