Reimagining the museum convening final report 3.24

FINAL REPORT
TO
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation

REIMAGINING THE MUSEUM CONVENING
October 22-23, 2009

with support from

The Wolfsonian–Florida International University
Miami Beach

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. SUMMARY OF CONVENING
A. BACKGROUND

B. OVERARCHING QUESTION AND CHARRETTE FORMAT

C. POST-CONVENING REFLECTIONS

II. APPENDIX
A. CONVENING ATTENDEES

B. CONVENING DESCRIPTION
 Advance Readings
 Agenda: Thursday, October 22, 2010 – Dinner & Introduction to Topic/Method
 Agenda: Friday, October 23, 2010
- Welcoming Remarks
- Charrette Activities
- Opening Activity & Participant Introductions
- Introduction to Existing Research/Knowledge
Panel #1: The Changing Learning Environment
Panel #2: The Changing Museum Agenda
Panel #3: YOUMedia at Chicago Public Library as a Case Study
- Introduction to the Challenge
- Breakout Sessions & Feedback from YOUMedia Teens by Groups
- Closing Discussion

C. POST-CONVENING SURVEY & QUESTION RESPONSES

D. REPORT RESOURCES

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I. SUMMARY OF CONVENING
A. BACKGROUND

The Wolfsonian–Florida International University (FIU) along with the Institute for Museum and Library
Services (IMLS) developed and co-hosted two WebWise conferences—one took place in Miami Beach in
2008 and the second, in Washington, DC in 2009. The aim of the annual WebWise conference is to bring
together library and museum professionals to discuss research, issues, and experiences related to
emerging digital and media technologies. To reach these goals, the 2009 WebWise Conference explored
the ethical and strategic issues raised by the use of new media and technology by cultural institutions.
Attended at full capacity by representatives from cultural institutions across the country, the conference
provided invaluable opportunities for participants to share knowledge and experience.

With MacArthur Foundation support, The Wolfsonian hosted a reception and dinner at the 2009
conference attended by 300 speakers, demonstrators, and participants of the conference. The reception
exposed participants to the work of MacArthur Foundation grantees through demonstrations and five-
minute presentations by eight digital learning, media and education grant recipients. This event
provided an informal opportunity for the cross-fertilization of ideas between conference attendees,
WebWise speakers, MacArthur and IMLS grantees, and outside participants (including senior
administrators and “big thinkers” from the museum and library communities) especially invited to the
event. Following the reception, MacArthur grantees each hosted a table at dinner, allowing conference
attendees to further exchange ideas with the grantees. Providing an evening of concentrated exposure
to emerging digital media learning strategies and research findings, the reception and grantee-led
dinners created opportunities for staff from “content holder” institutions to engage in dialog with
researchers from the field.

These informal grassroots conversations further reinforced the observations from different participants,
that libraries have made more progress than museums in collaborating with leaders in digital media and
learning. The development of the idea for the Reimagining the Museum Convening evolved in great
measure from this experience. With the intention of addressing these issues, a convening proposal was
developed and submitted to the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation by co-organizers
Cathy Leff, director, The Wolfsonian–Florida International University; Diana Rhoten, program director,
Knowledge Institutions, Social Science Research Council and research director, Digital Media and
Learning; and Drew Davidson, director, Entertainment Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon University.
Other participants in the lead team organizing the convening included Kate Rawlinson, asst. director of
education and public programs, The Wolfsonian, and Morgan Arenson, program officer, Digital Media
and Learning Initiative, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

B. OVERARCHING QUESTION AND CHARRETTE FORMAT

The goal of the convening was to explore how museums are being impacted by unprecedented cultural
trends, including the increased use of digital media and the growth of participatory culture; and, more
specifically, how museum-based learning—online and onsite—might evolve in response to these
changes. After much discussion the lead team identified the following guiding question for the
Reimagining the Museum Convening:

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How might museums maximize the learning experiences achieved through digital media and
object collections, and what spaces might be created by and within museums to engage
young learners in informal and formal learning experiences?

The organizing team determined that a one-day charrette would be the appropriate format for the topic
being considered. Duane Bray, partner, IDEO, a design firm known for its leadership in human-based
design processes, agreed to facilitate the convening. The charrette process is often used in the design
field to address a specific “problem” through rapid-design brainstorming and testing with potential
users. It is structured as an intensive and somewhat competitive, team-based approach. To utilize the
expertise of the various fields represented by the participants in considering the future role and
practices of museums as part of a networked distributed learning environment, each team contained a
mix of education and digital media learning specialists and researchers, museum and library
professionals (including museum educators, curators, administrators, and exhibition and new media
designers), and interactive design professionals. (See Appendix A: Convening Attendees for list of
participants.) A sub-question of the convening addressed how a process developed in the context of the
design field might be used to address a larger question that was not, itself, design-related.

As detailed in Appendix: B Convening Description, the organizers advised participants to prepare for the
convening by reading three articles on digital media learning and use by youth. Most participants also
attended the dinner in Princeton the night before the charrette, which allowed them to get acquainted
informally. At the dinner, Duane Bray also introduced the guiding questions and the charrette format in
order to set the stage for the following day’s activities.

The agenda of the convening included:
 Welcome and introductions;
 Introduction to the day’s activities by Duane Bray;
 Three panel presentations made by selected attendees on the changing learning environment,
the changing museum agenda, and the Chicago Public Library’s YOUMedia space as a case study;
 Introduction to the challenge by Duane Bray;
 Breakout discussions by the four pre-assigned teams;
 Presentation of selected ideas to YOUMedia teens via teleconferencing and gathering of
feedback from them;
 Closing discussion.

Notes and/or transcripts for each of these components are included in Appendix B.

Organizers also sent a post-convening survey to all participants in December 2009 to gather additional
feedback on the convening. (See Appendix C: Post-Convening Survey and Question Responses.)

C. POST-CONVENING REFLECTIONS

The convening’s charrette process yielded multiple ideas museums could further develop and test using
their particular collections. All are detailed in Appendix B: Convening Descriptions. We provide a few
examples here:

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 Citizen curators – Teens take on role of curators who connect a piece of art in a museum with
an object in their personal collection by finding six intermediate connections.

 Block Tour – Youth post on their personal blogs an audio tour that they’ve created of their own
neighborhoods, paralleling the audio tours found in museums.

 Design Museum Project – Museums provide tools and create a forum for teens to explore a
design collection and the community they live in. Teens design something (DIY) like a product or
a solution to a community problem; show it online or in the museum; gather feedback from
peers and professionals; and, hopefully, get that product actually made and introduced into the
real world.

