Thank you again to the Center for History and New Media and to Kris and Scott for including me in this convening.
It was incredibly informative to learn in what ways colleagues are engaging with technology and that we share many of the same challenges. Many of the referrals and recommendations for websites, other resources, and grant opportunities have been and will be extremely useful. I was particularly amazed by what’s available on DiRT; who knew? And much appreciation to Lesley for sharing Randi Korn’s impact/resources table: a necessity.
In reflecting on our ideas for digital tools and following discussion with local colleagues, a program that could handle fieldtrip scheduling and related tasks, including scheduling museum teachers or docents, seems primary, allowing staff to use their time and expertise to greater impact. The ideas of an easily usable online exhibition template as well as an online tour-planning template, which could be utilized not only by staff but by educators planning visits, could provide platforms for, respectively, sharing the collection and related student or participant work and supporting more meaningful museum experiences. Finally, I would like to cycle back to a proposal made in response to the question, what are the kinds of scaffolding educators use that can be translated into technology? What a value to visitors if an in-gallery interactive could lead them through a scaffolded or layered discovery process that mimicked a socially-mediated experience.
I’d promised two documents: the Getty’s revised guidelines for interpretive materials for adult audiences, and a report on questions for visitor response areas in exhibitions. The former is still in final proof, so I will share it when complete. The latter is too large to embed here or send as an email attachment, so I have uploaded it to DropBox, where you are welcome to view/retrieve it.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15999302/Are%20We%20Listening%20Fayanne%20Hayes%202003.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15999302/Are%20We%20Listening%20F.Hayes%20Appendices.pdf
The most salient findings in the Visitor Response Area study were:
- Wording and physical presentation of a visitor response question strongly impacts the quality of the responses.
- Visitors responded more favorably when prompts were unusual or unexpected with potential to be thought-provoking and when the prompt stimulated them to make personal connections to their life, work, interests, or experience. Visitors tended not to like questions that they perceived as too open-ended, broad, simplistic, too cute, vague, or confusing.
- Physical format and presentation is an important factor in the increase in frequency and quality of visitor responses.
We put these to use in two LACMALab exhihibitions and the percentage of thoughtful, focused responses rose exponentially.
And I’d like again to voice support for a THAT Camp boot camp and offer the Getty as a potential west coast venue. Alternatively, this might be a relevant program for the professional group, Museum Educators of Southern California.