Dear MER Membership,
At the spring board meeting of the directors of the Museum Education Roundtable, held April 29th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a slate of nominees, proposed by the Nominations Task Force of the Governance Committee, received unanimous board approval. This slate includes the following candidates for a three year term of office, from October 2009 to September, 2012, first term to be followed by a second term if confirmed.
Please vote to accept or reject the slate of candidates for the MER Board by cutting and pasting the survey link below into your browser window. If you received an e-mail about voting for the slate and already visited the survey, no need to go again!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=jIE2jCwKOFVtEddk1GcwrQ_3d_3d
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Network News: From the Editor
Network: Summer 2009
AAM Redux
From the Editor
Cynthia Robinson
Director, Tufts Museum Studies Program
Most of the articles in this summer issue of Network focus on the recent AAM conference in Philadelphia (with one bonus review of the National Art Education Association conference). Museums educators are always well represented at the AAM conference and, as a result, there are always a plethora of sessions for and by them. So whether you attended or not, these review articles will remind you of what is important, what you know, and what you don’t know – but should.
As always, we invite you to join in our conversation!
Cheers,
Cynthia
AAM Redux
From the Editor
Cynthia Robinson
Director, Tufts Museum Studies Program
Most of the articles in this summer issue of Network focus on the recent AAM conference in Philadelphia (with one bonus review of the National Art Education Association conference). Museums educators are always well represented at the AAM conference and, as a result, there are always a plethora of sessions for and by them. So whether you attended or not, these review articles will remind you of what is important, what you know, and what you don’t know – but should.
As always, we invite you to join in our conversation!
Cheers,
Cynthia
Words from the Prez
Network News: Summer 2009
By Erik Holland, President of the Board, Museum Education Roundtable
May in Minnesota means daffodils, fritilaria and other spring bulbs blooming, epimedium and hundreds of other perennials leafing out in the yard and hundreds of spikes of martigons and others in the genius Lilium beginning to expose themselves from under their winter blankets. This time of year also brings the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums and the associated Museum Education Roundtable quarterly board meeting, the annual EdCom/MER co-sponsored reception as well as the MER reception. The MER board is hard at work fulfilling our volunteer responsibilities to provide leadership, structure and coordination for the Museum Education Roundtable. Last fall’s retreat resulted in a positive yet aggressive strategic plan for this current year and committees have been making progress on all fronts. We are solvent, healthy and looking forward. The JME is a quality publication that we all can be proud of. Currently we are focusing on improving communications with members by re-building our website and re-invigorating Network.
Quarterly Board Meeting
In the past several years, since a fair number board members attend AAM, we have expanded the agenda beyond the specific coordination of AAM related activities and undertaken more of the business of the board. These meetings offer another opportunity for many on the board to have a face-to-face meeting. The board meeting this year was held at the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage. The agenda included the usual budget update, minutes approval and committee and taskforce reports. Also the board unanimously approved a slate of new board members to participate in the board orientation and the fall planning retreat and board meeting in Washington, DC in August and begin their terms at the October board meeting.
EdCom/MER Cosponsored Reception
The reception this year was held in the close and garden behind the Elfreth’s Alley Association’s building at 126 Elfreth’s Alley. This wonderful block-long street near the Philadelphia harbor is one of the oldest continuously inhabited streets in the country. Nearly 100 museum educators socialized and participated in tours of the street and enjoyed the pleasant spring evening together.
MER Reception
The American Philosophical Society hosted MER’s annual AAM reception. Fifty-plus museum educators enjoyed light hors d’oeuvres and toured the wonderful exhibit, “Dialogues with Darwin: An Exhibition of Historical Documents and Contemporary Art.” The APS has the largest collection of Darwin manuscripts in North America, including some 800 Darwin letters. The holdings are second only to the Darwin collection at Cambridge University in England. If this interests you, check out their website at http://www.pachs.net/dialogues-with-darwin/.
After some socializing, the group sat down for a facilitated discussion of interpretive planning with Journal of Museum Education guest editors, Jody Koke and Marianna Adams. The conversation was lively and enjoyable. It was difficult to break up the small group discussions that followed the formal presentation. In fact a number of folks walked a couple of blocks to a Belgian pub that had more than 300 different beers on their menu.
“Museum Education 101: Program Development and Presentation” Session
I was invited by Jim Hakala, president of EdCom’s board, to develop and present a 101 session on museum education. What are the things that are absolutes that museum educators think about when planning a presentation? Jim, Mary Kay Cunningham and I spent several long phone conversations discussing what to include in this 101 session. It is a difficult task for seasoned veterans to decide what is critical and should be part of a beginner’s toolbox. All three of us have presented, planned, trained and evaluated programs and much of what we do is nearly second nature. As we focused on critical elements like themes, goals and objectives, tangibles, intangibles, universals and Freeman Tilden, we helped the audience understand that, “asking an interpreter a question should not be like taking a drink from a fire hose.” We discussed the importance of objects, planned questions and strategies to use to plan and document quality programs. We offered a 19-page handout which is available to print out from AAM by going to the website http://www.projectionnet.com/AAMHandouts2009/PDFbyday.aspx and then choosing Saturday and the Museum Education 101 session and then follow the prompts. You may also want to read the review (unsolicited by me!) of the session by an emerging professional in this issue of Network.
Erik Holland has been planning, developing, training and delivering interpretive programs at historic sites for more than 30 years with the State Historical Society of North Dakota, Milwaukee Public Museum, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and the Minnesota Historical Society. His term as president of MER’s board will be completed September 30, 2009.
By Erik Holland, President of the Board, Museum Education Roundtable
May in Minnesota means daffodils, fritilaria and other spring bulbs blooming, epimedium and hundreds of other perennials leafing out in the yard and hundreds of spikes of martigons and others in the genius Lilium beginning to expose themselves from under their winter blankets. This time of year also brings the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums and the associated Museum Education Roundtable quarterly board meeting, the annual EdCom/MER co-sponsored reception as well as the MER reception. The MER board is hard at work fulfilling our volunteer responsibilities to provide leadership, structure and coordination for the Museum Education Roundtable. Last fall’s retreat resulted in a positive yet aggressive strategic plan for this current year and committees have been making progress on all fronts. We are solvent, healthy and looking forward. The JME is a quality publication that we all can be proud of. Currently we are focusing on improving communications with members by re-building our website and re-invigorating Network.
Quarterly Board Meeting
In the past several years, since a fair number board members attend AAM, we have expanded the agenda beyond the specific coordination of AAM related activities and undertaken more of the business of the board. These meetings offer another opportunity for many on the board to have a face-to-face meeting. The board meeting this year was held at the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage. The agenda included the usual budget update, minutes approval and committee and taskforce reports. Also the board unanimously approved a slate of new board members to participate in the board orientation and the fall planning retreat and board meeting in Washington, DC in August and begin their terms at the October board meeting.
EdCom/MER Cosponsored Reception
The reception this year was held in the close and garden behind the Elfreth’s Alley Association’s building at 126 Elfreth’s Alley. This wonderful block-long street near the Philadelphia harbor is one of the oldest continuously inhabited streets in the country. Nearly 100 museum educators socialized and participated in tours of the street and enjoyed the pleasant spring evening together.
MER Reception
The American Philosophical Society hosted MER’s annual AAM reception. Fifty-plus museum educators enjoyed light hors d’oeuvres and toured the wonderful exhibit, “Dialogues with Darwin: An Exhibition of Historical Documents and Contemporary Art.” The APS has the largest collection of Darwin manuscripts in North America, including some 800 Darwin letters. The holdings are second only to the Darwin collection at Cambridge University in England. If this interests you, check out their website at http://www.pachs.net/dialogues-with-darwin/.
After some socializing, the group sat down for a facilitated discussion of interpretive planning with Journal of Museum Education guest editors, Jody Koke and Marianna Adams. The conversation was lively and enjoyable. It was difficult to break up the small group discussions that followed the formal presentation. In fact a number of folks walked a couple of blocks to a Belgian pub that had more than 300 different beers on their menu.
“Museum Education 101: Program Development and Presentation” Session
I was invited by Jim Hakala, president of EdCom’s board, to develop and present a 101 session on museum education. What are the things that are absolutes that museum educators think about when planning a presentation? Jim, Mary Kay Cunningham and I spent several long phone conversations discussing what to include in this 101 session. It is a difficult task for seasoned veterans to decide what is critical and should be part of a beginner’s toolbox. All three of us have presented, planned, trained and evaluated programs and much of what we do is nearly second nature. As we focused on critical elements like themes, goals and objectives, tangibles, intangibles, universals and Freeman Tilden, we helped the audience understand that, “asking an interpreter a question should not be like taking a drink from a fire hose.” We discussed the importance of objects, planned questions and strategies to use to plan and document quality programs. We offered a 19-page handout which is available to print out from AAM by going to the website http://www.projectionnet.com/AAMHandouts2009/PDFbyday.aspx and then choosing Saturday and the Museum Education 101 session and then follow the prompts. You may also want to read the review (unsolicited by me!) of the session by an emerging professional in this issue of Network.
Erik Holland has been planning, developing, training and delivering interpretive programs at historic sites for more than 30 years with the State Historical Society of North Dakota, Milwaukee Public Museum, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and the Minnesota Historical Society. His term as president of MER’s board will be completed September 30, 2009.
Technology’s Growing Role in Museum Education
Network Summer 2009
By Margaret Aiken, Museum Education Student, Tufts University
Reviews of “Using Web 2.0 to Reach Global Audiences: International Perspectives,” chaired by Laura Mann, Business Development Director, Mediatrope; “Idea Lounge: The Formalization of Museum Studies,” chaired by Redell Hearn, Founding Director/Assistant Professor, Masters of Arts Program in Museum Studies, Southern University at New Orleans; and “Technology Tutorial: Design and Maintain a Blog,” co-chaired by Charlotte Sexton, National Gallery of Art, London, and Perian Sully, Judah L. Magnus Museum, Berkley, at the 2009 AAM conference.
As an emerging museum educator, I am beginning to realize that one of the most marketable skills I can gain is the ability to understand, utilize, and promote interactive technologies. Just based on observations of my friends’ obsessive attachment their iPhones and middle school students’ addictions to MySpace, it is easy to see how important technology is today and how it is being used to promote social interaction. For this reason, I narrowed my focus at the AAM conference to sessions concerning education and technology. There were a surprising number to choose from. Below you will find reviews on three of my favorites.
“Using Web 2.0 to Reach Global Audiences: International Perspectives” illustrated how three museums are currently using technology to engage their audience as participants. For those who are not particularly web-savvy, Laura Mann, the director of Mediatrope, explained that Web 2.0 is the phenomena of using the internet to create conversations between the museum and its audience, the audience and museum staff members, and audience members with each other.
Catherine King, from the wholly virtual International Museum of Women, described her museum’s staff curates conversations, raises awareness of issues affecting women, and inspires action from audiences around the world. The lesson I learned from the IMoW is that if virtual museums can accomplish such strong connections in cyberspace, brick and mortar museums should also be able to engage their own audiences and reach out to non-museum goers by adopting some of the Web 2.0 strategies. Check out the International Museum of Women at http://www.imow.org/
Presenters, Malene Rordam and Rasmus Nielsen from the Danish National Gallery spoke about how they have used Web 2.0 to create an interactive site for teens with social networking and user-contributed content called “U.L.K.” which stands for “Young People’s Laboratories.” Their MySpace-like website created for teens, by teens is an off-shoot of the Danish National Gallery’s main website, http://www.smk.dk/ . I particularly appreciated the presenters’ honesty about the amount of time and energy it takes to maintain the site, and their difficulties in keeping the site’s content relevant and related to the museum. The U.L.K. website is in Danish but can be translated into English by going to the site and clicking the upper right corner. It can be viewed at http://ungeslaboratorierforkunst.dk/.
Andreas Henning, a curator at the Old Master Picture Gallery in Dresden, talked about a truly mind-blowing 3-D virtual museum project. The Dresden Gallery hired a design company to create a 1-to-1 digital clone of the museum in Second Life, a virtual world where avatars navigate 3-D virtual worlds and interact with each other. Apparently all of the museum’s details are meticulously reproduced, including the wallpaper and the parquet floors. Even the institution’s special exhibitions are offered for viewing in Second Life.
I downloaded Second Life in an attempt to find the Old Master Picture Gallery. Unfortunately I did not find the museum in my search, but I did find quite a few other galleries and museums in Second Life. The thing that is most bizarre is how hard it is to tell what “museums” are fictional, created by a group unaffiliated with the real life institution, and which ones are authentic and created by the actual institution. A few of the “museums” listed in SL were the Royal Museum of Art, Cyber MoCA, Lagna Art Museum, Austria Art Gallery, and the Manchester Art Gallery.
It is hard for me to believe that a brick and mortar museum would spend what must be exorbitant amounts of money to digitally reproduce their museum in cyberspace. While visiting a 3-D reproduction of a museum and its artworks is novel, it is certainly no substitute for the actual experience of being there in person. For me, entering theses spaces in Second Life was a very surreal and unsettling experience. Regardless of how eerie it felt to look at art in a virtual world, Second Life is increasingly popular and a truly remarkable platform. I will definitely keep my eye on it to see if and how museums will participate in Second Life.
“Idea Lounge: The Formalization of Museum Studies” was a roundtable discussion of students, educators, university program directors who shared their backgrounds and opinions on whether requirements for a museum studies degree should be standardized. For me, the most useful aspect of this session was realizing that there is currently no standardization in the field.
Roundtable participants discussed the value of establishing standards for training the next generation of museum professionals. Possible categories of standardization included creating a reading list of accepted texts, establishing a list of competencies, or focusing on particular themes. While standardization might make comparing programs a bit easier for potential students, the majority of roundtable participants seemed to be against standardization, arguing that it would limit options for students and restrict freedoms for university programs.
What I gained from this discussion was an appreciation of the diversity of the museum-related programs being offered in universities today. There is currently no website where information can be found about the burgeoning number of museum studies and other similar programs. Many of the students in the room, myself included, expressed frustration at how difficult it was to research and choose a program. I personally had no idea there were museum or arts administration programs at Brown University, the University of Toronto, and Columbia University until a few people in the room stood up and introduced themselves!
I think instead of standardizing museum studies, there is a dire need for a comprehensive website where potential students can access information about all of the programs available in museum studies, museum education, or arts administration and the ability to understand what these programs offer and how they differ.
“Technology Tutorial: Design and Maintain a Blog” was a hands-on workshop that taught participants step-by-step instructions for creating, launching and maintaining a museum blog. The speaker, Charlotte Sexton from the National Gallery in London, gave tips on ways to make a blog posting successful such as:
By Margaret Aiken, Museum Education Student, Tufts University
Reviews of “Using Web 2.0 to Reach Global Audiences: International Perspectives,” chaired by Laura Mann, Business Development Director, Mediatrope; “Idea Lounge: The Formalization of Museum Studies,” chaired by Redell Hearn, Founding Director/Assistant Professor, Masters of Arts Program in Museum Studies, Southern University at New Orleans; and “Technology Tutorial: Design and Maintain a Blog,” co-chaired by Charlotte Sexton, National Gallery of Art, London, and Perian Sully, Judah L. Magnus Museum, Berkley, at the 2009 AAM conference.
As an emerging museum educator, I am beginning to realize that one of the most marketable skills I can gain is the ability to understand, utilize, and promote interactive technologies. Just based on observations of my friends’ obsessive attachment their iPhones and middle school students’ addictions to MySpace, it is easy to see how important technology is today and how it is being used to promote social interaction. For this reason, I narrowed my focus at the AAM conference to sessions concerning education and technology. There were a surprising number to choose from. Below you will find reviews on three of my favorites.
“Using Web 2.0 to Reach Global Audiences: International Perspectives” illustrated how three museums are currently using technology to engage their audience as participants. For those who are not particularly web-savvy, Laura Mann, the director of Mediatrope, explained that Web 2.0 is the phenomena of using the internet to create conversations between the museum and its audience, the audience and museum staff members, and audience members with each other.
Catherine King, from the wholly virtual International Museum of Women, described her museum’s staff curates conversations, raises awareness of issues affecting women, and inspires action from audiences around the world. The lesson I learned from the IMoW is that if virtual museums can accomplish such strong connections in cyberspace, brick and mortar museums should also be able to engage their own audiences and reach out to non-museum goers by adopting some of the Web 2.0 strategies. Check out the International Museum of Women at http://www.imow.org/
Presenters, Malene Rordam and Rasmus Nielsen from the Danish National Gallery spoke about how they have used Web 2.0 to create an interactive site for teens with social networking and user-contributed content called “U.L.K.” which stands for “Young People’s Laboratories.” Their MySpace-like website created for teens, by teens is an off-shoot of the Danish National Gallery’s main website, http://www.smk.dk/ . I particularly appreciated the presenters’ honesty about the amount of time and energy it takes to maintain the site, and their difficulties in keeping the site’s content relevant and related to the museum. The U.L.K. website is in Danish but can be translated into English by going to the site and clicking the upper right corner. It can be viewed at http://ungeslaboratorierforkunst.dk/.
Andreas Henning, a curator at the Old Master Picture Gallery in Dresden, talked about a truly mind-blowing 3-D virtual museum project. The Dresden Gallery hired a design company to create a 1-to-1 digital clone of the museum in Second Life, a virtual world where avatars navigate 3-D virtual worlds and interact with each other. Apparently all of the museum’s details are meticulously reproduced, including the wallpaper and the parquet floors. Even the institution’s special exhibitions are offered for viewing in Second Life.
I downloaded Second Life in an attempt to find the Old Master Picture Gallery. Unfortunately I did not find the museum in my search, but I did find quite a few other galleries and museums in Second Life. The thing that is most bizarre is how hard it is to tell what “museums” are fictional, created by a group unaffiliated with the real life institution, and which ones are authentic and created by the actual institution. A few of the “museums” listed in SL were the Royal Museum of Art, Cyber MoCA, Lagna Art Museum, Austria Art Gallery, and the Manchester Art Gallery.
It is hard for me to believe that a brick and mortar museum would spend what must be exorbitant amounts of money to digitally reproduce their museum in cyberspace. While visiting a 3-D reproduction of a museum and its artworks is novel, it is certainly no substitute for the actual experience of being there in person. For me, entering theses spaces in Second Life was a very surreal and unsettling experience. Regardless of how eerie it felt to look at art in a virtual world, Second Life is increasingly popular and a truly remarkable platform. I will definitely keep my eye on it to see if and how museums will participate in Second Life.
“Idea Lounge: The Formalization of Museum Studies” was a roundtable discussion of students, educators, university program directors who shared their backgrounds and opinions on whether requirements for a museum studies degree should be standardized. For me, the most useful aspect of this session was realizing that there is currently no standardization in the field.
Roundtable participants discussed the value of establishing standards for training the next generation of museum professionals. Possible categories of standardization included creating a reading list of accepted texts, establishing a list of competencies, or focusing on particular themes. While standardization might make comparing programs a bit easier for potential students, the majority of roundtable participants seemed to be against standardization, arguing that it would limit options for students and restrict freedoms for university programs.
What I gained from this discussion was an appreciation of the diversity of the museum-related programs being offered in universities today. There is currently no website where information can be found about the burgeoning number of museum studies and other similar programs. Many of the students in the room, myself included, expressed frustration at how difficult it was to research and choose a program. I personally had no idea there were museum or arts administration programs at Brown University, the University of Toronto, and Columbia University until a few people in the room stood up and introduced themselves!
I think instead of standardizing museum studies, there is a dire need for a comprehensive website where potential students can access information about all of the programs available in museum studies, museum education, or arts administration and the ability to understand what these programs offer and how they differ.
“Technology Tutorial: Design and Maintain a Blog” was a hands-on workshop that taught participants step-by-step instructions for creating, launching and maintaining a museum blog. The speaker, Charlotte Sexton from the National Gallery in London, gave tips on ways to make a blog posting successful such as:
- Using mixed media such as photos, videos, and audio clips
- Coming up with catchy headlines
- Writing short sentences
- Formatting the page so its easy to read
- Writing slightly contentious material that will generate audience responses
- Updating the blog’s content on a regular basis (at least 2-3 times a week)
Charlotte also brought up important issues to consider such as blogging ethics and rules of engagement. She pointed us to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis which has excellent guidelines posted on their website. (These guidelines can be found by typing “Walker Blog Guidelines” into Google.) Other issues and questions the participants were asked to consider were:
- Will the blog be written by a single voice or multiple voices?
- Who will moderate the content?
- How much should the blog reflect the museum’s main website?
- How can you promote your blog to increase readership?
