Ionian Islands is a place with a rich artistic tradition, that is reflected in music, painting and other arts. The present study is an arts-based action research. A Digital Museum of Paintings from Ionian Islands was created in order to run a museum-education activity. The aim of the project was to bring students in contact with the arts and diversity of the Ionian islands. We first retrieved paintings on the internet that depict the Ionian Islands. Then we set a number of criteria in order to make our collection, such as to capture all the Ionian islands, to offer a variety of images, themes and techniques. So, we chose 32 pieces. The paintings were divided into three categories: a) urban landscape, b) inland, and c) seascape. Thus, a Digital Museum of Paintings from Ionian Islands was created with an online free access program, leaving space for exhibiting students' works. The museum education program implemented was based on the principles of inter-artistic, aesthetic education acquiring multi-sensory learning and digital museum literacy. We sought for students to come into direct contact with art, creating a dialogue with the works on display at the Digital Museum, through various types of artistic expression (music, painting, theater, movement, poetry and storytelling). These activities were implemented during the music lesson in three age groups for 5-7 teaching hours in a kindergarten in Corfu, and in Year 2 and Year 4 of the Primary school in Zakynthos.

During the teaching of the educational program, the students created art works, they suggested titles for the existing paintings, they wrote lyrics, they suggested songs and they created soundscapes on the paintings, graphic scores, as well as physical and kinetic representations (Dewey, 1986; Nikonanou et.al., 2015). The data for the evaluation of the program derive from teachers' diaries, students' inter-artistic works and a final recording that provided an artistic representation of student's impressions (Kokkos, 2010; Vallance, 2007).

Some of the findings from the pilot study of this research are that the students enjoyed the contact and interaction with the art works, they expressed themselves creatively, they got acquainted with various arts and they created interesting art works inspired by the paintings. They also had the pleasure to distinguish familiar landscapes from their island or other Ionian Islands, whether they had visited them or not, and to represent them through their bodies, to paint them and to create music through graphic scores made on the paintings. The creation and evaluation of the Digital Museum of Paintings from Ionian Islands touches many important issues, such as the local history and culture that are often set aside from school education, and the need for artistic and inter-artistic expression of children.

• Νέοι γραμματισμοί (ψηφιακός, πολυτροπικός, ηλεκτρονική πληροφορία)
• Πολυτροπικές δράσεις στη μουσική εκπαίδευση

Zoe Dionyssiou is Associate Professor of Music Education at the Department of Music Studies, Ionian University, Greece. She is Director of Studies for the MA Program “Music Education in school and community” at Ionian University, and academic co-ordinator of the Ionian Summer Academy in Music Education and of the Post-graduate Training Program “Music in Early Childhood Education” (Centre for Life Long Learning, Ionian University). She coordinates a series of community music educational programs and activities organized by Ionian University (“Music Education Program for toddlers”, etc). She is co-editor of the scientific journal Musical Pedagogics (of the G.S.M.E.) and member of scientific committees in conferences and international journals. Some of her main research interests include early childhood music education, folk musics in education, interdisciplinary music and art programs, and children’s traditional singing games. Since 2012 she co-ordinates the music education performing group Aneva milo - Kateva rodi, which makes creative use of Greek musical traditions.

Ioanna Imer is a graduate of the Department of Early Childhood Education of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is a postgraduate student at Ionian University in the MA Program “Music Education in school and community”. She was a member of the music pedagogical team “Pehnidiatores tou Pirgou” of the AUTh Pedagogical School (2015-2018). She has participated as a volunteer in conferences of the Greek Society for Music Education (G.S.M.E.) and has presented her diplomatic review at the 12th Pan-Hellenic Congress of OMER, (Patras, 2019). She is a member of the Corfu Philharmonic Society and G.S.M.E. She is working as a preschool teacher in a private school and she is involved in early childhood music education.

Dimitra Sapnara is a graduate of the Siatista Secondary School of Music and the Department of Music Science and Art of the University of Macedonia. She is a postgraduate student at Ionian University in the MA Program “Music Education in school and community” and holds a degree in accordion, where she studied in the class of Mr. Konstantinos Raptis. In recent years she lives in Zakynthos and works as a music teacher in primary education.