Informal learning, web 2.0 and museums

[Lynda Kelly]

I gave a paper on this at the Social Media and Cultural Communication conference on 29 February. Basically the argument was that given:
* the principles of informal learning, constructivism and social media match very closely,
* museum visitors use these tools,
* visitors want to have more two-way interactions with museums, and
* the physical and on-line experiences are very closely linked, then
* why hasn't social media been taken up in greater numbers by museums??

My paper is attached to this post

[Derek Williamson]

Hi Lynda,
The conference was great, I particularly appreciated two of your points
1. That young adults know we are museums and our socialising with them should reflect this.
2. That museum roles should be about something with everyone.

[Lynda Kelly]

Thanks Derek. In another paper Angelina and I have written for Museums and the Web there are more details about the study I did with adults aged 18-30 and their web world - we also included tips there about how to use social networking to engage them. The paper, From ladders of participation to networks of participation: social media... is available on my wiki.

[Liza Pryor]

Two things:

1) Lynn A. Bethke, a graduate student in the University of Washington's Museology program, wrote her master's thesis (2007) on exactly this topic. "Constructing Connections: A Museological Approach to Blogging."

2) Bethke did a lot of her writing about the Science Museum of Minnesota's Science Buzz, focused on science in the news, emerging research, and phenology. Science Buzz is both a website and an exhibit; the two are totally integrated here at the museum, although the website can also stand alone. And it's an open community: visitors who register can leave comments, questions, or post their own stories. (Anonymous users can also post comments and questions, but they're held for moderation.) Science Buzz addresses almost every issue you discuss in your paper. If you haven't checked it out, I invite you to visit us soon. (Disclaimer: I'm the Project Leader for Science Buzz.)

[Lynda Kelly]

Thanks Lisa - this is really very interesting and thanks for alerting us to this important piece of work. I found Lynn Bethke's MA blog site. Also managed to track down her thesis on this site and I'm looking forward to reading it. Kevin von Appen, when he was visiting us, cited Science Buzz as a great example of a museum using Web 2.0, which I blogged about here.

As an evaluator/audience research person I'm keenly interested in the ways these tools can be used to capture visitor learning and other feedback, Liza, do you know if anyone is looking at this as my feeling is many evaluators really aren't onto this at all? Very soon I'm going to be working with students from a Sydney-based high school and our new Dinosaur exhibition and I'm thinking of using Ning actually as a way to manage the project and seek feedback.

[Liza Pryor]

Hmmmm...

Well, the Writing in Digital Environments Center at Michigan State University won Institute of Library and Museum Services funding last year ("Take Two: A Study of the Co-Creation of Knowledge on Museum Web 2.0 Sites") to use discourse analysis to study dialog and argumentation on sites like Science Buzz. (Science Buzz will be one of the case studies.) Specifically, the folks at MSU are trying to figure out what's the nature of the community that interacts through museum web 2.0 sites? What's the nature of the interaction? Do the online interactions support inquiry and learning for the user community? And what's the impact on museum practice? That's a three-year study, and it's just now getting going.

The NSF summitive study for Science Buzz is ongoing, with preliminary results hopefully available in the next month or two. That study should have some analysis of what's happening on Buzz, but we're really pinning a lot of our questions on the MSU study.

I also know that Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) has a proposal pending with NSF ("Beyond Fact") to try to address disparities in levels of science literacy among adults through innovative programming, an exhibit environment, and an online community. It includes a significant evaluation piece.

Oh, and Michigan State University's Communication Technology Laboratory (Serious Game Design) has a proposal pending with NSF ("Science in Society Digital Decision Games) to create 8 "digital decide games" that attempt to guide visitors as they engage in careful consideration of scientific evidence and personal and social values as they develop their own responses to contested socio-scientific issues. This includes significant evaluation, as well.

Lastly, we're waiting to hear right now whether or not the GE Foundation has decided to fund the creation of "Mentor Buzz"--a series of online tools that help mentors and their students interact--on the shoulders of Science Buzz. If funded, there's a big discourse analysis (and maybe prompting) piece built in.

I think you're right that many evaluators aren't on to web 2.0 at all. But there's a growing number of research and informal learning institutions that see which way the wind is blowing and are keen to get on the bandwagon. (Nice mixed metaphors, huh?)

Of course, the web is just a tool. Blogging will be totally passe before most of us get a chance to play with the medium, institutionally. So now the game is to figure out what the NEXT big thing is. Personally, I'm placing my bet on cell phone technology!

[Liza Pryor]

I should also say that we often use Buzz components to a) try to get a sense of what visitors know about a topic or find interesting about a topic as we're developing a larger, more formal exhibit; and 2) to augment larger, more formal exhibits with more timely or controversial content.

On the very small scale, sometimes I just look at the search logs for the website. If there are suddenly a bunch of searches for "dinosaur" or some other topic like that, I know that there's news out there that's got visitors thinking about something and we should respond.

So we use it in a very casual way for visitor research purposes. It would be awesome to mine it further...

[Lynda Kelly]

Thanks again Liza - you are a mine of information! I found the Writing in Digital Environments Center website to be fascinating in the range of projects they are undertaking. Looking forward to keeping an eye on the Take Two study (they didn't have anything on their site about it as far as I could see., although I found the announcement in the ILMS website). I think the question What's the nature of the community that interacts through museum web 2.0 sites? is really worth pursuing.

Swinburne University, with the Australian Museum, Powerhouse Museum and Museum Victoria, won a three-year Australian Research Council linkage grant, Engaging with Social Media in Museums, where we will also be investigating these issues in an Australian context. An initial article about our work, Participatory Communication with Social Media, is in the current edition of Curator.

[Janet Carding]

Hi Lynda

Reading your Museum 3.0 paper I'm struck by the similarities you point to in the table between constructivist exhibitions and social media. The point you make about museums' relatively slow take-up of social media tools is a good one and I'm sure in Sydney we'll all be thinking about how to do more of that after Friday's conference, but it also reminds me of one of the points Elaine Heumann Gurian made at last year's ICOM conference. She seemed to be suggesting that the web is changing the way physical visitors might want to learn in museums and what experiences they might expect to have.

I've been thinking about this a lot since August and wondering how we could support physical visitors' new expectations (as well as delving more into social media!) One thought, I wonder if we might pick up any signs of these changes in the research planned for the Australian Museum's new Dinosaur exhibition?

[Lynda Kelly]

I think using the Dinosaur exhibition is a good one. Plan to meet with the team in a few weeks time to map out what we want to do. Also we have an Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme Grant to work with a Western Sydney boys' high school and the exhibition, so I'm hoping to use some social networking approaches in that study.
I'm also reminded of the MARVEL project and how we asked about how people like to learn in exhibitions - I think I'll go back to that and see what I can grab and update.

[Lynda Kelly]

Brett McLennan's presentation, Social Media and Informal Learning,can be found here.

[Seb Chan]

hey lynda

i've blogged about some of the problems with assuming that because visitors engage on other websites that they necessarily will want to on museums sites . . . . especially if we don;t change our physical enviroments to operate more like 'platforms' rather than 'destinations'

seb


seb

[Vaike Fors]

Hi Seb

I got interested in your blogging about the need to develop the on-line museum AS WELL AS the museum's physical environment in order to operate more like platforms. In my current research I am comparing teenagers' use of their favourite websites with their use of museums. Why I do this? Because I think the open-ended co-operative way popular websites operate reflects something young people sometimes miss in the museum environment, and I want to learn more about how this urge for "enactment " is supported both in the virtual environment and the museum environment.

Do you have any thoughts about this?