- How often will you update the museum’s blog?
Charlotte reminded us that a blog is merely a tool to communicate with today’s tech-savvy museum audience. One of the essential lessons I learned from this session was that the relevance of the blog’s content is what will ultimately drive traffic to your blog. So, if your museum is thinking about starting one, Sexton reminded us to “Start with the purpose, not the technology.” And so I did…
During this technology session I created my own blog as a way to document my experiences at AAM and beyond. Check out Margaret’s Museum Mumbles, http://museummumbles.blogspot.com/. I began the tutorial confused and clueless about blogs but came out realizing that they are a fun and relatively easy way to connect with your audience. Really, the hardest part about blogging seems to be remembering to update it regularly and keeping strong opinions and feelings in check. It is quite tempting to “let it all out” as you would in a private journal but it’s important to remember that because it is posted on the worldwide web, you never know who will be reading it!
Recap
As a first time participant I was both inspired and overwhelmed by the conference. There were so many sessions that sounded fascinating and I found myself wishing there was someway I could use my Second Life avatar to fly from one session to another so I could experience them all. I left Philadelphia feeling like I had learned about some possibilities for using technology to enhance visitor learning and interaction but ultimately realizing that technology alone is not the answer. I am definitely looking forward to the conference in Los Angeles next spring!
Margaret Aiken is currently pursuing her Master's degree in museum education at Tufts University. This summer she will be an intern in the education department at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To The Museum
Network Summer 2009
By Valerie Albanese-Fraher, New York-based Museum Professional
Review of “Identity-Related Visit Motivations: Tools for Supporting the Museum Experience,” chaired by John Falk, Professor in Free Choice Learning, Oregon State University at the 2009 AAM conference.
“Visitors may not be sure why they are there and we don’t give them a clue,” said John Falk, elaborating on the need for “improving visitor experiences in diverse museums” by understanding their motivations for visiting. People visit museums for many different reasons. Their reasons are not necessarily a part of their permanent identities but rather are based on a context of time and space extending beyond the walls of the museum.
In considering this, I was inspired to reflect on my motivations related to a recent (spontaneous) trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. My evening went something like this:
Review of “Identity-Related Visit Motivations: Tools for Supporting the Museum Experience,” chaired by John Falk, Professor in Free Choice Learning, Oregon State University at the 2009 AAM conference.
“Visitors may not be sure why they are there and we don’t give them a clue,” said John Falk, elaborating on the need for “improving visitor experiences in diverse museums” by understanding their motivations for visiting. People visit museums for many different reasons. Their reasons are not necessarily a part of their permanent identities but rather are based on a context of time and space extending beyond the walls of the museum.
In considering this, I was inspired to reflect on my motivations related to a recent (spontaneous) trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. My evening went something like this:
5:30 p.m.: Read an interesting article from Time Out New York indicating that a couple of comedians were going to lead an unofficial tour at the MET. That was my hook! I’ve been to the museum before but never to listen to comedians humorize art.
7:30 p.m.: Met my husband in front of the MET. The tour was scheduled to begin on the museum’s front steps at 8 p.m. Since we arrived early, we purchased our tickets and decided to do some independent exploration of the galleries.
7:45 p.m.: While gallery hopping we talked more about our day than the art around us. With grumbling stomachs, we circled the museum’s café a couple of times (like vultures) contemplating menu choices but, indecisiveness got the better of us. Instead we found a bench, sat, and people-watched. The museum was pretty crowded and we were too tired to get lost in this big bustling space.
7:55 p.m.: We decided to venture beyond the museum in search of more dining options. Upon leaving, we saw a large group on the outside steps and assumed this must be our tour with the comedians. We quickly hopped in a cab and rode away, saving our art laughs for another day.
I don’t think I’ve ever spent under a half hour in a museum before! Our motivations for this visit kept changing. Initially we intended to tour the galleries with comedians however, once at the museum we were curious about dining options. Ultimately recharging our batteries was the best part of this experience. As John Falk explained during his opening remarks, people visit museums for numerous reasons and with varying expectations. Falk identified the following identity-related motivations:
- The Explorer: motivated by personal curiosity.
- The Facilitator: motivated by/because of another person (such as a parent bringing a child to the museum).
- The Experience Seeker: motivated to see and experience places (such as a tourist visiting a new city).
- The Professional Hobbyist: motivated by specific knowledge-related goals.
- The Recharger: motivated by contemplative/restorative experience.
As research supports the claim that the majority of museum goers can be categorized as visiting for one or some combination of these five related reasons, some museums are already incorporating these ideas into their exhibits, programs, partnerships and staff training. Session presenters shared how they applied these concepts in their institutions.
Jim Covel, Manager, Guest Experience Training & Interpretation at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, facilitated an engaging presentation to demonstrate how his staff interacts with visitors to “pin down motivations” by first asking questions and following up with suggestions of activities and exhibits to visit based on the visitor’s response. Covel stressed the importance of bringing staff into the conversation of why it is important to understand visitor motivations and to be sure to get “everyone on board” with methods and applications.
While Covel’s strategies focus on the interactions between visitor and staff, Judith Koke, Deputy Director, Education and Public Programming at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, elaborated on how her museum utilized visit-related motivational identity theory as a planning tool for the museum’s new expansion’s layout and design. Museum staff members came up with innovative approaches. To satisfy explorers, they installed summary interpretive text panels and conduct mini tours. For rechargers, they play ambient music in selected galleries. Experience seekers enjoy a café in the middle of one of the galleries (this area is a great stop for visitors-on-the-go to enjoy a beverage and a great view of the city while being surrounded by art).
Our audiences have a variety of motivations in visiting museums. How can we embrace these motivations as part of their experience? Photo: Lynn Museum and Historical Society, May 2007 by Valerie Albanese-Fraher.
As demonstrated by these examples, numerous strategies and approaches can be applied to meeting your visitors’ needs. In considering your options, it is important to keep in mind that the needs of visitors change and that there is no hierarchy of motivations. Embrace these varying motivations and challenge yourself to incorporate opportunities of interest with different needs in mind. Seek support of staff and spark conversations with visitors to gage what they want and expect. Be creative with your approaches, experiment, and share your findings!
Note: John Falk’s new book, Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience, will soon be available from Left Coast Press.
Valerie Albanese Fraher is a graduate of the Tufts University Master’s of Arts in Museum Education Program and recently relocated to New York City where she is actively seeking employment, spending her free time blogging (www.valeriealbanese.wordpress.com) and museum hopping. This article is adapted from her original blog post, “Riddle Me This: Why Do People Visit Museums?” at http://valeriealbanese.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/riddle-me-this-why-do-people-visit-museums/
What is Authenticity?
Network Summer 2009
By Ann Caspari, Early Childhood Education Specialist at National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Review of “What Do We Mean By Real? Debating Authenticity in Museums,” chaired by Stephanie Weaver, Visitor Experience Consultant, 2009 AAM conference.
In this very provocative session, representatives from a science museum, a living history site and an art museum presented ways in which their own museums have struggled with “what is acceptably fake and where to draw the line.” Lured in part by seeing Mary Kay Cunningham’s name among the presenters and not really sure what to expect I sat down in the session to find… no Mary Kay, but plenty of thought-provoking surprises and even emotional moments.
Wayne LaBar of the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey spoke first and focused on the authenticity of the interactive exhibitions that we find in science centers. These interactive are fun and exciting learning opportunities for children and adults alike. However, what is the relationship of this kind of experience to the actual experience of “doing science?” What are scientists actually working on today and how do these museum experiences provide authentic science experiences? For me, this is an important question not to be taken lightly. Too often, in all kinds of museums, interactive components are added to exhibitions without thoughtful consideration of whether they really add measurably to the learning environment.
Rob Lukens opened his talk by introducing his museum, Historic Yellow Springs. He wove an engaging tale of the history of the site, smattered with the kind of lively information that audiences enjoy—the name was derived from the Lenape Indian name for the place, that bodies are buried on the grounds…all information that has existed in the museum’s interpretation of the site, but is unauthenticated. Anyone who has worked at a historic site is familiar with the myths and folklore that build up. How should we deal with these myths when they are beloved by the interpretive staff and public alike? What if the myth is integral to the public’s understanding of the place? One suggestion was to sort out which of the myths are outright falsehoods and which could quite possibly be true but cannot be authenticated. Some of these myths could continue to be included in interpretation as long as they are identified as folklore and not fact.
Kelly McKinley of the Art Gallery of Ontario was the final provocateur of the group. She described what happened at her museum when an installation artist created an artwork in a historic site associated with the museum. The artwork mimicked an archeological dig and created the story of a fictitious person—and her intriguing activities—who purportedly once lived in the house. The fact that the piece was art and not “real” was not revealed to the interpretive staff of the museum or the visitors until the exhibition ended.
This last example of a museum’s struggle with authenticity was perhaps the most provocative. Audience members responded to the story in a variety of ways and in the Q&A expressed the range of emotions that the piece brought out in them. Some were quite offended and felt that the artwork undermined museum work and the work of archeologists and anthropologists. They pointed out that museums benefit from being highly trusted institutions and questioned whether it is wise to play with the public’s trust. Other participants found this artwork to be powerful its ability to evoke the past. Even a secondary experience of hearing about the artwork caused us to question, feel strong emotions, and wake up. Is this not exactly what this type of art is meant to do? Why can’t history harness this technique as an interpretive tool?
All three presenters gave us a great deal to think about with regard to boundaries, authenticity of objects and experiences, and what it means in diverse kinds of museums.
Ann Caspari specializes in early childhood in museums and currently working with 3 to 8 year olds at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. She coauthored a book on inquiry learning with Carol Kuhlthau, a professor of Library Studies from Rutgers University and Leslie Maniotes, a curriculum specialist, titled Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. Ann serves on the MER board.
By Ann Caspari, Early Childhood Education Specialist at National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Review of “What Do We Mean By Real? Debating Authenticity in Museums,” chaired by Stephanie Weaver, Visitor Experience Consultant, 2009 AAM conference.
In this very provocative session, representatives from a science museum, a living history site and an art museum presented ways in which their own museums have struggled with “what is acceptably fake and where to draw the line.” Lured in part by seeing Mary Kay Cunningham’s name among the presenters and not really sure what to expect I sat down in the session to find… no Mary Kay, but plenty of thought-provoking surprises and even emotional moments.
Wayne LaBar of the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey spoke first and focused on the authenticity of the interactive exhibitions that we find in science centers. These interactive are fun and exciting learning opportunities for children and adults alike. However, what is the relationship of this kind of experience to the actual experience of “doing science?” What are scientists actually working on today and how do these museum experiences provide authentic science experiences? For me, this is an important question not to be taken lightly. Too often, in all kinds of museums, interactive components are added to exhibitions without thoughtful consideration of whether they really add measurably to the learning environment.
Rob Lukens opened his talk by introducing his museum, Historic Yellow Springs. He wove an engaging tale of the history of the site, smattered with the kind of lively information that audiences enjoy—the name was derived from the Lenape Indian name for the place, that bodies are buried on the grounds…all information that has existed in the museum’s interpretation of the site, but is unauthenticated. Anyone who has worked at a historic site is familiar with the myths and folklore that build up. How should we deal with these myths when they are beloved by the interpretive staff and public alike? What if the myth is integral to the public’s understanding of the place? One suggestion was to sort out which of the myths are outright falsehoods and which could quite possibly be true but cannot be authenticated. Some of these myths could continue to be included in interpretation as long as they are identified as folklore and not fact.
Kelly McKinley of the Art Gallery of Ontario was the final provocateur of the group. She described what happened at her museum when an installation artist created an artwork in a historic site associated with the museum. The artwork mimicked an archeological dig and created the story of a fictitious person—and her intriguing activities—who purportedly once lived in the house. The fact that the piece was art and not “real” was not revealed to the interpretive staff of the museum or the visitors until the exhibition ended.
This last example of a museum’s struggle with authenticity was perhaps the most provocative. Audience members responded to the story in a variety of ways and in the Q&A expressed the range of emotions that the piece brought out in them. Some were quite offended and felt that the artwork undermined museum work and the work of archeologists and anthropologists. They pointed out that museums benefit from being highly trusted institutions and questioned whether it is wise to play with the public’s trust. Other participants found this artwork to be powerful its ability to evoke the past. Even a secondary experience of hearing about the artwork caused us to question, feel strong emotions, and wake up. Is this not exactly what this type of art is meant to do? Why can’t history harness this technique as an interpretive tool?
All three presenters gave us a great deal to think about with regard to boundaries, authenticity of objects and experiences, and what it means in diverse kinds of museums.
Ann Caspari specializes in early childhood in museums and currently working with 3 to 8 year olds at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. She coauthored a book on inquiry learning with Carol Kuhlthau, a professor of Library Studies from Rutgers University and Leslie Maniotes, a curriculum specialist, titled Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. Ann serves on the MER board.
Contemplating our Practice
Network Summer 2009
By Stacy Fuller, Head of Education, Amon Carter Museum
At the National Art Education Association’s annual conference in Minneapolis this April there was one word that kept running through my head as I attended sessions: reflect. Reflect as an action word, not showy or ineffectual, but quiet, considerate, and constant.
During Kelly McKinley’s keynote address at the museum division pre-conference, which discussed the Art Gallery of Ontario’s visitor-centered installation, she challenged each of us to consider our museum’s core values and how we could address them as an entire staff on a regular basis. In the session Art Museum Education: What Do We Value? led by Victoria Ramirez from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and William Crow from the Met, I was inspired to think about each audience that my museum’s education programs serve and contemplate what I value about what we’re doing now and what we could be doing in the future. David Ebitz’s session, Questioning the Litany: Ten False (?) Truths about Museum Education, pushed me to consider what I actually believe about my personal practice and professional place as a museum educator—both institutionally and in the field—and reminded me that the beliefs that I hold (whether founded or not) can remarkably impact my effectiveness. And after Dabney Hailey’s session, A Collaborative Approach to Installing a University Art Museum’s Permanent Collection: The Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, I left with a renewed appreciation of semantics and how the language that I use within the education department and with curators, administrators, and our board of directors has the possibility of uniting visions that, because the terms we use are often so different, at first appear to be at odds.
Many conference sessions showcase best practices in programming that inspire attendees to develop new initiatives of their own. However, during this time when the economy has forced many museum educators to struggle to maintain established programs, let alone start new ones, the idea of reflection seemed especially pertinent. How much of my time as a museum educator is spent reflecting on my practice and encouraging my team to do the same compared to delivering programs? Do we take enough time to truly consider how we can best serve various audiences and how we can modify existing programs to better serve them as they evolve? Do we leave the “big picture” reflection of strategic planning and evaluation to other staff members, or are we making our voice heard as those who should always be the first champion of visitors?
As I further investigated the word reflect, another definition crossed my path: to bend or fold back. After considering our practice and values, it is often necessary to rethink or modify our beliefs…in other words, to bend or fold back. By doing so, we’ll create a cycle that will consistently improve us as museum educators and, in turn, help us better serve the collections and public that we love so much.
Stacy Fuller is the Head of Education at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, where she oversees all aspects of programs and services and specializes in educator and accessible programs. She holds a M.A. in art history and a B.A. in museum management. She joined the board of the Museum Education Roundtable in October 2008.
By Stacy Fuller, Head of Education, Amon Carter Museum
At the National Art Education Association’s annual conference in Minneapolis this April there was one word that kept running through my head as I attended sessions: reflect. Reflect as an action word, not showy or ineffectual, but quiet, considerate, and constant.
During Kelly McKinley’s keynote address at the museum division pre-conference, which discussed the Art Gallery of Ontario’s visitor-centered installation, she challenged each of us to consider our museum’s core values and how we could address them as an entire staff on a regular basis. In the session Art Museum Education: What Do We Value? led by Victoria Ramirez from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and William Crow from the Met, I was inspired to think about each audience that my museum’s education programs serve and contemplate what I value about what we’re doing now and what we could be doing in the future. David Ebitz’s session, Questioning the Litany: Ten False (?) Truths about Museum Education, pushed me to consider what I actually believe about my personal practice and professional place as a museum educator—both institutionally and in the field—and reminded me that the beliefs that I hold (whether founded or not) can remarkably impact my effectiveness. And after Dabney Hailey’s session, A Collaborative Approach to Installing a University Art Museum’s Permanent Collection: The Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, I left with a renewed appreciation of semantics and how the language that I use within the education department and with curators, administrators, and our board of directors has the possibility of uniting visions that, because the terms we use are often so different, at first appear to be at odds.
Many conference sessions showcase best practices in programming that inspire attendees to develop new initiatives of their own. However, during this time when the economy has forced many museum educators to struggle to maintain established programs, let alone start new ones, the idea of reflection seemed especially pertinent. How much of my time as a museum educator is spent reflecting on my practice and encouraging my team to do the same compared to delivering programs? Do we take enough time to truly consider how we can best serve various audiences and how we can modify existing programs to better serve them as they evolve? Do we leave the “big picture” reflection of strategic planning and evaluation to other staff members, or are we making our voice heard as those who should always be the first champion of visitors?
As I further investigated the word reflect, another definition crossed my path: to bend or fold back. After considering our practice and values, it is often necessary to rethink or modify our beliefs…in other words, to bend or fold back. By doing so, we’ll create a cycle that will consistently improve us as museum educators and, in turn, help us better serve the collections and public that we love so much.
Stacy Fuller is the Head of Education at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, where she oversees all aspects of programs and services and specializes in educator and accessible programs. She holds a M.A. in art history and a B.A. in museum management. She joined the board of the Museum Education Roundtable in October 2008.
Museum Education: Lectures Out, Conversations In!
Network Summer 2009
By Wanessa Tillman, Museum Studies Student, Tufts University
Review of “Museum Education 101: Program Development and Presentation,” chaired by
Jim Hakala, Assistant Director, Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado, at the 2009 AAM conference.
Being new to the field of museum education, I was glad to find a session that offered a presentation on the basic approach museums take towards education. I was pleasantly surprised when this session exceeded my expectations by being so practical and engaging. The session revolved around the concept that the primary goal of museum education “is to facilitate the interaction between the visitor and the objects and ideas of the collection.” Not only did Jim and presenter Erik Holland of the Minnesota Historical Society talk about this on a conceptual level through the ideas of Freeman Tilden in Interpreting our Heritage, but they also provided useful tools that can help accomplish this goal.
Both presenters firmly believe that museum education is about much more than filling visitor’s heads with information. It is really about finding ways to help visitors connect with objects and having information flow from that interaction. Jim Hakala is an excellent and engaging speaker. He shared stories from his life to illustrate how important it is to use techniques that bring visitor and object together in order to create a more meaningful experience and how, just as importantly, opportunities to engage visitors can be lost when interactive techniques are not used. I really appreciated the part of the session when Jim presented the audience with an object and asked each of us for one word to describe our initial reaction to it. We all came up with different words, which helped to demonstrate that a single object can mean different things to different people. The presenters also demonstrated how meanings can evolve through interpretation. When we learned that what most of us thought to be just an ordinary rock was actually a chunk from the Berlin wall, our feelings about it changed completely.
Erik Holland also used examples from his extensive experience to show other methods of helping visitors use what they know to connect to objects, places and events of the past. He told us that he often has to interpret events in places that no longer have any physical structures. In one instance, he had to demonstrate the impact of the plague on a small community. Standing in a circle he gave each student an important role in the town such as general store keeper or farmer. He then asked a percentage of students that represented the impact of the plague on the town sit down. The remaining students had to figure out how the community would function without their neighbors in some of the vital roles that were lost. This creative method had more impact and was more meaningful than if this information had been presented as pure lecture.
The session definitely lived up to its description of providing practical “how-to” techniques for creating education programs. During the session we walked through a program development tool and a program planning tool that demonstrated two different approaches to program development. Both planning strategies achieve the same goal but are structured differently to accommodate types of programs and personal style. These helpful tools are still available as downloads on AAM’s website. (http://www.projectionnet.com/AAMHandouts2009/PDFbyday.aspx. Choose “Saturday” and the “Museum Education 101” and follow the prompts.)
Sadly, an additional presenter, Mary Kay Cunningham, could not attend the session. However, Erik and Jim noted that her book, The Interpreters Training Manual for Museums, is an excellent resource. They also recommended a free, on-line course called “Foundations of Interpretation” provided by the National Park Service that can be accessed at http://www.parktraining.org/.
This session filled my toolbox with tangible resources and served to reinforce the methods taught in my graduate school courses as well as at a major museum where I am a volunteer museum teacher. This was hands-down my favorite session at the conference.
Wanessa Tillman is moving into the museum education field after many years in corporate education in the financial services industry.
