This post was written in response to Mairin Kerr’s “Are Museums Apps Boring?” on the Edgital blog.
As someone who has spent a large part of my career thinking about online outreach and engagement, I’m especially drawn to apps that are not designed to only be used inside a museum.
I’ve just wrapped up week 1 of my first MOOC experience, Art and Inquiry: Museum Teaching Strategies for Your Classroom, taught by MoMA educator Lisa Mazzola on Coursera.
During last week’s broadcast of The Kojo Nnamdi Show, art critic Tyler Green referenced a question that’s been floating around museums for nearly two decades: “Well, if people can see the images online, will they need to come to the museum?” It’s okay to groan if you’ve heard this one before. Green’s answer: We’ve seen an increase in attendance since museums have started putting their collections online, therefore these efforts—at least indirectly—have encouraged more people to visit and see art firsthand for themselves. So why won’t this question die?
Today’s post is a great example of how Twitter has changed (and vastly improved) my information gathering about technology projects. I recently put out a call for information about how museums are handling the various tasks associated with tablets—everything from where you store them securely to how you charge them and synch the content on all of them at the same time. I was also interested in reviews of iPad cases that incorporate a mechanism (e.g., strap or handle) for one-handed operation and for showing the screen to others (e.g., a small group of students in a gallery).
A Storify roundup of highlights from this year’s American Alliance of Museums Meeting in Baltimore.
Last week during their annual developer-focused conference, Google provided a first glimpse of Google Play for Education. While coverage in education and tech blogs has focused on what this new development could mean for teachers and school administrators, I wanted to provide a quick guide for those of us in museum education. What does this mean for our work with teachers and students? And how can museums play a role in providing quality educational content?
How can museum studies professors—and educators of all stripes—incorporate social media into their teaching? How does social media help us enhance learning and open up access to expertise? I was invited to give a brief presentation on this topic for COMPT (Committee on Museum Professional Training) at the AAM (American Alliance of Museums) 2013 annual meeting. My talk covered the social dimension of learning, how social media has changed museums and its audiences, and examples of social media tools being incorporated into the curriculum.
Highlights:
A woman struggles to keep her eyes open and her mind alert during a tour of an art museum. A woman’s eyes grow wide and light up as she makes a personal connection with a sculpture in that same museum. Why the difference? According to a new ad from AT&T, it’s an HTC phone running Facebook Home (an app that fills the home screen with a steady stream of Facebook posts) that makes all the difference.
The story of this woman’s museum experience caught my attention. But I’m an art lover, a museum educator, and a social media geek. What does the rest of the (perhaps less-invested) world think of this TV commercial? I turned to the social Web to find out.
Before we can measure social media success, we must first be able to answer the question: Why is social media important for museums and what are we hoping to achieve?
Today’s Museums & Mobile event (the sixth in a series of online conferences) featured case studies from museums around the globe and some excellent food for thought. Here are my 6 key takeaways.