 Pandora Told Me – A teen provides the museum with some simple data related to his/her
personal interests, and the museum provides the teen with a personalized tour through the
museum that specifically hits objects or works s/he may find most appealing. This tour can be
delivered through a mobile device on loan from the museum, through the student’s personal
mobile device, or in a paper format. Digital versions could be downloaded at home or in school
to provide sneak peek at the museum collection in advance of a visit.

In addition to these ideas, there were a number of other notable observations made over the day
through presentations, feedback from the YOUMedia teens, and break-out group discussions, as well as
those drawn from responses to the post-convening survey. They are organized here in three areas of
discussion: museums as nodes for digital media learning; youth learning and engagement; and the
charrette process.

Museums as Nodes for Digital Media Learning
 Museums are very different places from libraries. They often are not publically-funded institutions
and their mandates usually require a large commitment of their resources to the acquisition and
care of collections that require careful tracking; large volumes of storage space not accessible to the
public; conservation, preservation, research and curatorial expertise; and so on, in addition to public
access and educational outreach.
 We need to know more about the kinds of systems that need to be in place for museums to take
part in a networked learning environment. IMLS encourages museums to think differently about
physical and e-learning spaces and to also conduct a community learning survey or assessment to
situate the museum in the learning needs of their specific communities.
 Although user-generated content, as well as some gaming and mobile activities, is happening in
museums, they are still largely not linked to pre- and post-visit activities; and physical learning
laboratories in museums are rare and unlikely to develop soon in the current economic climate.
 Because of the range of subject content and fields of interests, museums rarely cross-fertilize, and
different types of museums pick up on digital technology in different ways, e.g. science museums
compared to art museums.
 Museums need to clearly define their goals for digital media and social networking strategies. What
do they hope to gain from their investment and how do they calculate per capita cost or evaluate
the success of the decision to invest in digital media?

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Youth Learning and Engagement
 Student-centeredness is vital to developing digital media activities that will appeal to teens. Teen
participation needs to be integrated into the brainstorming and design process from the beginning.
The YOUMedia students’ responses to the ideas the adult groups had conceived made it very
obvious that teens have different interest than adults, need more structure than adults might
realize, and that they are particularly attracted to activities that involve their neighborhood and are
part of their daily experience. Making assumptions about what teens know/understand may lead to
programming that is not relevant to the communities for which they are created.
 The idea of place, specifically their own neighborhoods, is important to teens and may be a part of a
content strategy for engaging them.
 More research needs to be done on object-based learning through digital media compared to
learning from hands-on activities. We also need a clearer understanding of what the terms digital
media learning and hands-on learning mean. What blended learning experiences could be created
and how do they relate?
 The idea of curating may be a way for museums to connect to teen interests, while still focusing on
a practice that museums are traditionally skilled in. This also provides the opportunity to explore the
idea of “collegial pedagogy” whereby youth and adult professionals work together to produce an
original work.
 The different spaces and levels of engagement identified through MacArthur-funded (Mimi Ito’s)
research – hanging out, messing around, and geeking out – are keys to the success of the CPL’s
YOUMedia space and could also be employed in developing teen-focused spaces in museums.
 Teen spaces in museums need to be easily accessible and near galleries and collection objects. The
museum must create a space that is perceived by teens as safe and created primarily for their use.

The Charrette Process
 Most participants who completed the online post-convening survey rated the charrette method as
very or somewhat successful (64%). But, they indicated the panelists’ introductions to existing
research/knowledge (71.4%), the presentation and feedback from YOUMedia teens (64.3%), and the
break-out session format (57.1%) as the components that most often added to the success of the
convening. Other components received much lower ratings. Fewer than half of respondents (42.9%)
indicated that the overall facilitation and clarity of group tasks and final objective contributed to the
convening’s success; and time allocated for the convening and Duane Bray’s introduction to human-
based design were each selected by only 21.4% of respondents as contributing to the success. (See
Appendix C: Post-Convening Survey & Question Responses.)

 Some participants reported “the goals of the break-out sessions were not clear;” and “instructions
to the break-out groups were unclear and the result …was confusion and lack of focus. I think this
was in part a result of trying to cram too much activity in a limited amount of time.” Yet, they still
“found the experience both frustrating and stimulating.”

 Multiple participants also included very positive responses to the convening in the survey:

“Fascinating work with an exceptional group in a beautiful setting. My eyes were certainly opened
to the expanding role of museums in formal and informal learning as mediated by technology.”

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“It was a great mixed group, which is always a delight since as usual I find I learn a lot more from
going to meeting with folks from diverse fields than from ones within my field. I found it a very
productive day.”

“I love the participants, the organizers, the conversations and exchange of ideas (!!!), but,
ultimately, I think the charrette/product-development methodology forced a narrowing of focus
prematurely – just as the implications of new data and big ideas were becoming clear.”

NEXT STEPS:

As illustrated in the feedback from the attendees of the convening, cross-disciplinary think tanks that
generate diverse solutions to specific problems are much needed as we transition into the rich, multi-
nodal educational environment afforded by digital media. More such knowledge exchanges are vital to
develop constructive partnerships between education providers, to nurture clear communication of the
range of possible solutions and potential roadblocks or limitations, and to build a common
understanding of digital media and learning in the museum setting whether on-line or in-person.

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II. APPENDIX
APPENDIX A: CONVENING ATTENDEES

Amy Eshleman, Asst Commissioner, Strategic Planning and Partnerships, Chicago Public Library
Arthur Levine, President, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Caroline Payson, Education Director, Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design
Museum
Cathy Leff, Director, The Wolfsonian–Florida International University
Christo Sims, UC Berkeley, School of Information, Researcher, Digital Media & Learning Studio, UC
Irvine and Social Science Research Council
Claudia Sullivan, Manager of Youth & School Programs, The Wolfsonian–FIU
Colleen Macklin, Assoc. Professor, Dept. Of Communication Design, and Technology & Director,
PETLab, Parsons the New School for Design
Diana Rhoten, Director, Knowledge Institutions and Project Director, Digital Media and Learning
Social Science Research Council
Drew Davidson, Director, Entertainment Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon University
Duane Bray, facilitator, Partner, IDEO
Elizabeth Babcock, Vice President of Education & Library Collections, The Field Museum
Frank Lantz, Creative Director and Co-Founder, Area/code
Jon Mogul, Mellon Coordinator, Academic Programs, The Wolfsonian–FIU
Kate Rawlinson, Assistant Director for Education & Public Programs, The Wolfsonian–FIU
Laurence Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, The New Media Consortium
(Lissa) Elizabeth Soep, Senior Producer and Research Director, Youth Radio
Mk Haley, Assoc Executive Producer Entertainment, Technology Center – Pittsburgh, Carnegie
Mellon University
Maria Lovett, Assistant Professor, Florida International University, College of Education
Marianne Lamonaca, Assoc. Dir. for Curatorial Affairs & Education, The Wolfsonian–FIU
Marie Bjerede, Vice President, Wireless Education Technology, QUALCOMM Incorporated
Marsha L. Semmel, Deputy Director for Museums and Director for Strategic Partnerships, Institute
of Museum and Library Services
Morgan Arenson, Program Officer. Digital Media and Learning Initiative, Woodrow Wilson National
Fellowship Foundation
Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy, The Smithsonian Institution
Paul Marty, Assoc Professor, School of Library & Information Studies, College of Information, Florida
State University
Richard Miltner, Chief Designer, The Wolfsonian–FIU
Rob Semper, Executive Associate Director and Director, The Center for Learning and Teaching, PI,
Center for Informal Learning & Schools, Exploratorium