By Wanessa Tillman, Museum Studies Student, Tufts University
Review of “Museum Education 101: Program Development and Presentation,” chaired by
Jim Hakala, Assistant Director, Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado, at the 2009 AAM conference.
Being new to the field of museum education, I was glad to find a session that offered a presentation on the basic approach museums take towards education. I was pleasantly surprised when this session exceeded my expectations by being so practical and engaging. The session revolved around the concept that the primary goal of museum education “is to facilitate the interaction between the visitor and the objects and ideas of the collection.” Not only did Jim and presenter Erik Holland of the Minnesota Historical Society talk about this on a conceptual level through the ideas of Freeman Tilden in Interpreting our Heritage, but they also provided useful tools that can help accomplish this goal.
Both presenters firmly believe that museum education is about much more than filling visitor’s heads with information. It is really about finding ways to help visitors connect with objects and having information flow from that interaction. Jim Hakala is an excellent and engaging speaker. He shared stories from his life to illustrate how important it is to use techniques that bring visitor and object together in order to create a more meaningful experience and how, just as importantly, opportunities to engage visitors can be lost when interactive techniques are not used. I really appreciated the part of the session when Jim presented the audience with an object and asked each of us for one word to describe our initial reaction to it. We all came up with different words, which helped to demonstrate that a single object can mean different things to different people. The presenters also demonstrated how meanings can evolve through interpretation. When we learned that what most of us thought to be just an ordinary rock was actually a chunk from the Berlin wall, our feelings about it changed completely.
Erik Holland also used examples from his extensive experience to show other methods of helping visitors use what they know to connect to objects, places and events of the past. He told us that he often has to interpret events in places that no longer have any physical structures. In one instance, he had to demonstrate the impact of the plague on a small community. Standing in a circle he gave each student an important role in the town such as general store keeper or farmer. He then asked a percentage of students that represented the impact of the plague on the town sit down. The remaining students had to figure out how the community would function without their neighbors in some of the vital roles that were lost. This creative method had more impact and was more meaningful than if this information had been presented as pure lecture.
The session definitely lived up to its description of providing practical “how-to” techniques for creating education programs. During the session we walked through a program development tool and a program planning tool that demonstrated two different approaches to program development. Both planning strategies achieve the same goal but are structured differently to accommodate types of programs and personal style. These helpful tools are still available as downloads on AAM’s website. (http://www.projectionnet.com/AAMHandouts2009/PDFbyday.aspx. Choose “Saturday” and the “Museum Education 101” and follow the prompts.)
Sadly, an additional presenter, Mary Kay Cunningham, could not attend the session. However, Erik and Jim noted that her book, The Interpreters Training Manual for Museums, is an excellent resource. They also recommended a free, on-line course called “Foundations of Interpretation” provided by the National Park Service that can be accessed at http://www.parktraining.org/.
This session filled my toolbox with tangible resources and served to reinforce the methods taught in my graduate school courses as well as at a major museum where I am a volunteer museum teacher. This was hands-down my favorite session at the conference.
Wanessa Tillman is moving into the museum education field after many years in corporate education in the financial services industry.
Jeopardy: The Game and The Session
Network Summer 2009
By Julie Rose, West Baton Rouge Museum, Port Allen, LA
Review of “Museo-jeopardy: Are You Smarter than a Museum Technologist?” Chaired by Douglas Hegley, Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Metropolitan Museum of Art, at the 2009 AAM conference.
I have been thinking more critically about the conference sessions that promise to be different in format. As a long time museum educator I am especially keen on learning about new information delivery models. The 2009 AAM meeting in Philadelphia included an array of relevant and exciting sessions and one in particular piqued my interest because it promised a new session style. I highlighted the listing in my program and decided to attend, even though the subject matter, technology, was not my field of expertise. I was ready to stretch my comfort zone and was the first person seated for the session, “Museo-jeopardy: Are You Smarter than a Museum Technologist?” I knew the answer; I was not smarter than a museum technologist.
The session opened with the theme music from the television game show and the session chair, Douglas Hegley, welcomed the audience. He introduced the panelists who competed for points by selecting answers from the projected game board and offered the correct questions (like the game show). Encouraged by applause signs and sigh signs the audience quickly engaged, cheering on and later questioning the panelists. The technology language, words like crowd sourcing, social tagging, augmented reality, Audio Boo, and jpeg 2000, flowed easily among panelists and audience members, while I was jotting down key words to Google later that day. In addition to a small collection of mildly useful factoids about museum technology, I learned that museum technology was a far deeper field than I had imagined. Museum technology clearly rests within the world of large museums that can support highly skilled IT staff who are creative agents solving multiple problems and developing methods for museum workers throughout the institution. It was eye opening for me to see that while I have been working for three decades in small and mid size museums, a simultaneous universe of larger museums has been engaged in developing museum technology that is so much more than the data systems, exhibit genies, promotional tools, and word processing I was familiar with. It was the same kind of epiphany one might experience after graduating to realize that you still have so much to learn!
In regards to the session format, I think there are possibilities in game-show-learning-strategies for conference sessions and perhaps in museum settings. Learning with laughter is an emotionally charged kind of learning that relaxes audience members enough to stop thinking about what they know and to start thinking about what they don’t know and now want to learn about.
Julie Rose is the director of the West Baton Rouge Museum in Port Allen, Louisiana. www.westbatonrougemuseum.com. In addition to serving on the MER board, she is a member of the Southeastern Museum Conference 2010 Program Committee, chairs the AASLH 2011 Conference Program Committee, and sits on the board of the Lagniappe Dulcimer Society.
By Julie Rose, West Baton Rouge Museum, Port Allen, LA
Review of “Museo-jeopardy: Are You Smarter than a Museum Technologist?” Chaired by Douglas Hegley, Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Metropolitan Museum of Art, at the 2009 AAM conference.
I have been thinking more critically about the conference sessions that promise to be different in format. As a long time museum educator I am especially keen on learning about new information delivery models. The 2009 AAM meeting in Philadelphia included an array of relevant and exciting sessions and one in particular piqued my interest because it promised a new session style. I highlighted the listing in my program and decided to attend, even though the subject matter, technology, was not my field of expertise. I was ready to stretch my comfort zone and was the first person seated for the session, “Museo-jeopardy: Are You Smarter than a Museum Technologist?” I knew the answer; I was not smarter than a museum technologist.
The session opened with the theme music from the television game show and the session chair, Douglas Hegley, welcomed the audience. He introduced the panelists who competed for points by selecting answers from the projected game board and offered the correct questions (like the game show). Encouraged by applause signs and sigh signs the audience quickly engaged, cheering on and later questioning the panelists. The technology language, words like crowd sourcing, social tagging, augmented reality, Audio Boo, and jpeg 2000, flowed easily among panelists and audience members, while I was jotting down key words to Google later that day. In addition to a small collection of mildly useful factoids about museum technology, I learned that museum technology was a far deeper field than I had imagined. Museum technology clearly rests within the world of large museums that can support highly skilled IT staff who are creative agents solving multiple problems and developing methods for museum workers throughout the institution. It was eye opening for me to see that while I have been working for three decades in small and mid size museums, a simultaneous universe of larger museums has been engaged in developing museum technology that is so much more than the data systems, exhibit genies, promotional tools, and word processing I was familiar with. It was the same kind of epiphany one might experience after graduating to realize that you still have so much to learn!
In regards to the session format, I think there are possibilities in game-show-learning-strategies for conference sessions and perhaps in museum settings. Learning with laughter is an emotionally charged kind of learning that relaxes audience members enough to stop thinking about what they know and to start thinking about what they don’t know and now want to learn about.
Julie Rose is the director of the West Baton Rouge Museum in Port Allen, Louisiana. www.westbatonrougemuseum.com. In addition to serving on the MER board, she is a member of the Southeastern Museum Conference 2010 Program Committee, chairs the AASLH 2011 Conference Program Committee, and sits on the board of the Lagniappe Dulcimer Society.
Say it Loud, Say it Proud
Network Summer 2009
By Tania Said, Curator of Education, Ball State University Museum of Art
Tips gleaned from “Public Speaking Workshop,” co-presented by George Buss, Director of Experience and Education, Minnetrista and president of IMTAL, and Paul Taylor, Traveling Science Show/Community Outreach Manager, Franklin Institute, and past IMTAL president at the 2009 AAM conference.
As educators, we do a fair amount of teaching and public speaking in our jobs, so it came as a surprise when I learned more than the usual at an International Museum Theatre Alliance (IMTAL) session I attended at the American Association of Museums Annual Meeting in Philadelphia this spring.
Since I was doing “A Day in the Life” session about my work right afterwards, I thought I would gain some valuable tips by going to hear some public speaking reminders first.
First of all the presenters themselves were the models of good speaking and energetic to boot at 8 a.m.! Both confided that neither of them had had their coffee, but herbal tea (without caffeine) or water are good instead. They advised avoiding orange juice because of the mucus buildup, which impedes how your voice carries, which was more than I wanted to really know, but hey, I remember it now.
They gave many tips. Ground yourself mentally and physically first (if you know yoga, think mountain pose)—the solid footing of confidence is not to be underestimated. To rev up your vocal chords do mouth stretches, and open and close your mouth to help vowel annunciation. You also want to massage your neck where the base of the tongue is (it’s more tense than you think!) so that good clear consonant sounds emerge. These are especially handy to do when you are waiting to speak, though you may want to choose a moment when you cannot be seen.
Microphones are often tricky for speakers. The speakers reminded us to take the time to adjust it to the right height. Having a microphone directly in front of your mouth limits audience members from understanding all you have to say because seeing helps listeners to better understand what you are saying. Since you have that microphone, you always want to repeat the questions back. I was amazed how many people did not do that in other sessions.
Me, I can be a fast talker. So when the presenters took a drink break to relax and slow down I saw that it really is not that much time at all when you are sitting in the audience.
How will I use all this valuable information? In addition to helping my own presentations, I will do a public speaking review as one of my early docent trainings, and prepare a speaking tip sheet for all my presenters at public programs. It may seem like overkill since they usually know to speak with passion, keep their talks within the time limit, and master their material, but given my own experience a few tips never hurt.
So the irony of all of this is that I had to travel all the way to Philadelphia to hear and learn from a fellow museum colleague from Muncie, George Buss. I even know his work—he’s presented to my docents about incorporating theater techniques in their tours—and yet I still learned something new. I guess we all can stand to learn more about the knowledge and skills of our colleagues!
Having not attended the conference for four years, it was good to see so many good sessions in the areas of interpretation, technology, and creativity, but this public speaking session was so specific and immediately transferable that it will stay with me for a long time.
Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg of what was said about public speaking. Best of all for those who could not be there, IMTAL has a handout on their website that they offer to anyone free of charge, at http://www.imtal.org/ . Currently it’s on the homepage under “What’s New at IMTAL.”
Tania Said is a board member of the Museum Education Roundtable and is having fun this summer offering a new program called “Mirth in the Museum” with laughing yoga and a look at some of the humorous works of art in the collection. Bring on the hilarity and merriment!
By Tania Said, Curator of Education, Ball State University Museum of Art
Tips gleaned from “Public Speaking Workshop,” co-presented by George Buss, Director of Experience and Education, Minnetrista and president of IMTAL, and Paul Taylor, Traveling Science Show/Community Outreach Manager, Franklin Institute, and past IMTAL president at the 2009 AAM conference.
As educators, we do a fair amount of teaching and public speaking in our jobs, so it came as a surprise when I learned more than the usual at an International Museum Theatre Alliance (IMTAL) session I attended at the American Association of Museums Annual Meeting in Philadelphia this spring.
Since I was doing “A Day in the Life” session about my work right afterwards, I thought I would gain some valuable tips by going to hear some public speaking reminders first.
First of all the presenters themselves were the models of good speaking and energetic to boot at 8 a.m.! Both confided that neither of them had had their coffee, but herbal tea (without caffeine) or water are good instead. They advised avoiding orange juice because of the mucus buildup, which impedes how your voice carries, which was more than I wanted to really know, but hey, I remember it now.
They gave many tips. Ground yourself mentally and physically first (if you know yoga, think mountain pose)—the solid footing of confidence is not to be underestimated. To rev up your vocal chords do mouth stretches, and open and close your mouth to help vowel annunciation. You also want to massage your neck where the base of the tongue is (it’s more tense than you think!) so that good clear consonant sounds emerge. These are especially handy to do when you are waiting to speak, though you may want to choose a moment when you cannot be seen.
Microphones are often tricky for speakers. The speakers reminded us to take the time to adjust it to the right height. Having a microphone directly in front of your mouth limits audience members from understanding all you have to say because seeing helps listeners to better understand what you are saying. Since you have that microphone, you always want to repeat the questions back. I was amazed how many people did not do that in other sessions.
Me, I can be a fast talker. So when the presenters took a drink break to relax and slow down I saw that it really is not that much time at all when you are sitting in the audience.
How will I use all this valuable information? In addition to helping my own presentations, I will do a public speaking review as one of my early docent trainings, and prepare a speaking tip sheet for all my presenters at public programs. It may seem like overkill since they usually know to speak with passion, keep their talks within the time limit, and master their material, but given my own experience a few tips never hurt.
So the irony of all of this is that I had to travel all the way to Philadelphia to hear and learn from a fellow museum colleague from Muncie, George Buss. I even know his work—he’s presented to my docents about incorporating theater techniques in their tours—and yet I still learned something new. I guess we all can stand to learn more about the knowledge and skills of our colleagues!
Having not attended the conference for four years, it was good to see so many good sessions in the areas of interpretation, technology, and creativity, but this public speaking session was so specific and immediately transferable that it will stay with me for a long time.
Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg of what was said about public speaking. Best of all for those who could not be there, IMTAL has a handout on their website that they offer to anyone free of charge, at http://www.imtal.org/ . Currently it’s on the homepage under “What’s New at IMTAL.”
Tania Said is a board member of the Museum Education Roundtable and is having fun this summer offering a new program called “Mirth in the Museum” with laughing yoga and a look at some of the humorous works of art in the collection. Bring on the hilarity and merriment!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Network News: From the Editor
Network News: Spring 2009 Edition
From the Editor
Cynthia Robinson
Director, Tufts Museum Studies Program
It’s a busy time for museum educators—many are preparing for the spring onslaught of students, and at the same time coping with reduced staffs and budgets. So who has time to write for Network? Luckily, a few stalwart souls found time, and their thoughtful pieces here will inspire you and aid you with your work. Thus, this issue of Network is a mini-issue. Our next, which will report on AAM conference sessions, will be full-sized (maybe oversized!). So stay tuned, and as always, consider writing something yourself. Share your successes, challenges, questions, and issues with colleagues: it helps move the field forward.
Cheers,
Cynthia
From the Editor
Cynthia Robinson
Director, Tufts Museum Studies Program
It’s a busy time for museum educators—many are preparing for the spring onslaught of students, and at the same time coping with reduced staffs and budgets. So who has time to write for Network? Luckily, a few stalwart souls found time, and their thoughtful pieces here will inspire you and aid you with your work. Thus, this issue of Network is a mini-issue. Our next, which will report on AAM conference sessions, will be full-sized (maybe oversized!). So stay tuned, and as always, consider writing something yourself. Share your successes, challenges, questions, and issues with colleagues: it helps move the field forward.
Cheers,
Cynthia
Economy’s Impact on Museum Education and Educators
Network News: Spring 2009 Edition
By Cynthia Robinson, Network Editor
I am finding it hard to get a grip on the sour economy’s impact on museums. Newspapers occasionally contain articles about closings and layoffs. But newspaper coverage of the full range of museums has never been good, and with newspapers themselves downsizing, coverage is even more spotty.
I recently sent an email out to the MER board and a few members asking how the economy has affected programs, audience, staff, and budget. As you might suspect—even from this small survey—the responses are all over the place.
Probably the best news comes from Scott Winterrowd, Assistant Curator of Education at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Scott wrote, “My programs operate off of a Meadows Foundation Initiative that is not in endowment and therefore not losing money. We were given $36 million for new acquisitions and for education programs alone, so we are not really impacted (yet). I will say that the downturn has affected our local school districts. We are trying to find ways of getting groups here to us, and also to get some supplies to art teachers.” Scott goes on to point out that the money is restricted and does not cover staff salaries. However, “the university's endowment is also not as bad off as most, as of yet,” allowing the museum staff to “look forward with cautious optimism.”
Tania Said, the Curator of Education at the Ball State University Museum of Art in Muncie, Indiana, also reports that things are OK at the moment. She wrote, “The current economy has not yet had an impact on Ball State University Museum of Art educational programs, either in terms of funding or participation. Demand for services remains high with student enrollment stable and programs well attended, including school visits.” Her colleague, Carl Schafer, added, “Being part of a state university, the Ball State University Museum of Art is funded largely through the university’s general fund which is stable through our fiscal year ending June 2009. We have not faced significant cuts in our staff or public programs. Earnings from the museum’s endowments which supply acquisition funds are down significantly.”
Scott’s and Tania’s museums’ situations exemplify the benefit of having a buffering umbrella organization, in stark contrast to Brandeis University’s plans to plunder the Rose Museum (see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/arts/design/02rose.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=rose%20art%20museum&st=cse for more information about this debacle).
Museums within state, country, and local governments may be more apt to be feeling the pinch as officials scramble to reallocate dwindling resources over many services and departments. Jill Dixon, Visitor Services Chief of the Montgomery County Department of Parks and Heritage Services in Norristown, Pennsylvania, wrote, “Our Commissioners announced a hiring freeze on September 18, and we had several open positions… our historic sites operate on a shoestring in terms of personnel already.” To cover those gaping holes they reallocated and retrained some part-time workers and management filled in on weekends. Hiring freezes in maintenance and ranger departments “means less help at special events, less regular patrolling, etc.”
Jill goes on to say, “We had about $3 million in capital projects planned for this year which have been put on hold indefinitely… The bottom line for us is that we're trying for more grants, event sponsorships, etc. Grant applications have been successful, sponsorships less so at least so far— and since we are a government agency, it's hard to convince people we're worthy of that! We were also asked to reduce our operating by 5% in 2009 and as of yet, our raises for 2009 have been frozen until April 1.”
Fewer staff, fewer resources, but more visitors: “We don't charge admission at our historic sites so I actually expect MORE rather than less, especially at our special events. Our Civil War school event was booked (it's in late May) the DAY it was announced in January. We have some 700 kids coming and 700 on a waiting list! …We instituted a suggested $2/person donation at our historic sites late last summer and at least 2 of the sites have indicated an uptick in donations. But in comparison to what we do and how many we serve, it's a drop in the bucket.”
Although not a state organization, the Minnesota Historical Society’s finances also have been affected by the state budget. Erik Holland, Interpretive Program Specialist, wrote, “The Minnesota governor has ‘unalloted’ $600,000 from the MHS budget for Feb-June 2009. This money has been budgeted since the beginning of this biennium and much of the whole is already gone so is a pretty harsh pill to swallow. To be able to return this money to the state coffers, salaried staff are required to take from 2 to 8 unpaid ‘furlough’ days (depending on their salary—those making the most have to take the most) before the end of the biennium (end of June 09).” Erik notes that there are rumblings of additional reductions in budget and workforce. Folks are dreading the arrival of April 15, thought to be the “pink slip day for the 2010-2011 biennium.” Erik is coping with the uncertainty by doing “the absolute best I can, with what I have and what I can impact; not fretting over things I cannot impact; and at all turns do as much as possible to leave a positive legacy because I know that this is a pendulum swing. In times of downturn, planning is very important so when things turn the other direction those in a position to take advantage because of their planning will have a head start.”
Recently opened museums have their own rhythms of visitation and budgets, and the newly opened President Lincoln's Cottage (a site of the private, non-profit National Trust for Historic Preservation) is no exception. Jill Sanderson, former Curator of Education, reports that “President Lincoln's Cottage opened to the public February 19, 2008 and during its first year of operation there were 28,803 visitors. It is hard to gauge any effect from the recession because it is such a new site and does not have comparison statistics. In addition, 2009 is the Lincoln Bicentennial, the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, and Lincoln-related sites are popular with the increased focus on the 16th president. I think President Obama's admiration for Lincoln, revealed in his speeches and inauguration theme, may help as well. The raw numbers for the first quarter of 2009 are comparable to the first quarter of 2008 with a slight increase in student groups… Reservations for the upcoming spring season, a popular time for school and group visitors, seem to be on target, and may surpass last years’ attendance according to Administrative Assistant Katie Needham.”
