Museum 2.0

JANUARY 16, 2013

This past weekend, in conjunction with our exhibition about Ze Frank's current participatory project, A Show , we hosted " Ze Frank Weekend "--a quickie summer camp of workshops, activities, presentations, and lots of hugging. Or that we take a group photo together at the end of the day. It was pretty freaking amazing.

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Reflection Community Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2008

Museums aren't the only venues facing this question: news outlets, corporate brands, and educators are also grappling with the question of trust in the participatory age. When I read the New York Times online, each article's author's name is hotlinked and there is an easy and direct way to contact him/her. It's very relational.

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Participatory Museum Teen Voice 20

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 9, 2010

Recently, I was giving a presentation about participatory techniques at an art museum, when a staff member raised her hand and asked, "Did you have to look really hard to find examples from art museums? For this reason, I see history museums as best-suited for participatory projects that involve story-sharing and crowdsourced collecting (e.g.

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Museum Difference Participatory History 29

Museum 2.0

JULY 31, 2013

You''re in for a treat, with upcoming posts on creativity, collections management, elitism, science play, permanent participatory galleries, partnering with underserved teens, magic vests, and more. Reflective time is important, especially when your work is hectic. I''ve never taken a break from blogging before.

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Museum Participatory Reflection Conference 35

Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2014

Seeing so many cheerful one-liners in my inbox made me think about how different my work situation is today than the last time I reflected on it in public in 2012, at my one-year anniversary. I helped them find funding and partners and time to make amazing work happen. Participatory work can be very labor-intensive.

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Museum Director History Teen 49

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2012

It is multi-disciplinary, incorporates diverse voices from our community, and provides interactive and participatory opportunities for visitor involvement. This post focuses on one aspect of the exhibition: its participatory and interactive elements. So many museum exhibitions relegate the participatory bits in at the end.

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Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

Museum 2.0

MARCH 18, 2015

A couple months ago, I visited a Community Science Workshop for the first time in Watsonville, CA. The people were of all ages--moms with babies strapped to their fronts, six year-olds using skillsaws, pre-teens building robots, teenagers doing homework. At that time, we expanded to Watsonville , where strawberries come from.

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Green Interview Share Community 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2008

Now, onto the links: If you have a great idea for a participatory learning project that uses digital tools, the MacArthur Foundation wants to give you money. It's part three of an ongoing project, so the authors analyze trends over time as well as providing a snapshot of March 2008. We're still looking for your Museum 2.0-related

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Fund Teen Museum Game 20

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 14, 2009

The end of a conference is often a time of great enthusiasm quickly followed by a gaping maw of inability to act on that enthusiasm back at work. Or maybe education staff are not willing to engage real-time visitors in dialogue around controversial issues. You can see or download my slides and you can watch the video of the talk.

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Project Museum Teen North Carolina 22

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2009

Side Trip is an immersive environment full of interactive experiences that let visitors share their own stories of the 1960s, make their own rock posters, and explore the music and vibe of the time. They function together to make the space special (and to support incredibly long dwell time in Side Trip), but I’ll examine them separately.

Denver 21

Denver Museum Arts Remix 21

Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

Visitor Co-Created Museum Experiences This session was a dream for me, one that brought together instigators of three participatory exhibit projects: MN150 (Kate Roberts), Click! So far, most participatory museum design projects are heavily guided by the institution. This is a question I'm really interested in.

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Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

This seems like an appropriate time to share the story. At the big one, I worked on a small project with teens to design science exhibits for community centers in their own neighborhoods. In DC, I worked half-time for NASA as an electrical engineer and half-time for the Capital Children's Museum (now defunct) as a science educator.

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Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

APRIL 6, 2011

Let's say you spend a year working with a group of teens to co-create an exhibition, or you invite members and local artists to help redesign the lobby. Community processes are both exciting and time-consuming. In many cases, once the final project is launched, it's hard to detect the participatory touch.

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Participatory Process Museum Children 48

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 16, 2007

A couple months ago, I rode the Dipper for the first time. Sure, it's social, but people stick to their own "pods"--families, teens, adults--and don't diverge or merge. Ideas participatory museum Unusual Projects and Influences visitors. Step 3: a successful "five" is given. Why does this happen? But I'm not so sure of this.