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APPENDIX B: CONVENING DESCRIPTION

 Advance Readings
To build a common base of knowledge, we selected and distributed the following advance readings:

1. MacArthur Foundation Ethnographic Study: Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of
Findings from the Digital Youth Project: http://www.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7BB0386CE3-8B29-
4162-8098-E466FB856794%7D/DML_ETHNOG_2PGR.PDF
2. Digital Media & Technology in Youth-Serving Organizations article – Not published online.
3. New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report 2009 K-12 Edition: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2009-
Horizon-Report-K12.pdf

 Agenda: Thursday, October 22, 2010 – Dinner & Introductions
A dinner for participants was held at the Alchemist and Barrister Restaurant during which
participants had an opportunity to meet one another and begin talking about the topic of the
convening. Duane Bray made a presentation about IDEO’s human-based design and introduced
Friday’s agenda.

 Agenda: Friday, October 23, 2010 - Charrette
As participants arrived at Princeton University Campus, Wallace Building, Room 300, they were
directed to one of four tables pre-assigned to insure diversity of expertise and institutional affiliation
of each team (table) of participants.

Welcoming Remarks
The day began with a welcoming statement by Cathy Leff that explained The Wolfsonian’s lead role
and interest in furthering the conversation about the future of museum education and digital media
and learning. Arthur Levine, spoke to the changing image and role of museums and Diane Rhoten
(speaking in place of Connie Yowell, director of education, MacArthur Foundation who could not
attend) provided background information on the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Learning Initiative
and funding of research that produced the Living and Learning with New Media study.

The Charrette Activities
Duane Bray led the remainder of the day’s activities. In the following statement, he summarizes the
goals of the charrette process:

This workshop is intended to introduce participants to principles of “design thinking,”
building off the momentum behind the concept of whole-brained thinking. Specifically, the
workshop will focus on elements of design thinking, including empathy, synthesis, narrative
and prototyping. Outcomes of the workshop are twofold: an understanding of the principles
of “design thinking”, and tangible insights and ideas around the role of the museum as a
place of learning.

Opening Activity & Participant Introductions
In advance of attending the convening, each participant was asked to think about a virtual space and
a physical space that “inspired” them and to bring a visual image of those spaces to share. The
activity worked well as an ice breaker and a way to focus participants’ thinking on the wide range of

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knowledge, experiences, and social behaviors and desires that visitors to museum bring with them.
The following spaces were shared by the participants:

Physical spaces
• Beach • Falling Water
• Den • Aspirational green urban space
• Youth Speaks space • Machu Pichu
• Nature (sky, ceiling, walls) • Mahali monkeys
• Roslyn Chapel in Scotland • Grand Central Station
• Library in south Boston • Poem – HTML head head body body
• Lincoln Center HTML
• Times Square • Home office - hybrid space
• Disneyland map and original layout encompassing multiple places
• Spanish cathedral design by Gaudi • Steps of Lincoln Memorial in DC
• Tent Rock – hiking experience • Nature – ocean
(challenge/beauty relationship)  American Museum of Natural History –
• Chapel near Mexico City Hall of Diversity
• Union Square subway platform
• Mom’s houseboat and morning image

Virtual/digital Spaces
• Pandora • Vogel 50/50 site (share learning space
• Ning space of Wolfsonian education for 50 museums collaborating)
department • Mini-Cooper website – ability to create
• Google your own car
• Mist Island • Kick-starter (funding platform for
• Powerhouse Museum inventors/artists)
• MIT home page • New York Times
• Google Earth  Wikipedia page
• Turtle Top with Crush at Universal • Poem – HTML head head body body
Studio (autistic children puppet show) HTML
• NMC Campus project in second life • Screen shot of fake Lascaux
• Room from game Portal  Avatar on Plato system
• YouTube – democratic, full-range of • Visual Thesaurus
emotion  The Encyclopedia of Life
• McSweeney iPhone application
• Adobe Illustrator

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Introduction to Existing Research/Knowledge

This session provided brief inputs from the fields of learning, museums, and digital media. Each of
the three topics was allocated 20 minutes to give a very quick immersion to stimulate the thinking of
all the participants and “level” the knowledge somewhat. Duane Bray suggested participants keep
the following in mind during the presentations and to take notes on post-its, etc.:

1. Things just to note:
 Surprises – What’s new or surprising to you? Did you hear things you didn’t know about
before?
 Notable Quotes – Was there something provocative or something you found particularly
important?
 Controversies – Do you hear disagreements? Or do you hear things you personally disagree
with?
 Patterns & trends – Do you hear things that are repeating from one presentation to the
next?

2. What is enabling some of the experiments going on today or the changes that we see?
 Tools & Objects – Are there ones that are important?
 Roles & Processes – Are they critically important to what’s happening?
 Physical versus Virtual Spaces – Are there differences in how we think about physical and
virtual or online spaces?

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Panel #1: The Changing Learning
Environment

Diana Rhoten, director, Knowledge Institutions
and project director, Digital Media and
Learning Social Science Research Council and
New York Networked Learning Project

In her presentation Diana introduced the idea
that as we talk about museums and learning, we
must also look at our assumptions instead of our
expectations. She pointed out that the concepts
of “digital media” and “learning” are loaded
words and interpreted differently by different people. Other terms and assumptions she has
encountered that require discussion through her work in New York are:

 Education versus learning – What’s the difference?
 Infrastructure versus practice – Are you thinking about computers or the way you interact with
media on computers?
 Learning – What’s the slice that you are looking at? Slice of primary or secondary? Formal versus
informal? Extended learning? Enriched learning? Intentional learning?
 How you think about youth – Are they independent actors in charge of their learning or
innocents in need of protection from info on the internet?