So what is happening at your museum? What impact has the economy had upon your programs, audience, staff, and budget? Are you seeing more or fewer visitors? School groups? Has the recession forced you to do things in new ways... and are those proving to be effective? Share your solutions… and your woes with your colleagues.
Cynthia Robinson is the Director of the Museum Studies Program at Tufts University.
By Cynthia Robinson, Network Editor
I am finding it hard to get a grip on the sour economy’s impact on museums. Newspapers occasionally contain articles about closings and layoffs. But newspaper coverage of the full range of museums has never been good, and with newspapers themselves downsizing, coverage is even more spotty.
I recently sent an email out to the MER board and a few members asking how the economy has affected programs, audience, staff, and budget. As you might suspect—even from this small survey—the responses are all over the place.
Probably the best news comes from Scott Winterrowd, Assistant Curator of Education at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Scott wrote, “My programs operate off of a Meadows Foundation Initiative that is not in endowment and therefore not losing money. We were given $36 million for new acquisitions and for education programs alone, so we are not really impacted (yet). I will say that the downturn has affected our local school districts. We are trying to find ways of getting groups here to us, and also to get some supplies to art teachers.” Scott goes on to point out that the money is restricted and does not cover staff salaries. However, “the university's endowment is also not as bad off as most, as of yet,” allowing the museum staff to “look forward with cautious optimism.”
Tania Said, the Curator of Education at the Ball State University Museum of Art in Muncie, Indiana, also reports that things are OK at the moment. She wrote, “The current economy has not yet had an impact on Ball State University Museum of Art educational programs, either in terms of funding or participation. Demand for services remains high with student enrollment stable and programs well attended, including school visits.” Her colleague, Carl Schafer, added, “Being part of a state university, the Ball State University Museum of Art is funded largely through the university’s general fund which is stable through our fiscal year ending June 2009. We have not faced significant cuts in our staff or public programs. Earnings from the museum’s endowments which supply acquisition funds are down significantly.”
Scott’s and Tania’s museums’ situations exemplify the benefit of having a buffering umbrella organization, in stark contrast to Brandeis University’s plans to plunder the Rose Museum (see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/arts/design/02rose.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=rose%20art%20museum&st=cse for more information about this debacle).
Museums within state, country, and local governments may be more apt to be feeling the pinch as officials scramble to reallocate dwindling resources over many services and departments. Jill Dixon, Visitor Services Chief of the Montgomery County Department of Parks and Heritage Services in Norristown, Pennsylvania, wrote, “Our Commissioners announced a hiring freeze on September 18, and we had several open positions… our historic sites operate on a shoestring in terms of personnel already.” To cover those gaping holes they reallocated and retrained some part-time workers and management filled in on weekends. Hiring freezes in maintenance and ranger departments “means less help at special events, less regular patrolling, etc.”
Jill goes on to say, “We had about $3 million in capital projects planned for this year which have been put on hold indefinitely… The bottom line for us is that we're trying for more grants, event sponsorships, etc. Grant applications have been successful, sponsorships less so at least so far— and since we are a government agency, it's hard to convince people we're worthy of that! We were also asked to reduce our operating by 5% in 2009 and as of yet, our raises for 2009 have been frozen until April 1.”
Fewer staff, fewer resources, but more visitors: “We don't charge admission at our historic sites so I actually expect MORE rather than less, especially at our special events. Our Civil War school event was booked (it's in late May) the DAY it was announced in January. We have some 700 kids coming and 700 on a waiting list! …We instituted a suggested $2/person donation at our historic sites late last summer and at least 2 of the sites have indicated an uptick in donations. But in comparison to what we do and how many we serve, it's a drop in the bucket.”
Although not a state organization, the Minnesota Historical Society’s finances also have been affected by the state budget. Erik Holland, Interpretive Program Specialist, wrote, “The Minnesota governor has ‘unalloted’ $600,000 from the MHS budget for Feb-June 2009. This money has been budgeted since the beginning of this biennium and much of the whole is already gone so is a pretty harsh pill to swallow. To be able to return this money to the state coffers, salaried staff are required to take from 2 to 8 unpaid ‘furlough’ days (depending on their salary—those making the most have to take the most) before the end of the biennium (end of June 09).” Erik notes that there are rumblings of additional reductions in budget and workforce. Folks are dreading the arrival of April 15, thought to be the “pink slip day for the 2010-2011 biennium.” Erik is coping with the uncertainty by doing “the absolute best I can, with what I have and what I can impact; not fretting over things I cannot impact; and at all turns do as much as possible to leave a positive legacy because I know that this is a pendulum swing. In times of downturn, planning is very important so when things turn the other direction those in a position to take advantage because of their planning will have a head start.”
Recently opened museums have their own rhythms of visitation and budgets, and the newly opened President Lincoln's Cottage (a site of the private, non-profit National Trust for Historic Preservation) is no exception. Jill Sanderson, former Curator of Education, reports that “President Lincoln's Cottage opened to the public February 19, 2008 and during its first year of operation there were 28,803 visitors. It is hard to gauge any effect from the recession because it is such a new site and does not have comparison statistics. In addition, 2009 is the Lincoln Bicentennial, the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, and Lincoln-related sites are popular with the increased focus on the 16th president. I think President Obama's admiration for Lincoln, revealed in his speeches and inauguration theme, may help as well. The raw numbers for the first quarter of 2009 are comparable to the first quarter of 2008 with a slight increase in student groups… Reservations for the upcoming spring season, a popular time for school and group visitors, seem to be on target, and may surpass last years’ attendance according to Administrative Assistant Katie Needham.”
So what is happening at your museum? What impact has the economy had upon your programs, audience, staff, and budget? Are you seeing more or fewer visitors? School groups? Has the recession forced you to do things in new ways... and are those proving to be effective? Share your solutions… and your woes with your colleagues.
Cynthia Robinson is the Director of the Museum Studies Program at Tufts University.
Required Reading: Four Essentials for Educators in the Museum
Network News: Spring 2009 Edition
By Rebecca Dicks, Volunteer Educator at ICA Boston
“Let’s begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time.” Written in the early 1960’s during the American Civil Rights Movement, James Baldwin’s quotation is startlingly apt for today’s educational climate, even nearly fifty years later. Though edging into a new era of hope, our institutions are limping through economic crisis and the rapid and sometimes contradictory educational reform of so many divergent regimes.
I am not planning to directly address such tumult here, but rather to suggest a few key readings that might bolster wavering resolve, trigger some much needed museum-wide change, and inspire radical new educational philosophies and strategies. I have identified four such pieces from a spattering of exceptional teachers and mentors, and I am pleased to point out the diversity of voices included in my suggested readings. These writers, James Baldwin, Walter Benjamin, Eilean Hooper-Greenhill and Judy Rand, represent the voices of Black Americans and White Americans; heterosexuals and homosexuals; those writing in America and those writing abroad; Jews, Christians, and non-believers; and women as well as men.
James Baldwin’s “A Talk to Teachers”
Where can I find it? Baldwin: Collected Essays published by Penguin in 1998.
How long will it take me? To read this essay, it will likely take less time than an episode of Friends, but it will inhabit your mind for hours and perhaps days after.
What can I expect? In his poetic and truly inspirational manifesto, Baldwin reminds us of what good education does. “The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions…”
Why should I read it? Stressing critical thinking and media literacy before those were such hot education terms, Baldwin shares the secret to education: teach how to think, not what to think.
Judy Rand’s “The Visitors’ Bill of Rights”
Where can I find it? Reinventing the Museum: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Paradigm Shift edited by Gail Anderson and published by AltaMira Press in 2004.
How long will it take me? It should take only minutes to read these two pages, and it will take only a few more to scan it and send it to every museum person you know.
What can I expect? Rand enumerates very basic yet sometimes forgotten guidelines for facilitating learning and enhancing visitor comfort in the museum.
Why should I read it? Rand not only stresses accessibility in the content of her message but also does so quite effectively in her delivery. She lays out her suggestions in straight-forward, non-florid language, and she literally gives visitors a voice by adopting their perspective in quotation marks throughout the piece. An example of her super simple yet immensely important advice is, “Friendly, helpful staff ease visitors’ anxieties. If they see themselves represented in exhibits and programs and on the staff, they’ll feel more like they belong.”
Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
Where can I find it? Illuminations: Essays and Reflections published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. in 1968.
How long will it take me? Give yourself an hour or so to read this and digest. It will be well worth it though, even if you only brag about it to your colleagues.
What can I expect? A philosopher writing in the 1930’s, Benjamin has not written an easy piece.
Discussing the terms “aura” and “authenticity” in reference to Communist art and the new, more efficient and effective reproducibility of images, Benjamin speaks to a key current issue as well. Today a work can be photographed and uploaded to the web almost instantaneously, and web artwork has become a media in its own. Yet Benjamin reminds us that “the real thing” is valued, even if only perceived.
Why should I read it? Visitors have access to almost any kind of information at any time via the web. But visitors choose to visit artwork or other artifacts in a museum because they believe it will be a different kind of experience, an authentic experience. Benjamin writes, “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens be.”
Eilean Hooper-Greenhill’s The Educational Role of the Museum
Where can I find it? Published by Routledge in 1999, the second edition of this book is over 300 pages, but well-organized by topic so the reader may easily select which chapters are most relevant.
How long will it take me? You should be able to read it piecemeal in less than a month, or maybe you’ll just choose to skim it and keep it on hand for reference. Either way, it is worth getting your hands on.
What can I expect? Addressing the complex power relationships interacting between museum visitors and museum staff and the anxieties of inequity that plague many a visitor, Hooper-Greenhill writes, “Schools claim to offer an equality of educational opportunity to all, but children from different social and cultural backgrounds have manifestly different school experiences. Museums, too, claim to be for everyone, but both the visitor statistics and the research studies…insist that museums are not experienced equally by all.”
Why should I read it? Power relationships are present in all interactions and all learning experiences, and since they cannot be avoided, they must instead be openly addressed. Hooper-Greenhill reminds us that we are faced with heavy responsibility but also the opportunity for great change. She writes, “To perceive the educational role of the museum as a form of critical pedagogy entails understanding the museum within a context of cultural politics; it means acknowledging the constructivist approach to knowledge and to learning; and it means recognizing the fact that museums have the potential to negotiate cultural borderlands, and to create new contact zones where identities and collections, people and objects can discover new possibilities for personal and social life and, through this, for democracy.”
We are arbiters of taste, self-proclaimed experts, career makers and breakers, and stakeholders in our own game of collecting the authentic. But we are also facing crippling economic circumstances that may make us forget why we entered this career path in the first place. I hope that these key readings will entertain and inspire, will remind us of the simple things that we sometimes forget, will spark even more appreciation of our authentic objects, and will catalyze further critical thinking. Happy reading!
Rebecca Dicks is a recent graduate of the Tufts Museum Education Master's program and a volunteer educator at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. She is currently employed by Temple Israel, where she contributes to event planning and strategic communication efforts. Rebecca may be reached at rdicks@tisrael.org.
By Rebecca Dicks, Volunteer Educator at ICA Boston
“Let’s begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time.” Written in the early 1960’s during the American Civil Rights Movement, James Baldwin’s quotation is startlingly apt for today’s educational climate, even nearly fifty years later. Though edging into a new era of hope, our institutions are limping through economic crisis and the rapid and sometimes contradictory educational reform of so many divergent regimes.
I am not planning to directly address such tumult here, but rather to suggest a few key readings that might bolster wavering resolve, trigger some much needed museum-wide change, and inspire radical new educational philosophies and strategies. I have identified four such pieces from a spattering of exceptional teachers and mentors, and I am pleased to point out the diversity of voices included in my suggested readings. These writers, James Baldwin, Walter Benjamin, Eilean Hooper-Greenhill and Judy Rand, represent the voices of Black Americans and White Americans; heterosexuals and homosexuals; those writing in America and those writing abroad; Jews, Christians, and non-believers; and women as well as men.
James Baldwin’s “A Talk to Teachers”
Where can I find it? Baldwin: Collected Essays published by Penguin in 1998.
How long will it take me? To read this essay, it will likely take less time than an episode of Friends, but it will inhabit your mind for hours and perhaps days after.
What can I expect? In his poetic and truly inspirational manifesto, Baldwin reminds us of what good education does. “The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions…”
Why should I read it? Stressing critical thinking and media literacy before those were such hot education terms, Baldwin shares the secret to education: teach how to think, not what to think.
Judy Rand’s “The Visitors’ Bill of Rights”
Where can I find it? Reinventing the Museum: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Paradigm Shift edited by Gail Anderson and published by AltaMira Press in 2004.
How long will it take me? It should take only minutes to read these two pages, and it will take only a few more to scan it and send it to every museum person you know.
What can I expect? Rand enumerates very basic yet sometimes forgotten guidelines for facilitating learning and enhancing visitor comfort in the museum.
Why should I read it? Rand not only stresses accessibility in the content of her message but also does so quite effectively in her delivery. She lays out her suggestions in straight-forward, non-florid language, and she literally gives visitors a voice by adopting their perspective in quotation marks throughout the piece. An example of her super simple yet immensely important advice is, “Friendly, helpful staff ease visitors’ anxieties. If they see themselves represented in exhibits and programs and on the staff, they’ll feel more like they belong.”
Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
Where can I find it? Illuminations: Essays and Reflections published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. in 1968.
How long will it take me? Give yourself an hour or so to read this and digest. It will be well worth it though, even if you only brag about it to your colleagues.
What can I expect? A philosopher writing in the 1930’s, Benjamin has not written an easy piece.
Discussing the terms “aura” and “authenticity” in reference to Communist art and the new, more efficient and effective reproducibility of images, Benjamin speaks to a key current issue as well. Today a work can be photographed and uploaded to the web almost instantaneously, and web artwork has become a media in its own. Yet Benjamin reminds us that “the real thing” is valued, even if only perceived.
Why should I read it? Visitors have access to almost any kind of information at any time via the web. But visitors choose to visit artwork or other artifacts in a museum because they believe it will be a different kind of experience, an authentic experience. Benjamin writes, “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens be.”
Eilean Hooper-Greenhill’s The Educational Role of the Museum
Where can I find it? Published by Routledge in 1999, the second edition of this book is over 300 pages, but well-organized by topic so the reader may easily select which chapters are most relevant.
How long will it take me? You should be able to read it piecemeal in less than a month, or maybe you’ll just choose to skim it and keep it on hand for reference. Either way, it is worth getting your hands on.
What can I expect? Addressing the complex power relationships interacting between museum visitors and museum staff and the anxieties of inequity that plague many a visitor, Hooper-Greenhill writes, “Schools claim to offer an equality of educational opportunity to all, but children from different social and cultural backgrounds have manifestly different school experiences. Museums, too, claim to be for everyone, but both the visitor statistics and the research studies…insist that museums are not experienced equally by all.”
Why should I read it? Power relationships are present in all interactions and all learning experiences, and since they cannot be avoided, they must instead be openly addressed. Hooper-Greenhill reminds us that we are faced with heavy responsibility but also the opportunity for great change. She writes, “To perceive the educational role of the museum as a form of critical pedagogy entails understanding the museum within a context of cultural politics; it means acknowledging the constructivist approach to knowledge and to learning; and it means recognizing the fact that museums have the potential to negotiate cultural borderlands, and to create new contact zones where identities and collections, people and objects can discover new possibilities for personal and social life and, through this, for democracy.”
We are arbiters of taste, self-proclaimed experts, career makers and breakers, and stakeholders in our own game of collecting the authentic. But we are also facing crippling economic circumstances that may make us forget why we entered this career path in the first place. I hope that these key readings will entertain and inspire, will remind us of the simple things that we sometimes forget, will spark even more appreciation of our authentic objects, and will catalyze further critical thinking. Happy reading!
Rebecca Dicks is a recent graduate of the Tufts Museum Education Master's program and a volunteer educator at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. She is currently employed by Temple Israel, where she contributes to event planning and strategic communication efforts. Rebecca may be reached at rdicks@tisrael.org.
Lights, Camera, Educate!
Network News: Spring 2009 Edition
By Stacy Fuller, Head of Education, Amon Carter Museum
From social networking applications like Facebook and Twitter to interactive Web content like blogs, podcasts, and wikis, technology plays an active role in connecting visitors to museum collections—no matter where they live or whether they ever step foot in the building. At the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, museum educators daily unite technology and education through live, interactive videoconferencing programs delivered to over 16,000 students, educators, and seniors each year, equal to the number of participants in onsite fieldtrips. These live, two-way audio and video broadcasts focus on the Carter’s collection of American art and engage participants with museum staff in discussions and activities exploring art, history, culture, language arts, and science. Broadcasts are conducted in a studio setting using reproductions and in the galleries using a mobile unit.
While school tours remain an integral component of the Carter’s education program, in some cases, videoconferencing allows the museum to expand its audience to those visitors who would not otherwise be able to visit. Student broadcasts not only reach children in rural and urban communities across the United States and Canada where distance prohibits an onsite fieldtrip, they also allow the museum to connect with local children whose districts cannot afford the cost of substitutes and transportation required for a visit. Distance learning also allows the Carter to repurpose its onsite educator programs for teachers across Texas and nationwide, as well as expand the museum’s audience to seniors in residential living facilities who are no longer able to travel.
One argument against distance learning programs is that they discourage school groups from visiting the museum and experiencing the collections first-hand. After almost seven years of videoconferencing, the Carter has found that distance learning programs actually increase the museum’s visibility and help develop a future generation of adult visitors. Because of their students’ engagement during programs, multiple districts have added onsite fieldtrips after participating in a broadcast. Carter educators also use videoconferences as pre- and post-visit programs for schools coming on museum tours. Participating in broadcasts builds students’ confidence in looking at and analyzing objects, which is rewarded when they enter a museum’s doors.
Incorporating videoconferencing as part of a museum’s education program transforms what was previously a method for business communication into an innovative teaching tool. While delivery methods have to be modified slightly, broadcasts can still be as interactive and inquiry-based as onsite visits. For example, during the secondary-school program Metaphorically Seeing—It’s All About Me, students explore portraiture in the Carter’s collection, refine their knowledge of metaphors and symbolism, and experience the use of figurative language in writing and visual media; they then create their own personal visual metaphors. As part of the educator videoconference Art and Science, participating teachers work in groups to analyze artworks depicting plants and then share their observations with colleagues across the nation. Additionally, while guest speakers typically do not have the time to conduct multiple school tours (and museums do not have the money for their honoraria!), videoconferencing allows one presentation by an exhibiting artist or related author to reach thousands of students.
Videoconferencing also lends itself to integrating additional technologies into museum education programs—technologies students are already using. Over 3,700 children from schools nationwide participated in the Carter’s videoconference Painting Pictures with Words. Best-selling children’s book author Patricia MacLachlan shared her creative process live from the Carter’s galleries while making connections to works from the collection. After the program, participating students shared their thoughts and feelings about MacLachlan’s books, her presentation, the art they experienced, and their own story ideas on the Carter’s blog. Carter educators direct broadcast participants to utilize the images and classroom activities featured in the museum’s online teaching guides as pre- and post-broadcast activities, and teachers participating in educator videoconferences earn additional continuing professional education credit hours by posting lesson ideas and completing research projects related to each broadcast’s theme on the Carter’s Moodle page.
Videoconferences serve as a bridge connecting participants to the museum’s collection and individuals across the country and beyond. While some broadcasts are point-to-point (the museum is connected to only one receiving location), many are multi-point, allowing students and teachers to share ideas with peers they would never meet otherwise. A recent educator videoconference had South Texas and Arizona teachers discussing how to teach literacy with photography. Even point-to-point broadcasts can be an opportunity for cultural exchange. While doing a broadcast from the galleries to an elementary school in North Texas, the Carter’s Distance Learning Manager noticed a group of teenage visitors from Korea who were intrigued by the program. Rather than let this teaching moment slip by, the educator explained what was happening, introduced the two groups of students, and prompted a dialogue between them. The Carter also encourages teachers and students who participate in multi-point broadcasts to continue learning from each other by connecting after the program (without the museum) to share completed projects inspired by the videoconference.
Museum educators realize that the experience of seeing an original object in a museum setting can never be replaced. That said, videoconferencing is an economically responsible program that benefits all involved during these austere economic times. The cost of a broadcast is often much cheaper than the expenses associated with the substitutes and transportation required for onsite fieldtrips, and by developing object-centered programs based on timely issues, museums can generate income. Additionally, teachers who use student videoconferences as either a pre- or post-museum visit activity will find that the value of their onsite fieldtrip is enhanced. With distance learning’s ability to connect many more visitors to a museum’s collection, use technology as a creative teaching method, and generate revenue, it is a key component of the Carter’s education program, one that inspires new avenues to learning about its collection of American art every time the cameras roll.
