Museum Tour Of Louvre

Museum Tour of Louvre

I decided to take a virtual tour of the Museum of Louvre located in France. The web site can be found at http://www.louvre.fr/llv/musee/visite_virtuelle.jsp I took the tour place on May 28, 2006. I was introduced to this web through my step father who was raised in Paris. The tour consisted of many different aspects of arts such as Islamic arts, paintings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities, sculptures and decorative arts. The tour was very quick and precise. They gave a brief description on each piece they displayed.

One aspect of the tour I liked was tour of the medieval Louvre before it was turned into a museum. The remains of the Lourvre's moat was also shown. The Louvre was originally a fortress built by the King Philippe Auguste. There was also a tour of the many buildings that make up the museum. Another aspect of the tour was the near eastern antiquities from Iran, Mesopotamia and the Levant.

The tour was very informative but I'm not sure elementary students would find it fun or interesting. I noticed that the vocabulary used was too advanced for most elementary students if they were taking the virtual tour alone. Also the pictures that were displayed needed to be bigger and perhaps highlighted. I looked further at the website and noticed that the museum does have classes and tours for children. I think students would learn more if they were inside of the museum where they could touch and ask questions about the pieces displayed. There were workshops along with readings and programs geared just for children.

As a teacher I could use this tour of the museum as an added bonus to a lesson plan. I would include the picture of the moat and tie it in with a historical period that the student might be studying about in history class. The web site is a good tool to use as visual art since the web site has painting, sculptures, ceramics visually displayed. I could