Diana also reported on the New York Networked Learning Project, an experiment that is currently
completing the planning phase, which moved from how youth are using digital practices to how
institutions are responding in their programming. The process brought together 15-17 institutions.
Duane Bray at IDEO led a design-based methodology during two charrettes, as professional-
development program, to deal with these assumptions and try to get people on the same page.
Make sure they understood that when using this terminology they might need to clarify what they
meant. The process provided the opportunity for the group to think about: How would museums,
libraries and after school programs in NY think about what is the commonality that they could start
to match and incorporate in digital practices? What is the there there—whether physical, digital or
virtual or both—that they could imagine incorporating in digital learning? What is the theme – not
content or subject matter, but theme-- the action idea or complex opening statement that
motivates all these organizations to start building this learning ecology? Purpose is not to build
single institution programs, but to think about what motivates youth-centered learning and how to
start to create a system between education systems to help youth move thru them in more
deliberate and less random ways with the support and scaffolding of experts of these institutions.

Group came up with idea of “local neighborhood as learning context”, which is pretty big theme. But
it gets to the idea of blended learning spaces and they were empowered by idea of learning about
the neighborhood and using that as a catalyst to think about space, place, social, physical, and
natural, and also think about what can a person can learn about his/her space and how can s/he can
act on the space. Engagement was a very important part of the learning practices they are trying to
implement in NY.

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Came out of planning phase with these ideas and are now entering development phase. Yesterday
(October 22, 2009) was deadline for submission of concept papers. Diana and Colleen’s job is not to
say this is what you are going to do, but must be a bottom-up process. It is a new approach to get
institutions to work together, to think about the youth, and to experiment with modest funding,
with low-cost and low-risk experimental opportunity. They will provide evaluation, technical, design,
and logistical coordination support. Those institutions who are selected as activities to go forward
will be first substantiation of learning network on the ground and will receive support to see if
network will rise up with only distributed support services. Everything that gets cultivated in
network must focus on the themes the group decided upon and must be created through
collaborative relationships. We think this will be a long-term change process, but over the next three
years we can demonstrate the notion that’s been floating around since the 1970s of “learning
ecology”—libraries should connect to museums, should connect to schools, should connect to after
school. We don’t believe that digital media technology and tools are the only thing that should
happen, but we do believe like Packard that they are possibly the tools that can make this concept a
practice. And we believe this could be the future.

(Lissa) Elizabeth Soep, senior producer and research director, Youth Radio/Youth Media
International

Lissa began by stating that her organization differs from some of the participants’ institutions trying
to draw youth into spaces; instead Youth Radio is a youth-driven production company where the
daily work and production comes from young people working across various platforms and genres
to tell their stories.

Reflecting on what stands out from the daily work of Youth Radio and the larger research context,
she first spoke about the changing learning environment and how the focus is on supporting the
process of curating has been transformed by digital media. The conversations about “composition”
have been transformed from that of literacy and rhetoric of the old days to that of a culture where
young persons are finding, aggregating, filtering, presenting, sharing and trying to spread content
through blogs, friendship networks, etc. Of course, there is a high premium on the best
undiscovered talent, arcane knowledge, the material they identify with, and distinctive points of
view. Museums may offer a real opportunity for youth to curate—a practice that museums are
traditionally skilled in doing-- in an organic coming together of skills and practices that students
possess and passionately want and need, by introducing students to the mechanics of the curatorial
process.

Second point she made is about youth/adult collaborations – How do they work together in these
kinds of spaces? We need more experimentation on adult role and what it looks like when adults are
not just observing, but are collaborating with students on producing work. Lissa has been working
on a framework with her colleagues to explore the idea of collegial pedagogy: What does it mean
when youth and adults produce original work together and disseminate to massive audiences where
there is a mutual accountability to the work and the various publics and also a mutual vulnerability.
This is work that couldn’t be completed by only youth or only adults, where there is a true
interdependence. What is required is high stakes where the process cannot be controlled because
ultimately the public will be the arbiter of the success of the work being carried out. What would it
look for museums to organize themselves around the ideas of “collegial pedagogy” and who are the

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colleagues in the museum context? And what are unexplored or untapped ways to expose those
colleagues and put them face to face with young people in interesting ways?

Networked publics is a very powerful finding out of MacArthur research and what strikes me is two
things: the high stakes nature of learning these days by putting out finished products and artifacts of
process has significant implications for young people. Youth might want to distance themselves
from their work in the future, yet it is retrievable and searchable. Secondly, public learning
environments are very overpopulated and pushes us way beyond valorization of youth voice,
beyond romanticisation. In the process of producing and disseminating digital content students are
learning about the voices of others, how the language they use to express themselves has social
impact, how the authoritative voice changes in different contexts/discourses and with different
publics in a digital dialogue. Youth who have been marginalized from digital privilege have access.
What happens when we get to Web-too-much? What happens in the afterlife of youth production
that they no longer have control over in terms of brutal, and often troubling and highly judgmental,
criticism and discourse? Do we need some new tools to navigate within those afterlives?

Laurence Johnson, chief executive officer, The New Media Consortium [send to Larry to add since
his time was truncated?]

NMC just released K-12 Horizon Report 2009 focused on schools and the implementation of
technology in schools. A big take-away from that report was the idea of “Think before you ban.”
Adults make decisions that may limit youth options.

Asked to focus on experimentation and expectations and NMC has uncovered seven metatrends:

• Tools/objects – 3-D visualization is a primary way of knowing; as computers become more adept
there are new interfaces being developed
 New interfaces—interactivity is about the use of gestures, social gathering, incorporating of
sensors and other devices that you no longer think of as technology anymore
• Roles/processes – serious gaming, we are now two full generations past when games came into
common use.
• User content – engaging students and collective intelligence
• Physical spaces – expectation is that network is everywhere; cell networks are organizing
principle of network is more about people
• Learning about learning needs to be considered – advantages in cognitive sciences

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Panel #2: The Changing Museum Agenda

Marsha L. Semmel, deputy director for
museums and director for strategic
partnerships, IMLS
Marsha spoke of three areas she wanted to
briefly address: teens, museums, and trends/
issues.