For more information about the Carter’s distance learning program, visit http://www.cartermuseum.org/teaching/distance-learning.
Stacy Fuller is the Head of Education at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, where she oversees all aspects of programs and services and specializes in teacher and accessible programs. She holds a M.A. in art history and a B.A. in museum management. She joined the board of the Museum Education Roundtable in October 2008.
By Stacy Fuller, Head of Education, Amon Carter Museum
From social networking applications like Facebook and Twitter to interactive Web content like blogs, podcasts, and wikis, technology plays an active role in connecting visitors to museum collections—no matter where they live or whether they ever step foot in the building. At the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, museum educators daily unite technology and education through live, interactive videoconferencing programs delivered to over 16,000 students, educators, and seniors each year, equal to the number of participants in onsite fieldtrips. These live, two-way audio and video broadcasts focus on the Carter’s collection of American art and engage participants with museum staff in discussions and activities exploring art, history, culture, language arts, and science. Broadcasts are conducted in a studio setting using reproductions and in the galleries using a mobile unit.
While school tours remain an integral component of the Carter’s education program, in some cases, videoconferencing allows the museum to expand its audience to those visitors who would not otherwise be able to visit. Student broadcasts not only reach children in rural and urban communities across the United States and Canada where distance prohibits an onsite fieldtrip, they also allow the museum to connect with local children whose districts cannot afford the cost of substitutes and transportation required for a visit. Distance learning also allows the Carter to repurpose its onsite educator programs for teachers across Texas and nationwide, as well as expand the museum’s audience to seniors in residential living facilities who are no longer able to travel.
One argument against distance learning programs is that they discourage school groups from visiting the museum and experiencing the collections first-hand. After almost seven years of videoconferencing, the Carter has found that distance learning programs actually increase the museum’s visibility and help develop a future generation of adult visitors. Because of their students’ engagement during programs, multiple districts have added onsite fieldtrips after participating in a broadcast. Carter educators also use videoconferences as pre- and post-visit programs for schools coming on museum tours. Participating in broadcasts builds students’ confidence in looking at and analyzing objects, which is rewarded when they enter a museum’s doors.
Incorporating videoconferencing as part of a museum’s education program transforms what was previously a method for business communication into an innovative teaching tool. While delivery methods have to be modified slightly, broadcasts can still be as interactive and inquiry-based as onsite visits. For example, during the secondary-school program Metaphorically Seeing—It’s All About Me, students explore portraiture in the Carter’s collection, refine their knowledge of metaphors and symbolism, and experience the use of figurative language in writing and visual media; they then create their own personal visual metaphors. As part of the educator videoconference Art and Science, participating teachers work in groups to analyze artworks depicting plants and then share their observations with colleagues across the nation. Additionally, while guest speakers typically do not have the time to conduct multiple school tours (and museums do not have the money for their honoraria!), videoconferencing allows one presentation by an exhibiting artist or related author to reach thousands of students.
Videoconferencing also lends itself to integrating additional technologies into museum education programs—technologies students are already using. Over 3,700 children from schools nationwide participated in the Carter’s videoconference Painting Pictures with Words. Best-selling children’s book author Patricia MacLachlan shared her creative process live from the Carter’s galleries while making connections to works from the collection. After the program, participating students shared their thoughts and feelings about MacLachlan’s books, her presentation, the art they experienced, and their own story ideas on the Carter’s blog. Carter educators direct broadcast participants to utilize the images and classroom activities featured in the museum’s online teaching guides as pre- and post-broadcast activities, and teachers participating in educator videoconferences earn additional continuing professional education credit hours by posting lesson ideas and completing research projects related to each broadcast’s theme on the Carter’s Moodle page.
Videoconferences serve as a bridge connecting participants to the museum’s collection and individuals across the country and beyond. While some broadcasts are point-to-point (the museum is connected to only one receiving location), many are multi-point, allowing students and teachers to share ideas with peers they would never meet otherwise. A recent educator videoconference had South Texas and Arizona teachers discussing how to teach literacy with photography. Even point-to-point broadcasts can be an opportunity for cultural exchange. While doing a broadcast from the galleries to an elementary school in North Texas, the Carter’s Distance Learning Manager noticed a group of teenage visitors from Korea who were intrigued by the program. Rather than let this teaching moment slip by, the educator explained what was happening, introduced the two groups of students, and prompted a dialogue between them. The Carter also encourages teachers and students who participate in multi-point broadcasts to continue learning from each other by connecting after the program (without the museum) to share completed projects inspired by the videoconference.
Museum educators realize that the experience of seeing an original object in a museum setting can never be replaced. That said, videoconferencing is an economically responsible program that benefits all involved during these austere economic times. The cost of a broadcast is often much cheaper than the expenses associated with the substitutes and transportation required for onsite fieldtrips, and by developing object-centered programs based on timely issues, museums can generate income. Additionally, teachers who use student videoconferences as either a pre- or post-museum visit activity will find that the value of their onsite fieldtrip is enhanced. With distance learning’s ability to connect many more visitors to a museum’s collection, use technology as a creative teaching method, and generate revenue, it is a key component of the Carter’s education program, one that inspires new avenues to learning about its collection of American art every time the cameras roll.
For more information about the Carter’s distance learning program, visit http://www.cartermuseum.org/teaching/distance-learning.
Stacy Fuller is the Head of Education at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, where she oversees all aspects of programs and services and specializes in teacher and accessible programs. She holds a M.A. in art history and a B.A. in museum management. She joined the board of the Museum Education Roundtable in October 2008.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Network Call for Articles
Network is posted as a collection of articles on this blog 4 times per year. We're looking for some new content from you. Share your successes, proffer your problems, or disseminate your ideas by contributing to Network, the e-newsletter of the Museum Education Roundtable. You must be a MER member to write for Network. Articles are due in late March, 2009.
- Share your ideas for creative low cost but high impact programs
- How has social media changed the relationship between your museum and its community?
- What new ways are you finding to share your collections with the public?
- Which books or blogs are inspiring you?
Send ideas, questions, or submissions to Cynthia Robinson, Network Editor at Cynthia.Robinson@tufts.edu
I'd love to hear from you!
Monday, March 02, 2009
Call for Nominations – MER Board of Directors
The Museum Education Roundtable (MER) is seeking nominations of qualified professionals to serve as candidates for election to the MER Board of Directors. Board members represent MER and are active advocates for its mission and activities. MER is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the vital contributions of museums and other cultural institutions as primary resources for lifelong learning. In addition, MER provides leadership in professional development for a broad and diverse audience of museum practitioners. MER serves a worldwide membership of individuals and institutions through its topical programs and publications including the Journal of Museum Education.
MER seeks a wide spectrum of committed and talented people from diverse disciplines. Nominees may come from the broad field of formal and informal education, for example, museum educators, museum practitioners, and classroom teachers. Additional criteria are knowledge, leadership, and innovation in the field, and experience in nonprofit management. Self-nominations are welcome. The nominee must indicate the desire and time to actively serve. Board members are asked to serve a three-year term (October 2009 - September 2012) with one renewable term. They must participate as an active officer of the board or as a member of committees or task forces. They also are responsible for participating in scheduled board meetings, typically one meeting each quarter (limited conference calls participation available) and an annual board retreat in Washington D.C.. Nominees must be members of MER before they are selected as a candidate. Nominees (or their institutions) must be willing to bear the cost of board participation – MER does not reimburse personal expenses incurred as a board member. Your nomination must include the name, title, and contact information of the nominee and a brief paragraph describing the nominee’s interest and qualifications (letter, fax, or email is acceptable).
Nominations must be received by April 1, 2009. Please contact: Ann Caspari, MER Nominations Task Force Chair Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Independence Avenue and 6th Street SW MRC 305, P.O. Box 37012 Washington, DC 20013 caspariak@si.edu
MER seeks a wide spectrum of committed and talented people from diverse disciplines. Nominees may come from the broad field of formal and informal education, for example, museum educators, museum practitioners, and classroom teachers. Additional criteria are knowledge, leadership, and innovation in the field, and experience in nonprofit management. Self-nominations are welcome. The nominee must indicate the desire and time to actively serve. Board members are asked to serve a three-year term (October 2009 - September 2012) with one renewable term. They must participate as an active officer of the board or as a member of committees or task forces. They also are responsible for participating in scheduled board meetings, typically one meeting each quarter (limited conference calls participation available) and an annual board retreat in Washington D.C.. Nominees must be members of MER before they are selected as a candidate. Nominees (or their institutions) must be willing to bear the cost of board participation – MER does not reimburse personal expenses incurred as a board member. Your nomination must include the name, title, and contact information of the nominee and a brief paragraph describing the nominee’s interest and qualifications (letter, fax, or email is acceptable).
Nominations must be received by April 1, 2009. Please contact: Ann Caspari, MER Nominations Task Force Chair Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Independence Avenue and 6th Street SW MRC 305, P.O. Box 37012 Washington, DC 20013 caspariak@si.edu
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
WWW.MER-ONLINE.ORG Website is Down
The MER Web site is down because of database corruption caused by a routine software update. Rather than redirect visitors to a badly out-of-date version, we're redirecting traffic here, to the MER blog.
If you have questions, you can either contact the MER office at info@mer-online.org or leave a comment below.
We're very sorry for the inconvenience but every cloud has a silver lining. MER will launch a new and improved version of its Web site soon.
If you have questions, you can either contact the MER office at info@mer-online.org or leave a comment below.
We're very sorry for the inconvenience but every cloud has a silver lining. MER will launch a new and improved version of its Web site soon.
Monday, January 19, 2009
MER By-Law Vote
The Museum Education Roundtable (MER) supports museum education professionals across the United States and Canada. The MER board of directors shapes the future of the organization and coordinates all MER projects and activities.
The work of the MER board is guided by a set of by-laws for the organization. At its October 17 th 2008 meeting the Museum Education Roundtable board of directors unanimously passed a motion to submit by-laws to members for approval. We are asking our members vote to accept or reject these by-laws.
The work of the MER board is guided by a set of by-laws for the organization. At its October 17 th 2008 meeting the Museum Education Roundtable board of directors unanimously passed a motion to submit by-laws to members for approval. We are asking our members vote to accept or reject these by-laws.
However, due to problems with our website, the current and amended versions of the by-laws are not yet posted for your review. If you would like to review both versions before voting yea or nay, please e-mail me, Sarah Marcotte, Membership Chair, and I will be happy to send both sets of bylaws to you in one PDF (240KB).
If you would like to proceed directly to the survey to cast your vote, please click on the link below.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Z7di4raotJ3GCiMqj_2bOB_2fg_3d_3d
If you would like to proceed directly to the survey to cast your vote, please click on the link below.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Z7di4raotJ3GCiMqj_2bOB_2fg_3d_3d
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Network News: Fall 2008 Edition
From the publishers of the Journal of Museum Education, the Museum Education Roundtable is pleased to present Network News.
Network News, formerly available only to members, has been moved to a new more interactive format and is now available to all museum educators.
In this Issue
Publishing Info
Network News is published three times a year, via electronic posting, by the MUSEUM EDUCATION ROUNDTABLE.
Cynthia Robinson and Sarah Marcotte
E-mail us at: network@mer-online.org
Web Manager and Editor
Jim Angus, jim@jimangus.com
Network News, formerly available only to members, has been moved to a new more interactive format and is now available to all museum educators.
In this Issue
- From the Editor
- In Memoriam: Marcella Brenner
- Words from the Prez
- Lessons From the Past: Living a Principled Life at Hancock Shaker Village
- The American Image: An Experiment in Mashups, Flickr and Public Access
- Request From Elaine Gurian
- Book Review: Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century
- Capturing the Infrequent Visitor
- Book Review: Informal Learning and Field Trips: Engaging Students in Standards-Based Experiences Across the K – 5 Curriculum
- News Update on Regional Museum Education Groups
Publishing Info
Network News is published three times a year, via electronic posting, by the MUSEUM EDUCATION ROUNDTABLE.
The Museum Education Roundtable
621 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
Washington, D.C., 2003
202-547-8378
www.mer-online.org
info@mer-online.org
Network News Staff621 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
Washington, D.C., 2003
202-547-8378
www.mer-online.org
info@mer-online.org
Cynthia Robinson and Sarah Marcotte
E-mail us at: network@mer-online.org
Web Manager and Editor
Jim Angus, jim@jimangus.com
From the Editor
Network News Fall 2008
From the Editor
Cynthia Robinson, Network Editor
Director, Tufts Museum Studies Program
Early on in my career I learned that I could save a lot of time and energy by paying attention to what museum educators in other museums were doing. I didn't exactly steal ideas; rather, I adapted the good ones and tried to avoid others’ mistakes. Today, a decent foundational literature makes it easier to find and apply best practices. Yet I still think it’s instructive—and inspiring—to hear what others are doing. Did you know that Hancock Shaker Village is building its interpretation around values that links past, present and future? That the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is experimenting with gallery programs to engage the adult infrequent visitor? That The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology is using contemporary photo sharing techniques on the Internet to get images from the 1940s into users' hands, hearts, and minds? Well, read on, and be inspired! Also in this issue are two reviews of books that should be on your shelf, and news of MER.Cheers,
Cynthia Robinson, Network Editor
Director, Tufts Museum Studies Program
The Museum Education Roundtable
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
In Memoriam: Marcella Brenner
Network News Fall 2008
(back to table of contents)
In Memoriam: Marcella Brenner
By Carol B. Stapp, Ph.D., Director, Museum Education Program, The George Washington University and National Associate, EdCom Board
Marcella Louis Brenner’s death on December 25, 2007, marks the passing of a pragmatic visionary, at the age of 95 still actively contributing to an extraordinary range of efforts to enhance lives in America and abroad.
After considerable years of experience as a classroom teacher and an elementary school principal, Marcella came to The George Washington University where she developed and then co-founded the Master of Arts in Teaching in Museum Education in 1974—the first degree program of its kind.
When she retired in 1983, after serving as the director of the Museum Education Program during its crucial formative years, she continued to share her wisdom with the degree candidates in the Museum Education Program with yearly presentations.
Marcella was a renowned patron of the arts, supporting a spectrum of educational and cultural endeavors both nationally and internationally. Honored as D.C.’s Outstanding Philanthropist of 2005, Marcella’s generosity funded improved learning and teaching, as well as broader engagement with art, music, and theater.
At GW, she was a major donor to the Marcella Brenner Endowment for Museum Education, established in her honor in 1983 by Gloria H. Horrworth. As a measure of their esteem, alumni and friends have impressively increased the Brenner Endowment over the past quarter century. The annual income underwrites services for students, alumni, and museum professionals, as well as provides support for the Museum Education Program.
Indeed, the true extent of Marcella’s accomplishments almost defies enumeration. Her interests were ecumenical, and she never faltered in her capacity to offer brilliantly savvy counsel. Worldwide, museum visitors benefit from her commitment to the legacy of her husband, Morris Louis, and museum educators cherish her powerful maxim, “The learner controls the learning”—the signature quote introducing a selection of her writings over 35 years, The Change Agent, published in 2000.
On a more personal level, many will join me in mourning the loss of a dear friend and astute mentor, whose role in the world can be described as nothing less than magnificent. Marcella set a high standard for living; she inspired excellence.
In Memoriam: Marcella Brenner
By Carol B. Stapp, Ph.D., Director, Museum Education Program, The George Washington University and National Associate, EdCom Board
Marcella Louis Brenner’s death on December 25, 2007, marks the passing of a pragmatic visionary, at the age of 95 still actively contributing to an extraordinary range of efforts to enhance lives in America and abroad.After considerable years of experience as a classroom teacher and an elementary school principal, Marcella came to The George Washington University where she developed and then co-founded the Master of Arts in Teaching in Museum Education in 1974—the first degree program of its kind.
When she retired in 1983, after serving as the director of the Museum Education Program during its crucial formative years, she continued to share her wisdom with the degree candidates in the Museum Education Program with yearly presentations.
Marcella was a renowned patron of the arts, supporting a spectrum of educational and cultural endeavors both nationally and internationally. Honored as D.C.’s Outstanding Philanthropist of 2005, Marcella’s generosity funded improved learning and teaching, as well as broader engagement with art, music, and theater.
At GW, she was a major donor to the Marcella Brenner Endowment for Museum Education, established in her honor in 1983 by Gloria H. Horrworth. As a measure of their esteem, alumni and friends have impressively increased the Brenner Endowment over the past quarter century. The annual income underwrites services for students, alumni, and museum professionals, as well as provides support for the Museum Education Program.
Indeed, the true extent of Marcella’s accomplishments almost defies enumeration. Her interests were ecumenical, and she never faltered in her capacity to offer brilliantly savvy counsel. Worldwide, museum visitors benefit from her commitment to the legacy of her husband, Morris Louis, and museum educators cherish her powerful maxim, “The learner controls the learning”—the signature quote introducing a selection of her writings over 35 years, The Change Agent, published in 2000.
On a more personal level, many will join me in mourning the loss of a dear friend and astute mentor, whose role in the world can be described as nothing less than magnificent. Marcella set a high standard for living; she inspired excellence.
The Museum Education Roundtable
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
Words from the Prez
Network News Fall 2008
(back to table of contents)
Words from the Prez
Erik Holland, President of the Board, Museum Education Roundtable
Recently, my late summers have included a trip to Washington, DC. This year, like each of the past five, I have participated in the two-day Museum Education Roundtable (MER) new board member orientation, August board meeting and planning retreat. As I leave Washington, DC, I reflect both on the state of the board and that of the organization.
This year, I feel particularly positive about the state of the Museum Education Roundtable. The board meeting and retreat this year remained focused on the vision statement approved last year by the board at the August 13, 2007 meeting. The Vision Statement, Together – Realizing Connections on the Pathways to Best Practices, grew from discussions the board undertook following bylaw changes, which paved the way for the Museum Education Roundtable to be a financially stable, membership organization that continues to be known for the Journal of Museum Education.
Other conversations that have captured board attention in recent years include:
A specific reason for my positive feelings following the DC meetings this year is the strategic planning portion of this year’s meeting focused on establishing clear goals.
Goals
Each newly constituted committee had time this year in DC to meet and begin to draft action steps for the coming year. These committee-level action steps will be finalized at the October board meeting. One action step that I advocated for is formalizing bylaw changes that the board has spent many hours drafting over the past five years. These changes will be brought to the membership this year for approval.
Look for other positive steps of the Museum Education Roundtable in months to come. If you would like to become more involved in your Museum Education Roundtable your participation in committee work would be welcomed. Drop me a note and I will see where you might fit.
(back to table of contents)
Words from the Prez
Erik Holland, President of the Board, Museum Education Roundtable
Recently, my late summers have included a trip to Washington, DC. This year, like each of the past five, I have participated in the two-day Museum Education Roundtable (MER) new board member orientation, August board meeting and planning retreat. As I leave Washington, DC, I reflect both on the state of the board and that of the organization.This year, I feel particularly positive about the state of the Museum Education Roundtable. The board meeting and retreat this year remained focused on the vision statement approved last year by the board at the August 13, 2007 meeting. The Vision Statement, Together – Realizing Connections on the Pathways to Best Practices, grew from discussions the board undertook following bylaw changes, which paved the way for the Museum Education Roundtable to be a financially stable, membership organization that continues to be known for the Journal of Museum Education.
Other conversations that have captured board attention in recent years include:
- Changes in communication speed and connectivity related to the advent of personal computers, the world wide web and the innovations that have grown from these realities and how MER must respond
- Continuation and refining of MER’s relationship with AAM’s EdCom
- Regional and local Roundtables, and
- The closing of the physical office and establishment of a virtual one
- Establishment and later the health of our partnership with Left Coast Press as the Journal of Museum Education matures
A specific reason for my positive feelings following the DC meetings this year is the strategic planning portion of this year’s meeting focused on establishing clear goals.
Goals
- Improve board functioning.
- Increase and diversify membership.
- Create a more active and engaged membership.
- Expand and sustain lines of communication between MER and regional groups.
- Bring MER’s online resources into alignment with MER’s vision and mission.
Each newly constituted committee had time this year in DC to meet and begin to draft action steps for the coming year. These committee-level action steps will be finalized at the October board meeting. One action step that I advocated for is formalizing bylaw changes that the board has spent many hours drafting over the past five years. These changes will be brought to the membership this year for approval.
Look for other positive steps of the Museum Education Roundtable in months to come. If you would like to become more involved in your Museum Education Roundtable your participation in committee work would be welcomed. Drop me a note and I will see where you might fit.
