Museum Learning Talk at Powerhouse Museum

Gave a talk at the Powerhouse Museum (PHM) today as part of their talks after noon seminar series. Was great to get back to the doctorate and remember why I got interested in this topic in the first place. My slides have been uploaded to Slideshare and chapters of the thesis are online here.

I co-presented with Helen Whitty from the PHM who gave a talk a titled Public programs: Snake oil merchants or Museum professional? Helen is always a great speaker and some points I took from her talk were:

• Experience of the museum not just the exhibitions
  
• 'Public programs are the links between the museum and its audience' (MacLulich, 1994)
  
• Look at not what the public program is but what it does – for example is it a destination event; a signature program; a fixed/ongoing program linked to permanent exhibition; or special programs linked to temporary exhibitions?
  
• Penfold, an early PHM Director, in 1939 was scathing about museums as 'dead places' and suggested museums should move to retail practices – he suggested that visitors should leave a museum having 'bought' something
  
• What do the public actually want from a museum? Helen spoke about findings from a PHM study which found that half of those surveyed wanted 'learning' and half wanted 'pleasure' in their leisure time
  
• Perceived dichotomy between education and entertainment is now an old framework, it's now about how we approach our learners and about putting our visitors at the centre (hear-hear Helen!! That's what I found in my research too)
  

All in all a good session and thanks for organising it Rita and Jana.

Museums Australia (Victoria) Education Conference 17 September

Attended one day of this three day event. Was really good and here are my notes.

Brett McLennan, ACMI, the twitch response:

• works actively and with agility – rapid feedback
  
• students and young people adapting to notion of fast response – they still have different learning styles, but are all processing small bits of information rapidly
  
• a sound byte generation – don't necessarily go deeper into content
  
• need to build programs that combine twitch response and the heavy lifting mode – to dive more deeply into what's there and apply that knowledge back to other areas
  
• dealing with new generation 'readers', they expect/demand:
  
  • dynamic immersive experiences
    
  • texts that enable them to be innovative and creative
    
  • immediate feedback – including opportune for engagement and debate
    
  • this challenge faced by all generations not only this one
    
  • they network differently to what has gone before – Facebook, Bebo and MySpace are good examples of this
    

Angelina Russo, Social Media and Cultural Institutions, Engagement, Experience, Environment, Evaluation:

• today's museums are opening up more to audiences and recognising that museums are social experiences
  
• participation often on the museum's terms
  
• sites where people are already talking about you on blogs, wikis, podcasts, videos etc uploading their own content and are seen by the world
  
• peer networks, e.g. Amazon
  
• discussed the Engaging Social Media research project
  
• Distributed innovation and co-creation – paradigm shift for museums, but not necessarily a new idea or way of working
  
• Value networks
  
• Future?
  
  • Connecting cultural experiences with boarder experience economies
    
  • Creating new knowledge and networks which support co-creation
    
  • Evaluating the experience – socially, culturally and economically
    

My paper – in the interests of climate change and reducing consumption I re-purposed our Museums and the Web 2008 paper so have a look at that...

Education programs sharing session

Benalla Art Gallery, DEECD and Hume Region – program that any teacher can facilitate back in the in school, inquiry-based and critical thinking skills, encourage them to think more deeply about artworks in creating their response drawing on a large knowledge base. Used Intel thinking tools, online graphic organiser sites. Sounded like a great program and reminded me how wonderfully creative, imaginative and clever young people are. Impressed with the way the project drew on materials across a range of museums and galleries and using a wiki as a way to organise and disseminate the information for teachers and students. Finished with a great quote form the subject of the artist Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop I have a conviction that it's only when you are put at full stretch that you can realise your full potential. How true!

SA Maritime Museum outreach program, Treasures of the Sea – an audio trail designed to promote key messages of the Maritime Museum and engage students with new technologies. I'm constantly inspired by people that are a section of one person and doing cool things for their audiences.

Queensland Museum Teachers-in-Residence program – seconded teachers programs are a good way forward. Talked about getting the QM website more interactive and compliant. QM education staff role to work with senior curators to understand what they're doing and then present information in engaging ways for students. Discussed three programs Mangrove Challenge; Refugee Stories and the Disease Detective. Liked the way that David explained how the staff all learned about this web stuff together – they weren't experts in technology but experts on pedagogy. Good one David!

Paul Howard Experiences at TATE Modern – development of an online community grid that tapped into an already existing community. Wanted also to extend audience reach beyond the physical site and develop new audiences. Talked about the benefits of doing stuff online through being able to re-visit the site and for curators t be able to adapt collections and material to suit the evolving needs of the group.

Ice e-mystery, TMAG – looking at ways to bring content to people who can't get to Antarctica, give interesting work and ideas to students that done normally have that access that is based on science and developing literacy skills. Also about promoting international collaboration and understanding. Connected the physical and online environments by encouraging them to visit TMAG exhibition. Another inspiring story of museum staff working creatively with little or no resource using free tools available on the web (in this case Wordpress) and seeking funding from different sources.

Older audiences and museums

This from Willy Tseng: Dear Sir / Madam : My name is Willy. I am a graduate student from Taiwan. I am making a study of museology. I have a question should like to ask the Australian Museum. It is an aging population society . In Australian Museum , no matter in exhibition, education or research, What does the museum do to answer this phenomenon ? Thank you.

Thanks Willy. Older audiences have long been of interest to several of us at the Museum. In 2002 we did a comprehensive study, Energised, engaged, everywhere: older audience and museums that looked at this very issue. Since then we have been programming for this group through tours and special events. I have also been noticing the shift in our regular demographics, especially recently with the opening of our new Dinosaur exhibition, with grandparents bringing their grandchildren. As we now plan for our new learning spaces older visitor are ones we are keen to target.

The best example of a museum/gallery thinking about this group is the National Gallery of Ireland – they had a conference Lifelong learning in museums and galleries focussing on creativity in older people which was really awesome. There is a publication but I can't find it on their website – I suggest you contact Dr Marie Bourke, Keeper of Education there and request a copy of the conference proceedings, they're really good. The paper I gave, Creating meaningful experiences for adults tailored to their expectations and learning styles can be found on my wiki ( go down the page a bit). I also did blog post about it too.

Good luck with your research Willy.