Museums: Comments added to those made by
Arthur Levine about museums: 18,000 museums
in U.S.; not self-described as a community of
museums; range in disciplines and sizes, most
small; a lot of work has been done on outreach and programs toward different targeted audiences.
By and large, museums have been slower to adopt/adapt new technology because it is threatening.
Museum notion of collection as paramount raises fear about thought of going outside and online.
Different types of museums pick up of new technology depending on field, e.g., science museums
are different from art museums that tend to emphasize digitizing collection. The ways museums
pick-up digital technology stays within different types of museums and they don’t cross fertilize;
online presence (website) is very divorced from physical space.

Teens: Museums have been intentional in reaching out to teens. It is happening in pockets and
shared authority or co-curatorial projects are happening in different places: e.g., Chicago History
Museum did a WWII exhibition with teens working as curators working with staff. Many museums
have teen advisory councils, which are used in different ways—designing own programs, web
presence, etc. ICA Boston is doing interesting work with teen video production. Real progress,
however, in designing core-learning spaces is taking place more in libraries than museums; that is,
core central learning spaces designed for/by/with teens that allow of works of art to be integrated
into and mashed up with parts of their learning experiences. Some museums employ teens to be
staff members and mentors, especially in science/technology centers/zoos and aquariums.

Trends: User-generated content is happening in places; mobile is happening; some gaming (maybe
5-6 games have been developed for museum settings); extension of museum as place linked to pre-
and post- visits still largely disconnected; and physical spaces are not really being transformed into
learning laboratories.

IMLS has recently completed project called Museums Libraries and 21st Century Skill. It contains
ideas regarding pushing museums to think differently about physical and e-learning spaces and to
do a community learning scan to situate themselves in the learning needs of their community.

Elizabeth Babcock, vice president of education & library collections, The Field Museum

Goals & approach (Why use DML?):
• Interested in increasing public’s understanding of science
• extend museum experience (linking nodes of moments across a person’s day to extend
museum into different moments in a person’s day)

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• Increased extension of science to life
• Increase understanding/access of Field collection through digital media if not physically
present
• How to extend and expand audiences (one of most important questions)

Key challenges and decisions Field Museum is facing:
• Do we design and implement immersive/intensive or brief introductory experiences using
DML? What’s the right mix of those? Both operational questions and resource questions.
• Is this asynchronist or synchronist, a live versus an archived kind of experience and how
does one know when one kind of experience is better than the other?
 Cost per person served. We have to look at return on investment and per capita costs. How
much does each DML activity cost and how to evaluate business decision?
• What kind of collection or asset is being leveraged for this project? Photos or scientists?
• What subject area content focus and how is it matched to which media?
• Audience type. The Field serves four audiences, so which kinds of digital projects go best
with each audience and under what circumstances?
• To what degree should the created digital experiences stand alone and not require
interaction with physical presence? Which are mix and match between home, classroom,
and in-museum experience?
• Accurate versus representational. Important question for science museums (For example, if
building a virtual reef, does it have to have the same number of species as a real reef?)
• What type of digital media; what skills are being taught, for example, social networking or
virtual world immersive experience?
• What is duration of investment in the project? Indefinite use or three-year access?

Michael Edson, director of web and new media strategy, The Smithsonian Institution

Not a policy statement of SI.

Launched SI – knowledge
“Business is just a context for doing interesting things.” O’Reilly at web 2.0
Museums are just a context for doing interesting things.

“There’s no such thing as social media. It’s just doing stuff with the computer. Everyone go to bed.”
Elliott Harmon

“You don’t walk into a room and say that this room is interesting because it is on electricity. You just
walk in.”

Issue of relevance as meta-theme of this convening and strategizing a plan for going forward
(battlebrands or brandtags.net). Museums exist within ecology of everything else in the world.
SI is 370th of almost 900 brands (above TGI Friday and below Taco Bell). Our institutions exist in an
ecology of everything else in the world.

“The SI is not an institution that understands me.”

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No matter who you are or what business you are in, most of the smart people work for someone
else.

Smithsonian web strategy (Smithson-webstrategy-wikispace.com) – It’s our job in this epoch to help
people with interesting challenges/problems, creators, innovators with long tail enthusiasts do the
things they want to do outside the walls of the institution. That’s why it is worth the culture
pumping $1.2 billion into the Smithsonian every year. Where do you get the return on your dollar?
It’s outside the institution.

Panel #3: YOUMedia at Chicago Public Library as a Case Study

Amy Eshleman, asst commissioner, strategic planning and partnerships, Chicago Public Library
Drew Davidson, director entertainment technology Center – Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University,
professor, producer, and player of interactive media
Colleen Macklin, assoc. professor, Dept. Of Communication Design, and Technology & director,
PETLab, Parsons the New School for Design

Amy Eshleman gave an introduction to the YOUMedia space: It is comprised of two spaces or places
in Chicago Public Library, including a 5,500 square feet physical space on the first floor of the Central
Library. It is prime real estate with windows opening out to State Street and also located in the
center of the Loop, which is home to about 60,000 college students and a college prep high school
about two blocks away. An equally important place is the virtual space YOUMediaChicago.org which
is where the high school students participate in YOUMedia post digital artifacts which they create
either at home, at school, or in YOUMedia. They also critique each other’s work and comment on it
and our mentor’s in YM have done amazing job in supporting how teens think about interacting with
each other and their work. At the basis of this is a virtual currency that was developed by Nicole
Pinkard and her team at DYN and their iRemix world site which is where a lot of this work is housed.

This work was supported by MacArthur and the Pearson Foundation and support from Drew and his
team at Carnegie Mellon. His graduate students designed.

In Chicago we did it different from NY in that we created the space and are now creating the
network, where in NY the network exist, but there isn’t that hub yet.

YM three goals:
• Innovative new entry point into library resources

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 Notion of creating a learning network and providing a place for teens to do some project-based
skill building
• Place to foster civic engagement and give youth a voice

The space was designed around MacArthur’s research and Mimi Ito’s findings regarding how youth
interact with media and use different kinds of spaces. The terms hanging out, messing around,
geeking out describe three different layers of teen experience and use.

Drew further explained the terms:
“Hanging out” is a very social space. Although parents and teachers thought what was happening
was wasted time, Mimi Ito’s research found that a lot of learning and literacy was starting to
develop in terms of how to use new media.

“Messing around” is a space where students start using media more intentionally to create things
they wanted like making a song.

“Geeking out” is where youth are much
more deeply involved with the media and
forming strategies for specific personal
goals--setting up a blog or doing a project
with friends. Digital media provide lots of
opportunities for collaboration and stakes
are high because of sharing with
friends/peers and matters to youth.

Drew talked about the project from the
perspective of the designer as opposed to
the librarian. On the design level, these
three terms provided categories for an
approach to think about designing the space for teen in particular. Raised the question of how do
we provide teens with layers of experiences in the space? Terms informed designers about how to
shape the experience for the teens coming into it.