The Museum Education Roundtable
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
Lessons From the Past: Living a Principled Life at Hancock Shaker Village
Network News Fall 2008
(back to table of contents)
Lessons From the Past: Living a Principled Life at Hancock Shaker Village
By Todd Burdick, Director of Education, Hancock Shaker Village
The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (the Shakers) lived at Hancock, Massachusetts, from the 1780s until 1960. The Shakers believed that they were creating a Heaven on Earth, a utopian community where they would put into daily practice their religious beliefs and create a new social structure, in order to live a principled life. They consecrated themselves to their ideals of pacifism, gender and racial equality, simplicity, innovation, perfection, respect for the land, spiritual sisterhood and brotherhood, and the creation of an overall sustainable community lifestyle.
Hancock Shaker Village, Inc., the museum founded in 1960 to preserve and interpret the former Shaker community, is the steward of these values today. Viewed for many years as simply another outdoor museum and living history site with a Shaker collection coveted by connoisseurs, Hancock Shaker Village (HSV) has rethought its contribution to civic life in the 21st century. Shaker values are relevant today. They offer an inspirational catalyst for discussing and demonstrating principled living.
Shaker practices provide historic models of environmental sustainability, social justice, and responsible community building, topics of increasing importance and relevance for informing the present and the future. HSV has always interpreted a wide variety of progressive and socially relevant topics, such as gender and racial equality, and pacifism. These principles have been embedded in the Shakers’ beliefs, lifestyle, and practices for more than two centuries. As an example, the Shakers called their community at Hancock The City of Peace; however, to them, peace was so much more than simply the absence of violence. The concept of peace, to the Shakers, also included a commitment to creating a whole system of life where all individuals were enabled to be at peace with their communal brethren and sisters, with their spirituality, with their work, with the land and with nature, and with themselves. This Shaker quest from the past continues to resonate with society today.
HSV is developing a new interpretive initiative in 2008, focusing on renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and historic preservation. We are incorporating these new interpretive themes throughout our existing daily interpretation in engaging and innovative ways. We are also developing and piloting new interpretive programs, seasonal events, hands-on workshops, and education programs for school, youth, and adult groups. Visitor surveys and audience analysis of the past decade have clearly shown that HSV visitors, as well as visitors to other similar historic site museums, are no longer satisfied to come to our institutions and simply learn about the past. They are increasingly interested in how to experience, process, and assimilate the historic topics in ways relevant to their personal lives, interests, and experiences.
HSV is off the beaten track. Visitors seek us out, choosing to visit despite the overwhelming number of other leisure time activities available in the region. They want their experiences to be as authentic, memorable, engaging, educational, and enjoyable as possible. Visitors want to know that they made the right choice to visit. Our visitors don’t want to be talked at. They want to participate and they want to explore their interests. They want the tools to relate the lessons of history to their modern lives in meaningful and enriching ways.
We are training our staff in conversational techniques, using a new and ground-breaking interpretive training program, “Opening Doors to Great Guest Experiences,” developed by Connor Prairie a few years ago and now being successfully implemented in historic sites and museum throughout the country. We have also begun a multi-year process to revise and refresh our ten-year-old Interpretive Plan to incorporate these new training initiatives and interpretive messages with innovative and engaging programming designed specifically for the targeted and identified needs of our audiences for the next 10 years.
The Shakers have long been renowned for their innovations, progressive practices and technologies, and their quest for and creation of an overall sustainable community lifestyle. HSV is taking advantage of a unique opportunity to present and interpret for our visitors the many aspects of how the Shakers employed what would now be called a green, or sustainable, lifestyle, a topic of increasing importance for our world of today and tomorrow, and an excellent concrete example of principled living.
History is not just about the past; it is also about informing the present and the future. We are using the entire historic HSV museum restoration—the core Village and its buildings, exhibits, artifacts and programs, the farm and gardens, the technologies, crafts, and trades, and the outlying interpreted trails system—to explore solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, green architecture, sustainable community planning, biomass, biofuel, woodlands and wetlands management, and organic and natural farming. For example, the working 1858 water turbine and documentary evidence of Shaker windmills provide examples of environmentally friendly power sources from the past that encourage dialogue about the benefits and disadvantages of our society’s power sources and possible solutions for tomorrow.
The architectural features and overall design of the Brick Dwelling, and of all the other Village buildings used for work and worship, save energy by maximizing heat distribution in the cold winters and providing natural ventilation and cooling in the hot summers, and promote a sense of efficiency, perfection, and commitment to community. The historic farm and gardens show visitors how to compost and grow their own food and encourages them to support the locally grown movement in their own lives. It demonstrates how native and heirloom species of vegetable and herb plants require less care and water, and, like the heritage livestock breeds encountered in the barns and pastures, are uniquely suited to their local environment. Visitors learn that old practices can be adapted and reused in their own lives, homes, and communities today.
In order to best preserve and present HSV as an example of principled living, our efforts are extending far beyond simply revising and adapting our educational and interpretive programming. Our marketing and publicity plan has also incorporated these new interpretive messages, and we have developed new ad copy to spread the word that HSV is reinventing itself and to attract new audiences. We are also making much more of a conscious effort for our internal business practices to reflect principled living. For example, we are installing energy saving compact fluorescent lighting where possible. We recycle paper and plastics. We compost the food scraps from our Café and staff break room or feed them to the pigs. We drive an electric powered vehicle throughout the Village for maintenance, housekeeping, security, and visitor accessibility needs. We believe that living a principled life cannot be done superficially or only in part; it needs to be systemic, and encompass anything and everything related to our museum operations of today. We too are inspired by the Shakers.
Todd Burdick began working at Hancock Shaker Village in 1984 and has been Director of Education since 1991. He has lectured widely on historical topics and museum education and interpretation at professional conferences and workshops. Todd welcomes inquiries about HSV’s new vision.
(back to table of contents)
Lessons From the Past: Living a Principled Life at Hancock Shaker Village
By Todd Burdick, Director of Education, Hancock Shaker Village
Mission:
The mission of Hancock Shaker Village is to bring the Shaker story to life,
and preserve it for future generations.
The mission of Hancock Shaker Village is to bring the Shaker story to life,
and preserve it for future generations.
Vision:
Hancock Shaker Village will become a center for reflection on living a principled life. The values that the Shakers embraced – equality, pacifism, community, sustainability, responsible land stewardship, innovation, simplicity, and quality in work – resonate for us today. Our programs and our business practices will reflect these values. We will utilize our site and our collections to help the public engage with contemporary thinking on these values while learning about historical Shaker expressions of these principles in their work, worship and community.—From the Hancock Shaker Village five year Strategic Plan, Adopted 2005, Updated 2008.
Hancock Shaker Village will become a center for reflection on living a principled life. The values that the Shakers embraced – equality, pacifism, community, sustainability, responsible land stewardship, innovation, simplicity, and quality in work – resonate for us today. Our programs and our business practices will reflect these values. We will utilize our site and our collections to help the public engage with contemporary thinking on these values while learning about historical Shaker expressions of these principles in their work, worship and community.—From the Hancock Shaker Village five year Strategic Plan, Adopted 2005, Updated 2008.
The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (the Shakers) lived at Hancock, Massachusetts, from the 1780s until 1960. The Shakers believed that they were creating a Heaven on Earth, a utopian community where they would put into daily practice their religious beliefs and create a new social structure, in order to live a principled life. They consecrated themselves to their ideals of pacifism, gender and racial equality, simplicity, innovation, perfection, respect for the land, spiritual sisterhood and brotherhood, and the creation of an overall sustainable community lifestyle.Hancock Shaker Village, Inc., the museum founded in 1960 to preserve and interpret the former Shaker community, is the steward of these values today. Viewed for many years as simply another outdoor museum and living history site with a Shaker collection coveted by connoisseurs, Hancock Shaker Village (HSV) has rethought its contribution to civic life in the 21st century. Shaker values are relevant today. They offer an inspirational catalyst for discussing and demonstrating principled living.
Shaker practices provide historic models of environmental sustainability, social justice, and responsible community building, topics of increasing importance and relevance for informing the present and the future. HSV has always interpreted a wide variety of progressive and socially relevant topics, such as gender and racial equality, and pacifism. These principles have been embedded in the Shakers’ beliefs, lifestyle, and practices for more than two centuries. As an example, the Shakers called their community at Hancock The City of Peace; however, to them, peace was so much more than simply the absence of violence. The concept of peace, to the Shakers, also included a commitment to creating a whole system of life where all individuals were enabled to be at peace with their communal brethren and sisters, with their spirituality, with their work, with the land and with nature, and with themselves. This Shaker quest from the past continues to resonate with society today.
HSV is developing a new interpretive initiative in 2008, focusing on renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and historic preservation. We are incorporating these new interpretive themes throughout our existing daily interpretation in engaging and innovative ways. We are also developing and piloting new interpretive programs, seasonal events, hands-on workshops, and education programs for school, youth, and adult groups. Visitor surveys and audience analysis of the past decade have clearly shown that HSV visitors, as well as visitors to other similar historic site museums, are no longer satisfied to come to our institutions and simply learn about the past. They are increasingly interested in how to experience, process, and assimilate the historic topics in ways relevant to their personal lives, interests, and experiences.
HSV is off the beaten track. Visitors seek us out, choosing to visit despite the overwhelming number of other leisure time activities available in the region. They want their experiences to be as authentic, memorable, engaging, educational, and enjoyable as possible. Visitors want to know that they made the right choice to visit. Our visitors don’t want to be talked at. They want to participate and they want to explore their interests. They want the tools to relate the lessons of history to their modern lives in meaningful and enriching ways.
We are training our staff in conversational techniques, using a new and ground-breaking interpretive training program, “Opening Doors to Great Guest Experiences,” developed by Connor Prairie a few years ago and now being successfully implemented in historic sites and museum throughout the country. We have also begun a multi-year process to revise and refresh our ten-year-old Interpretive Plan to incorporate these new training initiatives and interpretive messages with innovative and engaging programming designed specifically for the targeted and identified needs of our audiences for the next 10 years.
The Shakers have long been renowned for their innovations, progressive practices and technologies, and their quest for and creation of an overall sustainable community lifestyle. HSV is taking advantage of a unique opportunity to present and interpret for our visitors the many aspects of how the Shakers employed what would now be called a green, or sustainable, lifestyle, a topic of increasing importance for our world of today and tomorrow, and an excellent concrete example of principled living.
History is not just about the past; it is also about informing the present and the future. We are using the entire historic HSV museum restoration—the core Village and its buildings, exhibits, artifacts and programs, the farm and gardens, the technologies, crafts, and trades, and the outlying interpreted trails system—to explore solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, green architecture, sustainable community planning, biomass, biofuel, woodlands and wetlands management, and organic and natural farming. For example, the working 1858 water turbine and documentary evidence of Shaker windmills provide examples of environmentally friendly power sources from the past that encourage dialogue about the benefits and disadvantages of our society’s power sources and possible solutions for tomorrow.
The architectural features and overall design of the Brick Dwelling, and of all the other Village buildings used for work and worship, save energy by maximizing heat distribution in the cold winters and providing natural ventilation and cooling in the hot summers, and promote a sense of efficiency, perfection, and commitment to community. The historic farm and gardens show visitors how to compost and grow their own food and encourages them to support the locally grown movement in their own lives. It demonstrates how native and heirloom species of vegetable and herb plants require less care and water, and, like the heritage livestock breeds encountered in the barns and pastures, are uniquely suited to their local environment. Visitors learn that old practices can be adapted and reused in their own lives, homes, and communities today.
In order to best preserve and present HSV as an example of principled living, our efforts are extending far beyond simply revising and adapting our educational and interpretive programming. Our marketing and publicity plan has also incorporated these new interpretive messages, and we have developed new ad copy to spread the word that HSV is reinventing itself and to attract new audiences. We are also making much more of a conscious effort for our internal business practices to reflect principled living. For example, we are installing energy saving compact fluorescent lighting where possible. We recycle paper and plastics. We compost the food scraps from our Café and staff break room or feed them to the pigs. We drive an electric powered vehicle throughout the Village for maintenance, housekeeping, security, and visitor accessibility needs. We believe that living a principled life cannot be done superficially or only in part; it needs to be systemic, and encompass anything and everything related to our museum operations of today. We too are inspired by the Shakers.
Todd Burdick began working at Hancock Shaker Village in 1984 and has been Director of Education since 1991. He has lectured widely on historical topics and museum education and interpretation at professional conferences and workshops. Todd welcomes inquiries about HSV’s new vision.
The Museum Education Roundtable
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
The American Image: An Experiment in Mashups, Flickr and Public Access
Network News Fall 2008
(back to table of contents)
The American Image: An Experiment in Mashups, Flickr and Public Access
By Beth Maloney, Museum Education Consultant
When The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology received a large collection of photographs by John Collier Jr, they decided to highlight this acquisition with a website designed for high school students featuring a few hundred of the photographs. Since The Maxwell was temporarily without a museum educator, I, a freelance museum educator, jumped at the chance to be involved. The National Endowment for the Humanities funded this project.
Catherine Baudoin, Curator of Photography, and I developed three major goals; to make the photographs relevant and accessible and to promote visual literacy. We worked first with UNM’s College of Education Technology and Education Center and then with the private company Ideum. The result is a website (http://americanimage.unm.edu) that uses contemporary photo sharing techniques and video mashups.
The Website
The photographs that appear on the American Image website were taken by John Collier Jr. when he worked for the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information during the 1940s. His assignment at the time was to document daily life in America focusing on civil defense and public morale. Our on-line activities use Collier’s images as a canvas on which to explore wider issues of authorship, agenda, historical context and objectivity.
In addition to a collection of selected photographs, the website features three main activities. “Active Looking” encourages the user to analyze and decode images for information—who created them, within what context, using what tools and for what purpose. “The Shooting Script” explores how an image may be categorized with regards to its subject matter and how our definitions and understanding of these subjects can change over time. “Propaganda Film-maker” invites users to combine photographs, text, audio and video to create their own video mashup—one that can be emailed, shared and rated.
Flickr
One innovative aspect of the website is its relationship with the public photo sharing website Flickr. We scanned Collier’s photographs (already part of the public domain) and posted them on an account we created for him on Flickr. We’d contacted Flickr about this project and they gave us a complementary professional account for 10 years.
The American Image website draws images directly from Flickr, creating a bridge from the museum’s website and this public forum. Having the collection on Flickr brings Collier’s work to a more diverse and new audience. Visitors to Collier’s Flickr site tag, list favorites, refer to and talk about his photographs bringing them out from the archives and into a contemporary context.
It took us a while to arrive at the Flickr solution. We began by looking at examples of similar photo-education websites targeting high school students. First we went towards a “closed” site with more sequential activities but this did not seem suitable for older students. We revisited and rethought the mechanisms we were using. Experimenting with format, we took a big leap by using Flickr—not only as a space to post the collection of photographs but also as a source for contemporary images. “The Shooting Script” draws, at random, contemporary images to compare with historic Collier images tagged with the same terms.
Evaluation
The UNM College of Education arranged formal evaluation of the website. Their evaluator worked with teachers and students here in New Mexico. Results mainly concerned technicalities—for example, frustration about the size of images and download time. More informally, the museum has tracked users from all over the world who explore the photographs, create their own video mashups and download material. When we shared the project with peers at the Museums and the Web Conference in 2007, people commented that our use of Flickr and the “Propaganda Film-maker” were strong assets to the site and its interactivity. At the 2008 conference, the American Image website won the “best of the web” online exhibition award.
The American Image website has had a great impact on The Maxwell Museum. It is connected directly to the museum’s main webpage and is credited with increased traffic to the website. The museum’s leadership is interested and invested in working on similar projects in the future.
The bigger picture
For me, the development process was most rewarding when we posed the larger question of how best to share and use these amazing photographs. How can we truly engage our targeted audience, who might otherwise surf through the photo collection? If our audience posts, uses and shares photographs on line, then we need to be in the mix. Once we decided to go this direction, the messages and skills we wanted to introduce seemed to fall into place. Key to the process was the support of The Maxwell Museum to leave what we perceived as typical on-line museum programming and enter a more social network. Linking to a public photo sharing website like Flickr, made the project more dynamic and exciting as a result.
The site generates daily responses and seems to be reaching a broad community—more diverse in age and interest than our target group of high school students. Incorporating the latest trends in technology in museum programming and curriculum design is complicated. On the one hand there are so many new options and techniques to meet the needs and interests of our audiences. On the other, it’s our job to think carefully and deliberately about how we use new technologies to insure that they enhance and not detract from our goals. The American Image project has joined content with medium in a meaningful way, giving Collier’s photographs a new life 50 years after he took them.
Beth Maloney is a Museum Education Consultant working with museums in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, NM. She also teaches a course in Museum Learning at the University of New Mexico. Prior to moving to Albuquerque, she was the History Programs Coordinator at the Oakland Museum of California. Beth has a MS in Education from the Museum Education program at Bank Street College and a BA in History and English from Swarthmore College. She has worked in and with museums since 1997. For more information or to contact Beth please go to www.bethmaloney.com.
(back to table of contents)
The American Image: An Experiment in Mashups, Flickr and Public Access
By Beth Maloney, Museum Education Consultant
When The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology received a large collection of photographs by John Collier Jr, they decided to highlight this acquisition with a website designed for high school students featuring a few hundred of the photographs. Since The Maxwell was temporarily without a museum educator, I, a freelance museum educator, jumped at the chance to be involved. The National Endowment for the Humanities funded this project. Catherine Baudoin, Curator of Photography, and I developed three major goals; to make the photographs relevant and accessible and to promote visual literacy. We worked first with UNM’s College of Education Technology and Education Center and then with the private company Ideum. The result is a website (http://americanimage.unm.edu) that uses contemporary photo sharing techniques and video mashups.
The Website
The photographs that appear on the American Image website were taken by John Collier Jr. when he worked for the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information during the 1940s. His assignment at the time was to document daily life in America focusing on civil defense and public morale. Our on-line activities use Collier’s images as a canvas on which to explore wider issues of authorship, agenda, historical context and objectivity.
In addition to a collection of selected photographs, the website features three main activities. “Active Looking” encourages the user to analyze and decode images for information—who created them, within what context, using what tools and for what purpose. “The Shooting Script” explores how an image may be categorized with regards to its subject matter and how our definitions and understanding of these subjects can change over time. “Propaganda Film-maker” invites users to combine photographs, text, audio and video to create their own video mashup—one that can be emailed, shared and rated.
Flickr
One innovative aspect of the website is its relationship with the public photo sharing website Flickr. We scanned Collier’s photographs (already part of the public domain) and posted them on an account we created for him on Flickr. We’d contacted Flickr about this project and they gave us a complementary professional account for 10 years.
The American Image website draws images directly from Flickr, creating a bridge from the museum’s website and this public forum. Having the collection on Flickr brings Collier’s work to a more diverse and new audience. Visitors to Collier’s Flickr site tag, list favorites, refer to and talk about his photographs bringing them out from the archives and into a contemporary context.
It took us a while to arrive at the Flickr solution. We began by looking at examples of similar photo-education websites targeting high school students. First we went towards a “closed” site with more sequential activities but this did not seem suitable for older students. We revisited and rethought the mechanisms we were using. Experimenting with format, we took a big leap by using Flickr—not only as a space to post the collection of photographs but also as a source for contemporary images. “The Shooting Script” draws, at random, contemporary images to compare with historic Collier images tagged with the same terms.
Evaluation
The UNM College of Education arranged formal evaluation of the website. Their evaluator worked with teachers and students here in New Mexico. Results mainly concerned technicalities—for example, frustration about the size of images and download time. More informally, the museum has tracked users from all over the world who explore the photographs, create their own video mashups and download material. When we shared the project with peers at the Museums and the Web Conference in 2007, people commented that our use of Flickr and the “Propaganda Film-maker” were strong assets to the site and its interactivity. At the 2008 conference, the American Image website won the “best of the web” online exhibition award.
The American Image website has had a great impact on The Maxwell Museum. It is connected directly to the museum’s main webpage and is credited with increased traffic to the website. The museum’s leadership is interested and invested in working on similar projects in the future.
The bigger picture
For me, the development process was most rewarding when we posed the larger question of how best to share and use these amazing photographs. How can we truly engage our targeted audience, who might otherwise surf through the photo collection? If our audience posts, uses and shares photographs on line, then we need to be in the mix. Once we decided to go this direction, the messages and skills we wanted to introduce seemed to fall into place. Key to the process was the support of The Maxwell Museum to leave what we perceived as typical on-line museum programming and enter a more social network. Linking to a public photo sharing website like Flickr, made the project more dynamic and exciting as a result.