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Museum Participatory Teen Game 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

It is unfinished, unassuming, and whimsical, and at the same time, deadly serious. Every other year, they convene TUPAC, a group of 35 outside advisors, including teens, college students, Temple University professors, artists, philanthropists, and community leaders. You don't have time to convene the community.

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Process Share Philadelphia Arts 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2009

When you want visitors to spend a long time reflecting and sharing their thoughts, you need to design spaces for response that are comfortable and minimize distractions. There was a wonderful example at the Ontario Science Center in their Hot Zone area, which features several voting and commenting kiosks popular with teens.

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Design Goal Difference Platform 31

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 7, 2008

When I watch the videos teens created at the Exploratorium and post on YouTube, I see the aspects of the exhibits they thought were most important to share with their classmates. Tags: Book Discussion: Groundswell marketing participatory museum. The experience, the director commented, was so painful that they would never repeat it.

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Museum Teen Second Life Discussion 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 3, 2009

We're always happy for more bodies in the door, but if supporting teens means alienating seniors, there's a problem. Community centers don't ask you to cough up a $20 every time you come to hang out. Be open at times that your "community" is likely to come. Make time for staff to hang out with visitors.

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Community Museum San Diego San Francisco 22

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 18, 2008

I was amazed by the number of conversations I had when I arrived at FreelanceCamp that went something like this: Me: Have you lived in Santa Cruz for a long time? Look at the number of views (how many times each has been accessed). How to Make it Great Hosting a meetup can cost you time and money. Other person: Oh yeah.

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Museum Hosting Model Community 22

Museum 2.0

MAY 16, 2007

The recent flurry of restrictions that has sent teens fleeing? We do that with staff all the time. Tags: participatory museum visitors. When you think of MySpace, what is the first thing that comes to mind? The irritating design? The bizarre obsession with "adding" friends? Or is it the stalkers?

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Museum Myspace Facilitation Social Network 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 18, 2012

A group in their late teens/early 20s were wandering through the museumwide exhibition on love. When I walked by the first time, the teens were collaging and Kyle and Stacey were talking. Next time, everyone was talking. I don't know what formed the bridge between the artists and the teens in this circumstance.

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Community Teen Build Social 42

Museum 2.0

MAY 8, 2013

Single-speaker lectures languish while lightning talks featuring teen photographers, phD anthropologists, and professional dancers are packed. And so, while we continue to acknowledge that specific communities have particular assets and needs, we spend more time thinking about how to connect them than how to serve each on its own.

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Museum Social Arts History 55

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2013

Any job with the word “coordinator” in it sounds like you might spend your time sorting socks into pairs. School programs fall within this landscape, and our goal is not to see them as completely separate from the other work we do with youth—Kid Happy Hour, family festivals, teen program—but on a continuum. I know, I know.

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Program Museum Work History 39

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

You have a great time. Museums and other venues are offering special programs for teens, for hipsters, for people who want a more active or spiritual or participatory experience. For myself personally, this gulf rears its head every time I go to a live music concert. What will it take for you to do it again?

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Arts Museum Music Calendar 50

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

In many museums, comment cards are currently the most "participatory" part of the visitor experience. The ideas can be tagged and grouped into categories, and can be browsed in time order, by most popular, or by category. It may be useful if you want to ask "What kind of teen programs should our museum offer?"

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Comment Tools Museum Conversation 20

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

I've written before about the difference between participatory processes and products , but this question of frameworks and sensibility is more broadly applicable to community engagement strategies. And other times, when I'm focused on opening up access and opportunities for audience members to partner with staff, I'm talking about framework.

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Voice Los Angeles Denver Museum 42

Museum 2.0

MARCH 30, 2016

Teens advocating for all-gender bathrooms. If your institution is built for millions of one-time visitors, it is not built for thousands of frequent visitors, and vice versa. We have the opportunity to build relationships with community members over time. The time to get to know folks who walk in the door.

Community 20

Community Museum Local Participatory 20