Entrances are located in the initial “hanging out” space. Issue of food discussed as way to make
more casual/friendly, but librarians balked at that. But it was important to design space as a place
for students to do what they like to do, very casual with bean bags. Used colorscape to separate
spaces and create atmosphere.

The next space (in the middle) for “messing around” contains more desk top work stations, could
check-out lap tops, and mentors could be actively engaged in showing students in casual way how to
use digital media tools, music production area, etc. Books were a design constraint—tended to “kill”
space – but needed to be spread throughout the space. Raised questions regarding number of
books, how much of teen collection, etc. Also gathered input from Nicole Pinkard about use of space
for workshops and other curriculum, and One Book One Chicago initiative. Was important to talk
with librarians and students throughout process—which helped create successful space. Idea to get
students interested in books was important.

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“Geeking out” space set up for doing
workshops where mentors would help
students do projects. Called “honey-pot”
for longer-ranging projects such as One
Book One Chicago and now Centennial
of Burnham Plan. Tied all together was
public presentation--what happened in
geeking out area is displayed in hanging
out area.

Tree developed that students can load
their work onto and show work. Idea of
getting everyone engaged. Nicole designed curriculum and mentoring system so students can level
up as they get more engaged responding on website. They earn points and become mentors for new
students as they move up.

Amy stated that space is open 7 days a week, 1-9 pm. It’s really about engaging teens in a way that
they become part of their community. Centennial of Burnham Plan engaged teens in reading of
book and worked with Nicole to workshop for students to become digital city planners. About 60
teens in fall 2009 became part of a city-wide conversation in a way meaningful to them. They looked
at their own neighborhoods for challenges to create a workable solution for. They created video,
music, comic books, spoken word, etc. using resources in new media that they could check-out (Flip
cameras, cell phones, recording equipment, etc.) from/in YOUMedia. Selected six projects combined
in a video that became centerpiece for UN World Habitat Day in DC, an international gather around
urban planning and cities of the future. Students travelled to DC event.

Before screening the video, http://vimeo.com/7031843 Drew stated that YOUMedia space is core
space in Central Library, right on the street with lots of traffic. The physical space has created a
crown jewel for showing off digital media, which is difficult for some people to understand.

Amy stated that two mornings a week teachers bring student in and they conduct teacher
workshops to teach them digital media skills. The peak times are weekdays 3:00-6:00pm and very
busy on Saturdays.

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Introduction to the Challenge

The challenge for the group was to re-imagine digital media and learning in the context of museums.
In order to accomplish this goal, the process was to work as a group to gather insights. From this
brainstorming of ideas/issues we were to look for patterns that were recurring in order to identify a
possible direction to take in solving this problem.

In order to facilitate the process, group members were asked to assign roles such as the time-
keeper, and note-takers. We were instructed to tell stories and actively listen in order to look for
patterns of similarities and differences.

Breakout Discussions and Feedback from YOUMedia Teens

GROUP #1
MEMBERS: Marie Bjerede, Drew
Davidson, Richard Miltner, Caroline
Payson, Lissa Soep, and Claudia
Sullivan (as reported by Claudia
Sullivan)

Discussion
Our group was comprised of three
members, who work in museums,
two in the capacity as educators and
one as a designer; one member
working with youth radio and
specializing in youth, arts learning,
and digital media; one member teaching, producing and playing with interactive media; and an
executive from a company specializing in mobile and wireless technology applications.

The group discussion touched on varied topics including the issue of curatorial voice and its impact
on the use and presentation of objects in the museum, how to share media in a way that is
interdisciplinary and meaningful, determining whether people really make use of the media
offerings made available to them, and engaging youth in activities that are authentic. Other topics
under review included questions of access and privilege, especially as it relates to youth who are
able to use quality equipment to engage in multiple-media experiences and those that cannot; peer
education and the role of mentors in facilitating quality programming for youth; the importance of
process or “design” thinking to engage in activities that promotes critical inquiry, and promoting
ownership of experiences as well as civic engagement.

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After the group discussion, we were asked to think about grouping like-themes that came up during
the discussion, and begin to prioritize in order of relevance to identify possible trends. After the
brainstorm, we were asked to craft a question that embodied the issues we had been discussing.
Our groups’ “essential” question was: How might we leverage digital media to organize museum
participation around the principle of collegial pedagogy? Each group member had the opportunity to
come up with 20 solutions; those solutions were again grouped in similar categories. Afterwards, the
task was to use both—our answers to our group question as well as the broad question posed by
the convening—to come up with a project that would address youth learning using multiple-media.
The project was to be critiqued by a group of YOUMedia teens.

Presentation to Teens
Lissa Soep, Senior Producer and Research Director, Youth Radio, and Drew Davidson, the director of
the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University presented the teens with a
project that put them in the role of “citizen curators”. The idea was to connect a piece of art
(Georges Seurat’s “A Sunday on the Grande Jatte” at Chicago’s Art Institute) with an object in their
personal collection, with six connections in between. So for example, it could be that Seurat’s
painting would make them think of Millennium Park nearby, and that trigger an association with
another cultural institution like Griffin Theater, which was running Little Brother, which made them
think of Xbox, which connects to their favorite game in their video collection. Meanwhile, three
museum curators would do the same. Then they would have competing exhibitions on-line. The
winner would get to show his or her exhibit in a space at the museum.

Feedback from Teens
Lissa: What kinds of things do you collect?
Teen responses: songs/music, pictures, games, cards.
Lissa: How do you decide what to include?
Teen response: Mainly depends on what projects I am working on in class. I group pictures that I
buy or collect off the web as examples for class and then there are ones that just fascinate me or I
relate to.
Lissa: What you just described is the process of curation that happens in museums. It’s about picking
the cool stuff and museums are full of stuff that curators treasure just like your bedrooms, music
collections, iPods might be full of things you treasure. So, we came up with this idea as a way to
engage youth in museums using digital media that we are calling “Collecting.” Has anyone heard of
the game “Six Degrees of Separation”—the Kevin Bacon game?
Teen response: Shaking of heads “no”
Lissa: (Explained game principles and idea of all people being connected through six degrees of
separation.) We want to play with that idea and say that your collections are connected to the
collection in museums by six degrees of separation. We invite you to come to the museum – in-
person or through digital space—and you pick an object in the museum that speaks to you and you
pick an object in your own collection, a photo or song you love for instance. What we want you to