The site generates daily responses and seems to be reaching a broad community—more diverse in age and interest than our target group of high school students. Incorporating the latest trends in technology in museum programming and curriculum design is complicated. On the one hand there are so many new options and techniques to meet the needs and interests of our audiences. On the other, it’s our job to think carefully and deliberately about how we use new technologies to insure that they enhance and not detract from our goals. The American Image project has joined content with medium in a meaningful way, giving Collier’s photographs a new life 50 years after he took them.
Beth Maloney is a Museum Education Consultant working with museums in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, NM. She also teaches a course in Museum Learning at the University of New Mexico. Prior to moving to Albuquerque, she was the History Programs Coordinator at the Oakland Museum of California. Beth has a MS in Education from the Museum Education program at Bank Street College and a BA in History and English from Swarthmore College. She has worked in and with museums since 1997. For more information or to contact Beth please go to www.bethmaloney.com.
The Museum Education Roundtable
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Request from Elaine Gurian
Network News Fall 2008
(back to table of contents)
Request from Elaine Gurian
As I am preparing to go to Argentina on my Fulbright from July 21 until Oct 21, I am hopeful that you will find my project interesting and want to get involved. I am interested in gathering access to four things –
My project is evolving but it seems that creating files of material that are available in both English and Spanish might prove helpful to museum practitioners whose first language is one and who would wish to have a common basis of communication with speakers of the other language. It might also prove helpful to those who teach in one language (i.e. English) but have students whose first language is the other (i.e. Spanish). My colleagues in Argentina are also interested in a kind of electronic self-help program for museum practitioners who wish to have access to Spanish-language museological material on the web. This material could have originated in either Spanish or English and would allow for a broader curriculum then one just generated by one language group. I am seeking to facilitate a cross-boundary conversation in places where language has kept us apart.
You can reach me at egurian@egurian.com
www.egurian.com
in Vieques: 787-741-1769
(back to table of contents)
Request from Elaine Gurian
As I am preparing to go to Argentina on my Fulbright from July 21 until Oct 21, I am hopeful that you will find my project interesting and want to get involved. I am interested in gathering access to four things –
- Museum material that has already been translated into Spanish.
- Museum material written in English that you would recommend be translated into Spanish because of its importance to museum work. This could be either philosophical writings or practical. It could also be a useful example or check-list for some museum activity. It might represent the best practice or something that you think of as a foundational document.
- Museum material that was originally written in Spanish that you would love to have access to in English.
- Contacts you think I should know in Latin America or in the Anglophone world who might be interested in this project.
My project is evolving but it seems that creating files of material that are available in both English and Spanish might prove helpful to museum practitioners whose first language is one and who would wish to have a common basis of communication with speakers of the other language. It might also prove helpful to those who teach in one language (i.e. English) but have students whose first language is the other (i.e. Spanish). My colleagues in Argentina are also interested in a kind of electronic self-help program for museum practitioners who wish to have access to Spanish-language museological material on the web. This material could have originated in either Spanish or English and would allow for a broader curriculum then one just generated by one language group. I am seeking to facilitate a cross-boundary conversation in places where language has kept us apart. You can reach me at egurian@egurian.com
www.egurian.com
in Vieques: 787-741-1769
The Museum Education Roundtable
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Book Review: Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century
Network News Fall 2008
(back to table of contents)
Book Review: Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century, by Carol C. Kuhlthau, Leslie K. Maniotes and Ann K. Caspari. 170 pp. Libraries Unlimited, 2007.
By Erik Holland, Program Associate, Historic Properties Office, Minnesota Historical Society and MER Board President
Guided Inquiry is an outgrowth of a family discussion that should positively impact opportunities for students across the country, not only in schools, but also in the arena of free-choice learning in museums. The book centers on the concept of instructional teams, in schools working together to plan and guide “integrated unit[s] of inquiry…allowing students to gain deeper understandings of subject area curriculum contents and information literacy concepts.” Sound a little like jargon? Well, that is just page one.
The authors take a step-by-step approach to building a case for their methodology. The reader is guided along. The voice of this easy-to-read text is that of a nurturing teacher—enticing you to read on with encouragement; helping you to discover things you didn’t know you knew; and even pushing you on when you need it. Every step of the way, the format of this book includes charts and figures to support the narrative. When a concept is introduced, it is clearly outlined and then broken into its individual elements giving the reader a working understanding.
In this model, the school librarian plays a pivotal role on the instructional team, serving as resource specialist, information literacy teacher and gatekeeper to local community experts who share their knowledge with students. This librarian-teacher(s) team plans the curricular objectives and identifies where content links with mandated standards. Then they consider which areas of study can best be approached using inquiry.
This early planning guides the design of assignments. “Assignments that center on inquiry go beyond fact finding to develop the higher level thinking of analysis and synthesis….As the initial invitation to inquiry, the assignment determines the way students proceed through the inquiry process. Designing inquiry assignments and developing interventions to guide student learning is a team effort.”
As I read on, I got more and more excited about the potential for the methods espoused in this book to be applied in less formal educational settings. For example, the previous paragraph mentions “…developing interventions to guide …learning.” The zone of intervention is defined by the senior author as, “that area in which the student can do with advice and assistance what he or she cannot do alone or can do only with great difficulty.” Have you ever seen a visitor stumble into a zone of intervention in your museum gallery or historic house? Have you trained your staff (or are you prepared) to tailor an intervention? Shouldn’t you? The authors outline several types of interventions targeted to different information seeking. This is only one small example of how useful this book is to the museum educator, and how important it is to read outside our own literature.
Although Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century is focused at schools in the 21st century, I recommend you get a copy of it, and read it. I believe it will help you think about what you do and how you do it.
(back to table of contents)
Book Review: Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century, by Carol C. Kuhlthau, Leslie K. Maniotes and Ann K. Caspari. 170 pp. Libraries Unlimited, 2007.
Guided Inquiry is an outgrowth of a family discussion that should positively impact opportunities for students across the country, not only in schools, but also in the arena of free-choice learning in museums. The book centers on the concept of instructional teams, in schools working together to plan and guide “integrated unit[s] of inquiry…allowing students to gain deeper understandings of subject area curriculum contents and information literacy concepts.” Sound a little like jargon? Well, that is just page one.The authors take a step-by-step approach to building a case for their methodology. The reader is guided along. The voice of this easy-to-read text is that of a nurturing teacher—enticing you to read on with encouragement; helping you to discover things you didn’t know you knew; and even pushing you on when you need it. Every step of the way, the format of this book includes charts and figures to support the narrative. When a concept is introduced, it is clearly outlined and then broken into its individual elements giving the reader a working understanding.
In this model, the school librarian plays a pivotal role on the instructional team, serving as resource specialist, information literacy teacher and gatekeeper to local community experts who share their knowledge with students. This librarian-teacher(s) team plans the curricular objectives and identifies where content links with mandated standards. Then they consider which areas of study can best be approached using inquiry.
This early planning guides the design of assignments. “Assignments that center on inquiry go beyond fact finding to develop the higher level thinking of analysis and synthesis….As the initial invitation to inquiry, the assignment determines the way students proceed through the inquiry process. Designing inquiry assignments and developing interventions to guide student learning is a team effort.”
As I read on, I got more and more excited about the potential for the methods espoused in this book to be applied in less formal educational settings. For example, the previous paragraph mentions “…developing interventions to guide …learning.” The zone of intervention is defined by the senior author as, “that area in which the student can do with advice and assistance what he or she cannot do alone or can do only with great difficulty.” Have you ever seen a visitor stumble into a zone of intervention in your museum gallery or historic house? Have you trained your staff (or are you prepared) to tailor an intervention? Shouldn’t you? The authors outline several types of interventions targeted to different information seeking. This is only one small example of how useful this book is to the museum educator, and how important it is to read outside our own literature.
Although Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century is focused at schools in the 21st century, I recommend you get a copy of it, and read it. I believe it will help you think about what you do and how you do it.
The Museum Education Roundtable
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Capturing the Infrequent Visitor
Network News Fall 2008
(back to table of contents)
Capturing the Infrequent Visitor
By Brooke DiGiovanni Evans, Head of Gallery Learning, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with support from The Wallace Foundation, has created two new learning opportunities for visitors: spotlight talks and demonstration carts. The focus of The Wallace Foundation endowment grant is to enhance the visitor experience. Our goal for these programs is to increase satisfaction and deepen and broaden participation among adult infrequent museum visitors, defined as someone eighteen and older who has visited any art museum (not just the MFA) at least once, but no more than twice during the past two years. We chose to focus on the adult visitor because they comprise a large portion of our audience. These programs provide an opening for visitors to experience different learning opportunities, which will lead to further engagement with the Museum’s collection. These bite-size learning opportunities also create a dynamic and welcoming environment within the museum galleries for everyone, including both frequent and infrequent visitors.
Spotlight Talks
Each spotlight talk is fifteen minutes long and focuses on two to three objects in a gallery. Curators, conservators, and educators lead the talks, which spotlight important artists and objects in the collection. Each talk provides visitors with information on museum objects, but also allows visitors the opportunity to ask questions and engage with the speaker. The two main goals of the spotlight talk program are to provide visitors with the opportunity to engage meaningfully with a few works of art and to gain an increased knowledge of the works discussed
The talks, given on Wednesday evenings and on weekends, have been well received by visitors. One visitor commented, “I think it is a delightful way to bring people into the art.” Others have said that without the spotlight talk they would have walked right past a particular object. In early May we gathered together the team that conducted these talks to get their feedback and suggestions for improvements. Feedback from the staff leading these talks was positive. One curator stated, “Spotlight talks are an opportunity to highlight the interesting history of individual objects that might otherwise be overlooked by visitors.” Another remarked, “Spotlight talks are more of a dialogue. People feel free to jump in with questions and observations.”
This year, the spotlight talks program will undergo some minor changes. We have added an adjunct lecturer position, allowing us to offer more talks each month that target heavily populated galleries. Also, based on curatorial feedback and attendance tracking we are altering the times of these talks to later in the afternoon on weekends and on Wednesday nights the talks are scheduled closer together. In addition, to improve on-site communication to visitors, the sign in the gallery now gives a specific title for the talk. Previously the sign was more general, simply announcing that a talk would be given on the hour in the galleries.
Demonstration Carts
The demonstration cart program began in June 2008 after a year of extensive research. It is designed to help visitors gain an understanding of specific processes and to learn about the tools and materials used to create a work of art. Before choosing the topics or designing the carts, we conducted visitor evaluations to learn what art processes interested visitors the most, the least, and why. We spoke with both frequent and infrequent visitors and learned useful and interesting information. Infrequent visitors wanted to learn about processes they were familiar with. One infrequent visitor who chose painting commented, “Everyone has painted.” Frequent visitors wanted to explore processes that had strong personal connections or were complex and mysterious. Both groups chose painting as the technique they were most interested in seeing. We were pleased to learn that seventy-five percent of the people interviewed rated the demonstration cart idea highly.
Based on the evaluation results, we created carts that focused on painting and mosaic. Each cart contains the tools and materials an artist would use to create their work. For example, the painting cart holds an assortment of brushes, palette knives, paints and other materials. In addition to these materials, we have commissioned a series of contemporary and historically accurate demonstration panels, showing the layers of work necessary to build up to the finished product. We worked with curators and conservators extensively to determine which tools and materials to include and how to construct the demonstration panels.
The carts are in the galleries on the weekends, staffed by museum educators. With little publicity beyond a sign next to the cart this program opened with a bang: sixty-nine people interacted with it on the first weekend. Since then we have had between eighty and one hundred and forty visitors engage with the cart over the course of a five-hour day. Visitors have commented, “It is a good thing you are doing, I learned so much” and “This is great, very innovative.” The carts provoke questions about technique, art history and even where to purchase painting and mosaic-making supplies. We will be adding one to two additional carts this year. Possible topics for these new carts will be Japanese woodblock prints, jewelry and marble carving.
Big Questions
One of the exciting parts of developing these programs has been the many interesting educational questions that the programs raise for us. Most importantly, what impact do these programs have on visitors? Do they help visitors look more closely at the works in the galleries? Do the programs encourage the infrequent visitor to return to the museum more often? Do visitors engage in additional learning after attending one of these programs? Or are these programs a stand-alone format, meeting a specific on the spot need?
We wonder what is the best way for staff to engage the infrequent visitor. Visitors have told us that without the spotlight talk program they would have walked past the object because they were not interested in learning about it. In our evaluations for the demonstration cart program, visitors ranked Asian scrolls as the area they were least interested in. This is an important part of the museum’s collection, though. How do we break that initial reluctance and encourage visitors to sample a learning experience they ultimately enjoy?
How do we alert visitors to these learning opportunities? Should we place these programs in high traffic areas to increase the visibility or should we spread them throughout the museum, to feature the less visited collections? Also, what type of on-site communication is the most effective?
In order to answer these questions and many others we will be carrying out evaluation studies, focusing on learning outcomes as well as general feedback from visitors.
Conclusion
The opportunity to focus on adult learning for these programs has been a great learning experience for the museum staff. Many people from a variety of departments have been involved; creating these programs was truly a team effort. Early evaluation studies have helped us to understand the target audience better and continued research will aid in engaging this audience even further.
Brooke DiGiovanni Evans has worked at the Peabody Essex Museum, Plimoth Plantation and the Fogg Art Museum and has been in museum education for several years. She is on the steering committee for the Greater Boston Museum Educators Roundtable. She received an Ed.M and certificate in Museum Studies from Harvard University and a B.A. in Art History from Boston University.
(back to table of contents)
Capturing the Infrequent Visitor
By Brooke DiGiovanni Evans, Head of Gallery Learning, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with support from The Wallace Foundation, has created two new learning opportunities for visitors: spotlight talks and demonstration carts. The focus of The Wallace Foundation endowment grant is to enhance the visitor experience. Our goal for these programs is to increase satisfaction and deepen and broaden participation among adult infrequent museum visitors, defined as someone eighteen and older who has visited any art museum (not just the MFA) at least once, but no more than twice during the past two years. We chose to focus on the adult visitor because they comprise a large portion of our audience. These programs provide an opening for visitors to experience different learning opportunities, which will lead to further engagement with the Museum’s collection. These bite-size learning opportunities also create a dynamic and welcoming environment within the museum galleries for everyone, including both frequent and infrequent visitors.Spotlight Talks
Each spotlight talk is fifteen minutes long and focuses on two to three objects in a gallery. Curators, conservators, and educators lead the talks, which spotlight important artists and objects in the collection. Each talk provides visitors with information on museum objects, but also allows visitors the opportunity to ask questions and engage with the speaker. The two main goals of the spotlight talk program are to provide visitors with the opportunity to engage meaningfully with a few works of art and to gain an increased knowledge of the works discussed
The talks, given on Wednesday evenings and on weekends, have been well received by visitors. One visitor commented, “I think it is a delightful way to bring people into the art.” Others have said that without the spotlight talk they would have walked right past a particular object. In early May we gathered together the team that conducted these talks to get their feedback and suggestions for improvements. Feedback from the staff leading these talks was positive. One curator stated, “Spotlight talks are an opportunity to highlight the interesting history of individual objects that might otherwise be overlooked by visitors.” Another remarked, “Spotlight talks are more of a dialogue. People feel free to jump in with questions and observations.”
This year, the spotlight talks program will undergo some minor changes. We have added an adjunct lecturer position, allowing us to offer more talks each month that target heavily populated galleries. Also, based on curatorial feedback and attendance tracking we are altering the times of these talks to later in the afternoon on weekends and on Wednesday nights the talks are scheduled closer together. In addition, to improve on-site communication to visitors, the sign in the gallery now gives a specific title for the talk. Previously the sign was more general, simply announcing that a talk would be given on the hour in the galleries.
Demonstration Carts
The demonstration cart program began in June 2008 after a year of extensive research. It is designed to help visitors gain an understanding of specific processes and to learn about the tools and materials used to create a work of art. Before choosing the topics or designing the carts, we conducted visitor evaluations to learn what art processes interested visitors the most, the least, and why. We spoke with both frequent and infrequent visitors and learned useful and interesting information. Infrequent visitors wanted to learn about processes they were familiar with. One infrequent visitor who chose painting commented, “Everyone has painted.” Frequent visitors wanted to explore processes that had strong personal connections or were complex and mysterious. Both groups chose painting as the technique they were most interested in seeing. We were pleased to learn that seventy-five percent of the people interviewed rated the demonstration cart idea highly.
Based on the evaluation results, we created carts that focused on painting and mosaic. Each cart contains the tools and materials an artist would use to create their work. For example, the painting cart holds an assortment of brushes, palette knives, paints and other materials. In addition to these materials, we have commissioned a series of contemporary and historically accurate demonstration panels, showing the layers of work necessary to build up to the finished product. We worked with curators and conservators extensively to determine which tools and materials to include and how to construct the demonstration panels.
The carts are in the galleries on the weekends, staffed by museum educators. With little publicity beyond a sign next to the cart this program opened with a bang: sixty-nine people interacted with it on the first weekend. Since then we have had between eighty and one hundred and forty visitors engage with the cart over the course of a five-hour day. Visitors have commented, “It is a good thing you are doing, I learned so much” and “This is great, very innovative.” The carts provoke questions about technique, art history and even where to purchase painting and mosaic-making supplies. We will be adding one to two additional carts this year. Possible topics for these new carts will be Japanese woodblock prints, jewelry and marble carving.
Big Questions
One of the exciting parts of developing these programs has been the many interesting educational questions that the programs raise for us. Most importantly, what impact do these programs have on visitors? Do they help visitors look more closely at the works in the galleries? Do the programs encourage the infrequent visitor to return to the museum more often? Do visitors engage in additional learning after attending one of these programs? Or are these programs a stand-alone format, meeting a specific on the spot need?
We wonder what is the best way for staff to engage the infrequent visitor. Visitors have told us that without the spotlight talk program they would have walked past the object because they were not interested in learning about it. In our evaluations for the demonstration cart program, visitors ranked Asian scrolls as the area they were least interested in. This is an important part of the museum’s collection, though. How do we break that initial reluctance and encourage visitors to sample a learning experience they ultimately enjoy?
How do we alert visitors to these learning opportunities? Should we place these programs in high traffic areas to increase the visibility or should we spread them throughout the museum, to feature the less visited collections? Also, what type of on-site communication is the most effective?
In order to answer these questions and many others we will be carrying out evaluation studies, focusing on learning outcomes as well as general feedback from visitors.
Conclusion
The opportunity to focus on adult learning for these programs has been a great learning experience for the museum staff. Many people from a variety of departments have been involved; creating these programs was truly a team effort. Early evaluation studies have helped us to understand the target audience better and continued research will aid in engaging this audience even further.
Brooke DiGiovanni Evans has worked at the Peabody Essex Museum, Plimoth Plantation and the Fogg Art Museum and has been in museum education for several years. She is on the steering committee for the Greater Boston Museum Educators Roundtable. She received an Ed.M and certificate in Museum Studies from Harvard University and a B.A. in Art History from Boston University.
The Museum Education Roundtable
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
Book Review: Informal Learning and Field Trips: Engaging Students in Standards-Based Experiences Across the K-5 Curriculum
Network News Fall 2008
(back to table of contents)
Book Review: Informal Learning and Field Trips: Engaging Students in Standards-Based Experiences Across the K – 5 Curriculum, by Leah Melber. 160 pp. Corwin Press, 2007.
By Ron Rohovit, Ed.D. Deputy Director, Education, Amgen Center for Science Learning, California Science Center
Dr. Melber’s new book is a welcome addition to the field and should be on the bookshelf of every school teacher, museum educator, and informal learning educator. Dr. Melber has written a book that gives K - 5 teachers the activities, rationale and resources to design exemplary field trip experiences for their students. For the museum educator, this book provides insight into the classroom teachers’ world, explains the theoretical base that supports informal learning, and suggests ways to shape an on-site field trip experience which best use the dynamic and rich educational experiences and environments our institutions have to offer.
The first chapter provides teachers with useful information on how to pick the right destination, link the field trip to the curriculum and content standards, address logistical items, and deliver relevant on-site field trip activities and supportive classroom activities. The next several chapters focus on specific pre-, post- and on-site explorations in science, language arts, social science, math and fine arts that will make a trip to the science museum, cultural or historic site, art museum or grocery store a meaningful and memorable educational experience. The activities are linked to national content standards, rooted in research, and are easy to understand. They come with activity sheets, and have additional resources listed.
