Virtual Tour of Auschwitz, a collaboration between Auschwitz Museum and Remember-org
Organization Information:
Organization Name
Project ABE (remember.org)
Organization's Mission Statement
Remember.org is the Holocaust Community founded in 1995, an educational social network of contributors (survivors, liberators, historians, and authors), sharing the best research resources and stories through art, photography, painting, audio/video, and remembrance. We provide materials for grade school to early college students worldwide. Project ABE is the nonprofit that created Remember.org.
This Internet project is about remembering the lives and voices of those who survived, and it is Remember.org's honor to share this for free since April 25, 1995.
Organization Website
Submission Information
Impact Essay
Remember is an important word in any language, and in regards to the Holocaust, it is a word invoked to keep the human stories alive, and to be sure events like these never happen again. When you search for “Remember” on Google, you’ll find Remember.org, and the Virtual Tour of Auschwitz.
The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz is now live, in Polish and English at the museum’s own site, sharing an intimate view of the museum and camp in 360 degree views to a worldwide audience. Before this Tour, few educational institutions (or parents) had the money or time to visit this important historical site. Now:
1. Social change #1 is the ability to make learning interesting and interactive, with students learning wherever they are, whenever they want. Millions of students have taken the tour since 2005, and many more will see it now (launched Feb. 2009)at the actual Auschwitz web site. This is the first time anyone has been able to see the camp, as it looks today, as if you were there.
2. Social Change #2; this is a collaborative project between many people who have never met, yet can work together. The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz shows the power of the Internet, and small grassroots communities in effecting social change. The entire Virtual Tour project, including the photographer’s time and effort, and creative development, was funded by Project ABE, and shared with the Auschwitz museum for free (and all produced with Adobe products, thanks!).
3. Social Change #3: When students learn about the Holocaust, with new and interesting learning materials, they often decide to apply these lessons to fight injustice in their own lives. Now one of the most important historical sites inspires them to change their present by remembering the lessons of the past, at a place that only a short while ago, few were able to visit.
Remember.org mission is to preserve the stories of survivors while driving social change through learning materials provided for free to classrooms. Yet the Virtual Tour of Auschwitz took this development to another level, incubated at our site and then fully launched at the actual Auschwitz web site today.
The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz has enabled this museum to reach out to a worldwide community, providing an innovative 360 degree tour of the Auschwitz camp and museum. Visitors to the site simply click their mouse and can see what the camp looks like today, while following lesson plans attached to the interactive map.
Remember.org's goal is to help change education by providing content that teachers and schools choose to share with their students, and provide it all at no charge, always. Now a teacher in Des Moines, or Shenzhen, or Bangalore, can share this important museum without leaving home. And we will remember...
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URL
http://remember.org/auschwitz/credits2.php
Submitted by remember on April 14, 2009 - 2:58pm