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do is find six objects that connect the one from the museum and the one in your own collection and
create an exhibition of those selections. We would also ask three curators from different museums
across the city to do the same and load all that onto YOUMedia website and we have a kind of
dueling exhibitions going on. You would also all have to talk about how you made your selections—a
curatorial statement--and take part in a dialogue about the other exhibitions, look into the
curatorial processes of the professionals, sign up to be mentors, and each activity is attached to
points and your exhibition may move to front page of the site. As you level up, your exhibition might
even be shown in the museum. Drew will show a mock-up of the experience.
Drew: Showed image of Sunday Afternoon in LaGrande Jatte from the Art Institute of Chicago and
asked students if they had seen it.
Teen response: Most replied “yes.”
Drew: Showing an image of the Art Institute located in Millenium Park, Drew stated “That’s in
Millenium Park. Have you been to Millenium Park?”
Teen response: Most did not know about Millenium Park or about Burnham Plan since they were
not the same YM students who had taken part in that project.
Drew: So that made us think about cultural institutions and “theater,” (showing image of Griffin
Theater) and we picked Griffin Theater, which has recently hosted a show called about “Little
Brother.” Has anyone seen the show?
Teen response: Shaking of heads and one said, “I wanted to.”
Drew: The main protagonist in the play is a ten and it’s about how after 9/11 they began putting
teens in prison and they fight back by using their X-Box 360’s (showing image of one). They set up a
secure network where they wouldn’t be watched. Which made us think about “Rock Band,” your
favorite game (showing image of Rock Band). So, that would be an example of six degrees of
separation from the museum object to your object.
Duane: How do you respond to that? Is it interesting, not interesting? Would you try it out? What
would you make it better?
Teen response: It thinks it’s really interesting and there are an infinite number of things it would
connect you to from just one piece.
Teen response: I like the concept, but the example that you showed, maybe they’d think about their
neighborhood park (not Millenium Park).
Lissa: What you just did would be part of the process of curating and you would be talking with a
curator.

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GROUP #2
MEMBERS: Elizabeth Babcock, Frank Lanz,
Cathy Leff, Colleen Macklin, Marsha
Semmel, and Christo Sims, (as reported by
Cathy Leff)

Discussion
The focus of discussion was about how can
museums create a continuum from youth
participation to the museum’s curatorial
authority; between physical and digital space. Some of the brainstorming included:
 Create spaces for lingering
 Create pathways for youth participation
 Studios—have places to do work in the museum
 Think about where youth spaces are located relative to collections
 Create spaces as a hook to interest in the object
 Make curatorial process visible
 Must be relevant to youth
 Convey visual as a way of knowing

Some of the ideas for implementation:

 Showcase student work in a nighttime exhibit
 Create multigenerational curatorial projects
 Use games as a means of engagement—visit the museum as game; game within museum;
digital games
 Create digital spaces for youth to engage with curators
 Create digital exhibition spaces for youth
 Create curatorial apprenticeship program
 Design some galleries as games
 Create online review of exhibits by youth and post along side of adult reviews
 Allow museum for nighttime proms or youth parties
 Start with a label on the wall and have screen for youth to send in images that convey
message label
 Have pop up museums in various communities—access issue
 Let a kid curate
 Have DJ parties for young people
 Come up with exhibit ideas and have audience vote on what gets curated.

Two ideas we presented to YOUMedia:

1. Art on the Block—have kids identify objects on their block or places they visit daily ( ie,
home to school) and create mobile guides to explain each object as if in a museum

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2. Select an object in the museum and along side, place a screen that allows kids to write the
label that is texted to screen, with a continuous discussion thread online so they can learn
from each other and continue to engage with the object after they leave museum.
Encourage online discussions about objects/

Feedback from Teens
Colleen: Our first project builds on the idea of “curating” like the last presentation, but ours is about
curating art as well in an art museum, but our project takes art out of the museum and onto the
blog. One of the biggest questions in the world of contemporary art is “What is art?” Famous
projects like Andy Warhol’s Soup Can (showing image) is a painting of a Campbell’s soup can and
one of the questions is “Is that art?” and that is where Pop Art really begins. Here we have someone
looking at Andy Warhol’s Soup Can and they are listening to an audio tour. Have you guys ever
experienced an audio tour?
Teen response: Some say “yes.”
Colleen: Great. So they are in a museum and listening to the audio tour saying, “Notice how the bold
colors make the canvas vibrate.” That’s typical arty speak that a curator would be creating for an
audio tour in a museum. But, this project gives you the ability to create your own art tour on your
blog. The idea is that you take a mobile phone that knows its location and you go around the block
and record your own audio tour. So you would be able to say (looking at the fire hydrant), “Notice
how the green grass makes the fire hydrant’s red vibrate even more.” So that might be one example
of a stop on your art tour on your blog. So ultimately there would be a bunch of art tours on
different blogs and you could go and listen to them and the best art tour would be brought back to
the museum. That’s the “Block Tour” project.
Frank: The second idea we are calling “Threads” and basically the idea is to take some existing
design practice used to create online message boards and form communities and redesign an art
museum to implement these same kinds of structures and function. Message boards grow up
around any topic—anime, digital cameras, or Nascar video games, movies or whatever and they can
be an excellent place to learn about that topic. They can be a place to find out where this is a lot of
consensus and where there’s a lot of debate. On a manga message board there might be a lot of
consensus that everyone agrees that Grave of the Fireflies is a beautiful book and a classic. But Ron
by One half (?), a lot of people like it or a lot of people dislike it. Message boards are very open, but
there is a kind of social hierarchy—some people are newbies, some are experts, some are
moderators. The way that you negotiate that hierarchy and gain respect and improve your status in
that community is by contributing value to that community, by participating in conversations, by not
being a jerk, by being polite and intelligent, by listening to other people and participating in the
conversation in a good way. A really good message board can be a place where you learn just by
lurking and overhearing others’ conversations or by participating and developing your own voice
and opinion as a critic or as a creator of works in this field.
(showing sketch) Our idea here is to take the kinds of interactive functionality that you expect to see
on an online message board where you have “stuff” and around that “stuff” you have the comments
and they are in the context of a community of a persistent identity--the people on this board have
an avatar, a persistent identity, you can message them, and they have a kind of status and so forth.
And apply that same idea to an art museum, so the “stuff” you build the community around is “art”,
so next to the art you would have literally mounted on the wall, where you expect to see the experts