Dr. Melber has also provided information for teachers of special needs students. This information will not only help the classroom teacher, but will help inform museum educators wanting to ensure that their institutions are accessible to everyone. An important chapter provides the rationale and arguments that a teacher can use to justify the field trip to an administrator. This chapter is also useful to the museum educator or informal educator writing a grant to support field trips.
This excellent book provides everything but the bus for teachers designing and planning field trips. For museum educators, this book contains a wealth of on-site activities, research and resources for helping to make our unique environments more educational and accessible to our schools and community groups. At the Science Center, we use Dr. Melber’s book as the text for our teacher and community educator professional development program on designing field trip experiences and provide participants with copies.
Ron Rohovit, Ed.D., oversees the Science Center’s charter elementary school. Prior to this position, Ron was the Director of Education at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He has been in the informal science learning field for over 18 years, managing education departments; researching learning experiences; and developing and delivering programs for educators, school groups and the general public.
(back to table of contents)
Book Review: Informal Learning and Field Trips: Engaging Students in Standards-Based Experiences Across the K – 5 Curriculum, by Leah Melber. 160 pp. Corwin Press, 2007.
By Ron Rohovit, Ed.D. Deputy Director, Education, Amgen Center for Science Learning, California Science Center
Dr. Melber’s new book is a welcome addition to the field and should be on the bookshelf of every school teacher, museum educator, and informal learning educator. Dr. Melber has written a book that gives K - 5 teachers the activities, rationale and resources to design exemplary field trip experiences for their students. For the museum educator, this book provides insight into the classroom teachers’ world, explains the theoretical base that supports informal learning, and suggests ways to shape an on-site field trip experience which best use the dynamic and rich educational experiences and environments our institutions have to offer.The first chapter provides teachers with useful information on how to pick the right destination, link the field trip to the curriculum and content standards, address logistical items, and deliver relevant on-site field trip activities and supportive classroom activities. The next several chapters focus on specific pre-, post- and on-site explorations in science, language arts, social science, math and fine arts that will make a trip to the science museum, cultural or historic site, art museum or grocery store a meaningful and memorable educational experience. The activities are linked to national content standards, rooted in research, and are easy to understand. They come with activity sheets, and have additional resources listed.
Dr. Melber has also provided information for teachers of special needs students. This information will not only help the classroom teacher, but will help inform museum educators wanting to ensure that their institutions are accessible to everyone. An important chapter provides the rationale and arguments that a teacher can use to justify the field trip to an administrator. This chapter is also useful to the museum educator or informal educator writing a grant to support field trips.
This excellent book provides everything but the bus for teachers designing and planning field trips. For museum educators, this book contains a wealth of on-site activities, research and resources for helping to make our unique environments more educational and accessible to our schools and community groups. At the Science Center, we use Dr. Melber’s book as the text for our teacher and community educator professional development program on designing field trip experiences and provide participants with copies.
Ron Rohovit, Ed.D., oversees the Science Center’s charter elementary school. Prior to this position, Ron was the Director of Education at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He has been in the informal science learning field for over 18 years, managing education departments; researching learning experiences; and developing and delivering programs for educators, school groups and the general public.
The Museum Education Roundtable
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
News Update on Regional Museum Education Groups (MERs)
Network News Fall 2008
(back to table of contents)
News Update on Regional Museum Education Groups (MERs)
By Julia Rose, West Baton Rouge Museum, Port Allen, Louisiana and Board Member, MER
The Museum Education Roundtable (MER) has been creating a database of names and contact information of regional MERs from around the globe since summer 2007. The huge response to our call via email, website, and blog demonstrates that new interest in MER is growing in a variety of ways. People have asked to be included in the regional MER database, how to join MER, and for names and contacts of museum educators in particular locations.
It has become apparent that MER needs to develop more ways to continue this successful endeavor, to better develop on-line rapport with MER members, and to make use of the growing database. The membership committee and the publications committee have some thoughts about these issues. If you are interested in working on the regional MER project or have ideas about how MER can help your regional group, contact Julia Rose at JuliaRose4@gmail.com.
We now have contact with 66 regional MERs in the United States, and 5 in other countries.
Around The Table…
The majority of the regional MERs that we’ve identified so far are groups with informal leadership, monthly meetings, and no group dues or formal membership procedures. They describe their meetings as friendly events that empower the museum educators in their region by networking and developing collaborative projects. Often, members of regional MERs work together to produce teacher conferences and teacher resources. It is exciting to report that the regional MERs, many of which include fewer than 15 members, discuss museum education issues at their roundtable meetings. They share literature, ideas, and resources and hold lively discussions about theoretical issues and best museum practices. MER’s Journal of Museum Education’s articles have served as discussion topics and resources at more than one regional MER meeting.
Museum educator, Jill Bennett, put it best when she reported on the Bath & North East Somerset Museums Group in the U.K., “The group members are keen to be seen as a cohesive body who do not act in competition with each other but work together to celebrate the diversity of the collections we have in the area.”
On the Regional MER Tables…
From Wichita, KS, Susan reports, “Lately we have been discussing how to get links to our museum education offerings included on the public school system web site so that teachers can find and use our services more conveniently.”
From Hamilton, Canada, Janice Smith reports, “Our aim is to promote discussion around issues having to do with social relevance and museums, galleries, historic sites, and parks.” And Chris Castle reports on several round table discussions including “I know what I like = I like what I know ... Talking about experiences with artworks” that focused on adult learners.
From Boston, MA, Amy Peters Clark reports, “The Greater Boston Museum Educators’ Roundtable discussed Digital Spaces in the Museum: Teens, Tagging and More. The group heard from Emma Fernandez on the Poss Family Mediatheque, a hybrid between an exhibition gallery and an interactive multimedia resource for learning, emphasizing that this dramatic space redefines the role of an on-site technology-based educational facility. Rosanna Flouty and Joe Douillette presented ideas for new media after-school offerings for teens in the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Family Digital Studio. GBMER offered members an evening of art and networking at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.”
Joining the Table… Newly Listed Regional MERs
(back to table of contents)
News Update on Regional Museum Education Groups (MERs)
By Julia Rose, West Baton Rouge Museum, Port Allen, Louisiana and Board Member, MER
The Museum Education Roundtable (MER) has been creating a database of names and contact information of regional MERs from around the globe since summer 2007. The huge response to our call via email, website, and blog demonstrates that new interest in MER is growing in a variety of ways. People have asked to be included in the regional MER database, how to join MER, and for names and contacts of museum educators in particular locations.It has become apparent that MER needs to develop more ways to continue this successful endeavor, to better develop on-line rapport with MER members, and to make use of the growing database. The membership committee and the publications committee have some thoughts about these issues. If you are interested in working on the regional MER project or have ideas about how MER can help your regional group, contact Julia Rose at JuliaRose4@gmail.com.
We now have contact with 66 regional MERs in the United States, and 5 in other countries.
Around The Table…
The majority of the regional MERs that we’ve identified so far are groups with informal leadership, monthly meetings, and no group dues or formal membership procedures. They describe their meetings as friendly events that empower the museum educators in their region by networking and developing collaborative projects. Often, members of regional MERs work together to produce teacher conferences and teacher resources. It is exciting to report that the regional MERs, many of which include fewer than 15 members, discuss museum education issues at their roundtable meetings. They share literature, ideas, and resources and hold lively discussions about theoretical issues and best museum practices. MER’s Journal of Museum Education’s articles have served as discussion topics and resources at more than one regional MER meeting.
Museum educator, Jill Bennett, put it best when she reported on the Bath & North East Somerset Museums Group in the U.K., “The group members are keen to be seen as a cohesive body who do not act in competition with each other but work together to celebrate the diversity of the collections we have in the area.”
On the Regional MER Tables…
From Wichita, KS, Susan reports, “Lately we have been discussing how to get links to our museum education offerings included on the public school system web site so that teachers can find and use our services more conveniently.”
From Hamilton, Canada, Janice Smith reports, “Our aim is to promote discussion around issues having to do with social relevance and museums, galleries, historic sites, and parks.” And Chris Castle reports on several round table discussions including “I know what I like = I like what I know ... Talking about experiences with artworks” that focused on adult learners.
From Boston, MA, Amy Peters Clark reports, “The Greater Boston Museum Educators’ Roundtable discussed Digital Spaces in the Museum: Teens, Tagging and More. The group heard from Emma Fernandez on the Poss Family Mediatheque, a hybrid between an exhibition gallery and an interactive multimedia resource for learning, emphasizing that this dramatic space redefines the role of an on-site technology-based educational facility. Rosanna Flouty and Joe Douillette presented ideas for new media after-school offerings for teens in the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Family Digital Studio. GBMER offered members an evening of art and networking at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.”
Joining the Table… Newly Listed Regional MERs
- Global Museum Social network at http://globalmuseum.ning.com/
- Kane-DuPage Regional Museum Association, Western Suburb Chicago
- Association of Chattanooga Museum Educators, Tennessee
- Heritage Education Professionals, Portland/Salem Oregon area
- Pinellas County Cultural Affairs Education Consortium, Florida
- Wichita Area Museum Educators, Kansas
The Museum Education Roundtable
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
P.O. Box 15727, Washington, D.C. 20003
info@mer-online.org, www.mer-online.org
tel: 202.547.8378, fax 202.547.8344
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
On Community and regional Museum Education groups
We continue to hear from museum educators about what they are discussing in their regional groups and would like to share it here. From our regions we have been hearing that educators continue to meet to strategize ways to publicize their programs and on how to provide museum education resources to teachers. Museum educators regularly attend teacher conferences and present teacher workshops in continuing efforts to bridge the 'fuzzy' divide between formal and informal arenas. Other groups have moved into the realm of the book group, discussing the Journal of Museum Education or other literature and ideas. Museum educators are always a blend of the hands on practical and the theoretical and our regional group discussions reflect that dichotomy.
Stay tuned for news from far flung areas such as Canada, Kansas and the UK.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Building Community
Many regional museum education roundtables face challenges that can affect the very survival of their groups. The Museum Education Roundtable itself recently faced a situation that required the MER board to take a new direction on how the Journal of Museum Education would be published. Similar concerns have resulted in migrating the organization's member newsletter to a blog format. This blog in fact!
We recently received a question from Maija Sedzielarz, a school visit coordinator at the Science Museum of Minnesota. She expressed concerns over what seemed to be a lack of support and feedback from members of the regional museum education group. She asked:
"How do other places keep their very loose, informal groups going? Or is it just the nature of the beast that these groups will flow and ebb, as those who need it, re-energize it from time to time. I have been involved in museum professional organizations for quite some time and see this phenomenon a lot. Hmmm... maybe it's me!"
We decided to write this article so that we could get your feedback and suggestions. Let's hear from you. Please use the comment feature to post your answer.
Jim Angus
MER Board Member
We recently received a question from Maija Sedzielarz, a school visit coordinator at the Science Museum of Minnesota. She expressed concerns over what seemed to be a lack of support and feedback from members of the regional museum education group. She asked:
"How do other places keep their very loose, informal groups going? Or is it just the nature of the beast that these groups will flow and ebb, as those who need it, re-energize it from time to time. I have been involved in museum professional organizations for quite some time and see this phenomenon a lot. Hmmm... maybe it's me!"
We decided to write this article so that we could get your feedback and suggestions. Let's hear from you. Please use the comment feature to post your answer.
Jim Angus
MER Board Member
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Regional MERs Project
By Julia Rose, Director of West Baton Rouge Museum, Port Allen, Louisiana and MER board member.
In an attempt to provide a communication network for museum education groups around the world, the Museum Education Roundtable put out a query through various museum list-servs in August 2007 seeking to learn the identities and activities of regional MERs. The Regional MERs Project, in supporting MER's mission to “promote the role of museums and other cultural institutions as primary resources for life long learning,” is
tracking current interests and concerns of museum educators at the grass roots level.
The response to the query was tremendous, thanks to those who assisted in disseminating the survey, including Chris Castle, editor of Museum Education Monitor. We made contact with more than 50 regional MERs: 60% were from within the United States, 20% from England, 7% from Australia, 9% from Canada, and 4% from Scotland.
MER asks museum educators to let us know if they are a part of a group of museum educators (formal or informal) that meets to discuss museum practice, education practice, and/or theoretical concerns facing museum educators. If you are a member of a museum education roundtable or similar organization or know of one, could you share with us the region/city/town the group meets in; approximately how many folks are members; and the respondent's contact information (name, email, and museum/cultural institution/nature center/park affiliation)? Please respond to Julia Rose, JuliaRose4@gmail.com with the description of your museum education organization.
Around The Table…
Findings from the initial query indicate that the majority of museum educator groups value an informal format where they discuss issues that impact them directly, primarily at a local level. Local issues (e.g. promotion and connections with formal educators) and interpersonal and interagency networks appear to be key forces keeping the local MERs running. Jill Bennett put it best when she reported on the Bath & North East Somerset Museums Group in the UK, “The group members are keen to be seen as a cohesive body who do not act in competition with each other but work together to celebrate the diversity of the collections we have in the area.” The majority of regional MERs are small, grassroots organizations, without websites, elected officers, or funding bases.
Visit MERs around the globe:
• Institute of Museum and Gallery Education (IMAGE) is a local Melbourne chapter of the national Museums Australia Education Special Interest Group. http://www.museumsaustralia.org.au/index.php
• Cultural Connections Group (CC) in the San Francisco Bay Area. http://www.cultural-connections.org
• Hamilton and Area Museum Educators Group (HAM-ED) in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. www.hamused.blogspot.com
• New York City Museum Educators Roundtable (NYCMER). www.nycmer.org
• Rural History Confederation (RHC) in southeastern PA. www.ruralhistoryconfederation.org
• Heritage Education Officers Group (HEOG) based in Edinburgh, Scotland. http://www.15ccem.com/15CCEM/CCEM_HomePage.jsp
Click on Showcase, then click on Showcase Directory.
Joining the Table… New Regional MERs
The Gotham Center for NYC History helped start a new organization last year – the New York City Alliance for History Education (www.gothamed.org) – whose membership consists of educators from museums, historical societies, historic houses, etc.
In August, museum educators formed a new MER group in North Carolina (NCMER, www.ncmuseumofhistory.org). The main meetings (twice a year) will be in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area with additional regional meetings for each of two regions, one based in the Triad area (Winston-Salem, High Point, Greensboro) and the other in the Triangle area (listed above).
Texan museum educators are looking to reenergize the Institute for Educators of Fort Worth (IEFW) this fall. Keep us posted!
Two new MERs were reported to commence in London: Event Programmers’ Roundtable and the Camden Council on Family Learning.
Museum educators are in the process of forming a regional MER, the Central Illinois Community Educators Association, for the Bloomington/Normal, IL area.
On the Table… The most current discussion topics from around the nation and the globe reported by regional MERs
Museum Educators of Southern California (MESC) organized a conference this past June entitled, Teaching with Technologies (http://www.mesconline.org).
Voyageur Heritage Network of Museums, based in Northern Ontario with members on Manitoulin Island, hosted a workshop in October focused on railway food. (www.visitamuseum.com).
Balboa Park Educators Council (BPEC) in San Diego, CA, discussed summer camp collaborations and increasing teacher participation in the Balboa Park venues in August.
The Twin Cities' Informal Science Education Consortium (ISEC) based in St. Paul, MN, discussed family learning in October.
Kansas City MER, located in both Missouri and Kansas, reports discussed dwindling student groups and the lack of urban school participation at its September meeting.
And finally, …
One twenty-year veteran museum educator wrote from California: “I think there is more collaboration now than ever but again, once a group gets too big, other issues start to get in the way of really addressing common needs and opportunities.”
What do you think? Respond to JuliaRose4@gmail.com.
In an attempt to provide a communication network for museum education groups around the world, the Museum Education Roundtable put out a query through various museum list-servs in August 2007 seeking to learn the identities and activities of regional MERs. The Regional MERs Project, in supporting MER's mission to “promote the role of museums and other cultural institutions as primary resources for life long learning,” is
tracking current interests and concerns of museum educators at the grass roots level.
The response to the query was tremendous, thanks to those who assisted in disseminating the survey, including Chris Castle, editor of Museum Education Monitor. We made contact with more than 50 regional MERs: 60% were from within the United States, 20% from England, 7% from Australia, 9% from Canada, and 4% from Scotland.
MER asks museum educators to let us know if they are a part of a group of museum educators (formal or informal) that meets to discuss museum practice, education practice, and/or theoretical concerns facing museum educators. If you are a member of a museum education roundtable or similar organization or know of one, could you share with us the region/city/town the group meets in; approximately how many folks are members; and the respondent's contact information (name, email, and museum/cultural institution/nature center/park affiliation)? Please respond to Julia Rose, JuliaRose4@gmail.com with the description of your museum education organization.
Around The Table…
Findings from the initial query indicate that the majority of museum educator groups value an informal format where they discuss issues that impact them directly, primarily at a local level. Local issues (e.g. promotion and connections with formal educators) and interpersonal and interagency networks appear to be key forces keeping the local MERs running. Jill Bennett put it best when she reported on the Bath & North East Somerset Museums Group in the UK, “The group members are keen to be seen as a cohesive body who do not act in competition with each other but work together to celebrate the diversity of the collections we have in the area.” The majority of regional MERs are small, grassroots organizations, without websites, elected officers, or funding bases.
Visit MERs around the globe:
• Institute of Museum and Gallery Education (IMAGE) is a local Melbourne chapter of the national Museums Australia Education Special Interest Group. http://www.museumsaustralia.org.au/index.php
• Cultural Connections Group (CC) in the San Francisco Bay Area. http://www.cultural-connections.org
• Hamilton and Area Museum Educators Group (HAM-ED) in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. www.hamused.blogspot.com
• New York City Museum Educators Roundtable (NYCMER). www.nycmer.org
• Rural History Confederation (RHC) in southeastern PA. www.ruralhistoryconfederation.org
• Heritage Education Officers Group (HEOG) based in Edinburgh, Scotland. http://www.15ccem.com/15CCEM/CCEM_HomePage.jsp
Click on Showcase, then click on Showcase Directory.
Joining the Table… New Regional MERs
The Gotham Center for NYC History helped start a new organization last year – the New York City Alliance for History Education (www.gothamed.org) – whose membership consists of educators from museums, historical societies, historic houses, etc.
In August, museum educators formed a new MER group in North Carolina (NCMER, www.ncmuseumofhistory.org). The main meetings (twice a year) will be in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area with additional regional meetings for each of two regions, one based in the Triad area (Winston-Salem, High Point, Greensboro) and the other in the Triangle area (listed above).
Texan museum educators are looking to reenergize the Institute for Educators of Fort Worth (IEFW) this fall. Keep us posted!
Two new MERs were reported to commence in London: Event Programmers’ Roundtable and the Camden Council on Family Learning.
Museum educators are in the process of forming a regional MER, the Central Illinois Community Educators Association, for the Bloomington/Normal, IL area.
On the Table… The most current discussion topics from around the nation and the globe reported by regional MERs
Museum Educators of Southern California (MESC) organized a conference this past June entitled, Teaching with Technologies (http://www.mesconline.org).
Voyageur Heritage Network of Museums, based in Northern Ontario with members on Manitoulin Island, hosted a workshop in October focused on railway food. (www.visitamuseum.com).
Balboa Park Educators Council (BPEC) in San Diego, CA, discussed summer camp collaborations and increasing teacher participation in the Balboa Park venues in August.
The Twin Cities' Informal Science Education Consortium (ISEC) based in St. Paul, MN, discussed family learning in October.
Kansas City MER, located in both Missouri and Kansas, reports discussed dwindling student groups and the lack of urban school participation at its September meeting.
And finally, …
One twenty-year veteran museum educator wrote from California: “I think there is more collaboration now than ever but again, once a group gets too big, other issues start to get in the way of really addressing common needs and opportunities.”
What do you think? Respond to JuliaRose4@gmail.com.
MER vision statement
In August 2007, following more than a years discussion, the MER board agreed upon a vision for the Museum Education Roundtable--
Together - realizing connections on the pathways to best practices
Erik Holland, board president
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Networking Made Easy
Network, the newsletter of the Museum Education Roundtable (MER), is now available to all museum educators via the web. Previously a benefit of membership, the MER board voted 2/7/2007 to make the newsletter available without subscription and to migrate to a blog format. Museum educators will be able to read the articles, post comments and network with other professionals.
Then what is the benefit of joining MER?
Jim Angus, MER Board Member
Then what is the benefit of joining MER?
- Only MER members will be able to post original material to Network.
- MER members receive the Journal of Museum Education.
- MER members can participate in local and national forums and attend exciting programs that highlight the best in the field of museum education.
Jim Angus, MER Board Member
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