For this author, the in-depth conversation about Comprehensive Interpretive Plans (CIP) began at an AAM Task Force meeting in May of 2004. Building on that initial discussion, the author explores the reasons, costs and benefits of engaging in the CIP development process, and makes the case for the museum field to develop proficiency in this practice as the next step in visitor-centeredness and business success.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Judy Koke
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Frontline museum floor staff people are critical agents in the field's efforts to catalyze greater community engagement and participation at the intersections of science, art, history, and society. Yet, coming from widely disparate backgrounds and often with little formal professional development in place, many museum-based education practices are informed still by classroom-based (transmission or instructionism) models of teaching and learning. Such approaches may limit the reach and impact of our work, particularly with respect to communities that are under-represented in museum audiences
The EU-funded MultiMatch project aims to overcome language barriers, and media and distribution problems currently affecting access to on-line cultural heritage material. Partners are developing a vertical search engine able to harvest heterogeneous information from distributed sources and present it in a synthesized manner. To design such a system, user requirements were initially gathered and then translated into specific design features to ensure that the search engine developed was consistent with user needs. This paper presents these user requirements, the initial design of the MultiMatch
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jennifer MarlowPaul CloughNeil IresonJuan Manuel Cigarran RecueroJavier ArtilesFranca Debole
In 2010, a museum and cultural center, Maison des civilisations et de l'unité réunionnaise, will open on Reunion island, Indian Ocean, in a park of 22 hectares overlooking the ocean. Reunion is a small island, uninhabited when it was colonized by the French in the 17th century, whose society has gone through two centuries of slavery, a century of colonialism and barely sixty years of postcolonial democracy. Colonialism erased the material traces of the lives of slaves, indentured workers and poor settlers who, despite the brutality of colonial order, created a rich, complex, and very diverse
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Francoise Verges
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Coalition for Science After School (CSAS) was established in 2004 in response to the growing need for more STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning opportunities in out-of-school time. CSAS sought to build this field by uniting STEM education goals with out-of-school time opportunities and a focus on youth development. Over a decade of work, CSAS Steering Committee members, staff and partners advocated for STEM in out-of-school-time settings, convened leaders, and created resources to support this work. CSAS leadership decided to conclude CSAS operations in 2014, as the STEM in out-of-school time movement had experienced tremendous growth of programming and attention to science-related out-of-school time opportunities on a national level. In its ten-year strategic plan, CSAS took as its vision the full integration of the STEM education and out-of-school time communities to ensure that quality out-of-school time STEM opportunities became prevalent and available to learners nationwide. Key CSAS activities included: (1) Setting and advancing a collective agenda by working with members to identify gaps in the field, organizing others to create solutions that meet the needs, identifying policy needs in the field and supporting advocates to advance them; (2) Developing and linking committed communities by providing opportunities for focused networking and learning through conferences, webinars, and other outreach activities; and (3) Identifying, collecting, capturing, and sharing information and available research and resources in the field. The leadership of the Coalition for Science After School is deeply grateful to the funders, partners, supporters, and constituents that worked together to advance STEM in out-of-school time during the last decade, and that make up today's rich and varied STEM in out-of-school time landscape. We have much to be proud of, but as a movement there is much more work to be done. As this work continues to expand and deepen, it is appropriate for the Coalition for Science After School to step down as the many other organizations that have emerged over the last decade take on leadership for the critical work that remains to be done. A timeline and summary of CSAS activities, products, and accomplishments is available for download on this page. All resources noted in the narrative are also available for download below.
Technologies are socially constructed. They mutate in the process of finding their social niche, and we come to understand what they "essentially" are by their cultural fit... This year a broad array of Web 2.0 applications and services in museums is being displayed at Museums and the Web. Although social computing is not the only species of Web activity we see, it is dominant for the first time. So, with the pervasive adoption of Web technologies as mechanisms for audience engagement -- and the re-situation of the museum on the Web in social application spaces controlled by others, rather
In the provision of networked services for museums, the term 'openness' crops up in a variety of contexts including open standards and open source software. In addition, the Web 2.0 environment has led to increased interest in open content and in the use of freely available networked applications which may be regarded as open services. This focus on openness for the developer or service provider can be complemented with a culture of openness which encourages the users to actively engage with services and generate their own content. It can be difficult to argue against the benefits which
The Science and Technology Museum from Catalunya (mNACTEC) has developed a virtual exhibition from the documents and objects used for the exhibition "Experimental Physics Laboratory of the Mentor Alsina". The main objective of the virtual exhibition is complementary to the current exhibition. Provide information, list of objects and operating proposal that could be difficult to develop in an exhibition in which dominates the environmental sense. The virtual exhibition offers information on all objects of the early twentieth century that form the collection of laboratory and interactive
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Joan MunozSantiago VallmitjanaJaume ValentinesStefano D'Argenio
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), as an active cultural promoter, implemented a virtual museum system in order to help and develop expression related to art, science and humanities. The UNAM's cultural heritage is, as in many other universities, a vast number of different kinds of objects, ranging from painting and sculpture to numismatics and architecture, from traditional art to modern multimedia-based exhibits to Scientific Collections. It is impossible to exhibit it all in a single place in an orderly fashion. The Virtual Museum of the University's Cultural Heritage
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Francisco CaviedesEsther de la HerranAndrea VitelaA. Libia CervantesJose MondragonAlma RangelJose SilvaIldiko PelczerFrancisco SalgadoAdidier Perez-GomezCarolina Flores-IllescasJose CasillasGraciela de la TorreJorge ReynosoRafael SamanoJulia MolinarJose Manuel MaganaAlejandrina EscuderoAriadna Patino
In September 2008 the Greater Screen Cinema Association (GSCA) hosted the one-day symposium Connecting Society with Science: the Greater Potential of Giant Screen Experiences. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the symposium was held in Jersey City, New Jersey, one day before the GSCA International Conference and Trade Show.
This poster session showcases ten examples of expertise development in everyday domains of personal relevance and consequence to learners. The collection of cases highlighted in the posters stem from ethnographic research studies investigating learning from socio-cultural-historical perspectives. In each poster, authors describe their ethnographic project, explicate a case of expertise development, and detail the specific learning processes, practices, and pathways associated with that expertise development. Implications for understanding personally relevant and consequential learning for the
In responding to the research on conceptual change, this article attempts to make two points. First, scientific concepts are not possessed by individuals; rather, they are part of a culture’s resources, which individuals learn to use for their own or for group purposes. Second, particular concepts are most effectively mastered when the learner is deeply engaged in solving a problem for which they function as effective semiotic tools in achieving a solution. On these grounds, it is argued that the mastering of scientific concepts is best achieved through learning to use them in motivated