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opinion, you would have a threaded discussion that people could contribute to and participate in.
And you would have a rating system, so you can interact with the art by rating it and that might
affect what is included in the exhibit on an ongoing basis. And you would have a persistent identity
as a member of the museum’s community and a status within this community. You can contribute to
the discussion in a more persistent way. So that if you’ve earned a higher status as a moderator you
can help structure the conversation that is going and your voice can be heard in this more public
way.
Teen response: About your first idea, would it be just your neighborhood or just your block or could
it extend to your way to the area your travel to your school?
Colleen: I like that idea that it could be your “Art blog”—this is my commute from home to school
and there are five things that you should look at more closely here.
Teen response: I don’t really understand how you integrate that technology from your phone?
Colleen: Basically, you could access these tours with a phone if you are in the location where the
tour exists, but you could also upload onto the Web so someone who doesn’t live in your
neighborhood could access your tour on the Web. The way the phone would work is it would upload
this information—both your voice giving the audio tour and a picture of the thing you are talking
about—on the web. It is easier enough to view in a web browser or pull down from a phone
application.
Teen response: I have a question about (question unclear from video).
Frank: I think that it is a great idea that this is a blended space; that we would take stuff from
message board community and bring it out into real world to be embodied in the physical space of
the museum, but would also have a presence online. So you could log-in in the middle of the night
when you think of something to say about a piece.
Teen response: How would you continue a discussion about a work of art if you have to continue to
go back to the museum to see it?
Frank: It’s a good point and maybe what it means is that the physical space of the museum should
be the tip of the iceberg and most of the activity would be taking place online.
Teen response: There could be a few computers actually in each section of the museum where
visitors could add on comments that could be uploaded to website.
Teen response: [comments not audible on video]

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GROUP #3
MEMBERS: Michael Edson, Amy
Eshelman, Marianne Lamonaca, Paul
Marty, Jonathan Mogul, and Diana
Rhoten (as reported by Marianne
Lamonaca and Jonathan Mogul)

Discussion
Participants spent the initial part of
the breakout session considering the
question, “How would you reinvent
the museum?” Among the themes
that surfaced in the course of
discussion were the following: the idea of integrating museum resources into a “digital commons,”
and the need to reconsider intellectual property policies in light of this goal; the question of whether
the goal of museums with respect to digital media is to use these media to deliver museum content
to young people, or to help young people learn to use these media as tools for producing and
delivering their own content (along the lines of the YOUMedia model developed by the Chicago
Public Library); and the challenges posed by the institutional “retooling” that is required if museums
are to embrace the opportunities posed by digital media. At the conclusion of this discussion, as
directed by the moderator, group participants identified as their overall goal for museum-
reinvention the idea that museums should approach their digital resources in a manner that is
different from how they have approached their physical collections -by offering greater public
access to these resources and greater opportunities for public participation in the project of
knowledge-creation, as captured by the slogan: “Free and open beats closed and proprietary.”

During the second breakout session, the group was asked to re-frame the big idea into a question:
“How we might enable youth to create interpretations and productions using museum resources?”
The group agreed that in order to answer the question, the process should meet three key goals:

1. mission driven
2. extend into the life of the visitor (visitor-centered)
3. no distinction between physical / virtual space

The group identified five key issues/ideas that need to be addressed BEFORE developing a “the
project.”

1. POLICY: Institutional Policies, Digitize Everything, User-Generated Content on the site, Open
Content, Change Collection Policies, Incentivize Museum Visits, Reward Systems (Incentivize
Participation), Candy (?)
2. IT TOOLS / RESOURCES: Digital Media Tools, Mobile Friendly, Data Mining, Mashups, Provide
Tools for DM, DM Skill Instruction, APIs, Programmable Web, Leverage Resources, Create
Physical Space for Collaborative Work, Easily Accessible and Searchable Object Info &

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Images, Design Lab and Fabrication Workshop, Generous Staff Time, Provide Lo-Tech and Hi-
Tech Resources, Great Physical Spaces.
3. COMMUNITY: Social Relevance
4. MENTORING: Work on Real Problems, Suggest Different Outputs and Examples / Let Youth
find Own Solutions, Inspire with Experts/Mentoring Workshops with designers, architects,
musicians, curators, etc., Peer Mentoring/Teen Advisory Groups, Internships, Youth-to-
Youth critique, Skills Forums
5. PROGRAMS: Provide Forums for Youth Outputs (Publication, Broadcast, and Exhibition),
Produce Youth-Designed Object Prototypes, Meet-Ups, ARGs.

Group Three presented two project ideas to
the Youth Review Panel. The projects differed
in that the Smithsonian Music Project was
designed to be entirely “do-it-yourself” in the
sense that the SI would provide open access
to the collection and anyone could work with
it in any way that the choose to do. The
Wolfsonian-FIU project is a more structured
program with the goal of teaching digital
media literacy and design-thinking strategies
and skills.

1. Smithsonian Music Project
Open Access to Collection, Using Available Tools (APIs). The goal is to “help others do the
things they want to do ‘outside’ of the institutional structure.”

2. Wolfsonian Collection / Design as Social Activism
Provide tools and the forum for youth to develop their own design solutions to socially-
significant problems

 A physical space would be created for teens to use “design strategies” to solve socially-
significant problems.
 Tools / resources provided: Collection Access, APIs, Equipment
 DM skills taught
 Mentoring provided: Expert and Peer-to-Peer
 Outputs Created
 Forum for “Dissemination” of Youth Outputs (exhibition, publication, etc).

Feedback from Teens
Paul: Our idea is that we have a really cool museum with about 200 million things—the world’s
largest diamond, the ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in the Wizard of Oz, 3 million ticks or
20,000 beetles, and the space shuttle. Here’s the catch: But you can only see these about 1,000 of
these things, in the way we want you to see them, in the order that we want you to see them, and

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you can only learn what we want you to learn about them. And if you don’t like that, we won’t let
you come back. How’s that sound?
Teen response: Not good.
Paul: What do you mean? Don’t you like museums? That’s how most museums organize things.
Teen response: When I went to Museum of Contemporary Photography you can go in the order you
want to go. I didn’t’ like the way the curator presented five different shots of the same thing from
different angles, so I looked at them from a different way and developed a different understanding
of them, so I think you can choose the path you want to go.
Paul: Well, we were exaggerating for effect here, but what we want to get at is the process of
creating an exhibit. So, if you look at the process of creating an exhibit as a marathon, the first 25
miles is a bit of a slog: you have to do all the research, put it all together, figure out the connections,
how this relates to that, etc., but the last mile is a lot of fun. But why should the museums have all
the fun? What if we give you access to the information we have about these objects—200 or 300
million-- and we give you the chance to pull out the stuff that interests you, so you build the
connections you want around your collection. You guys like garage band, do you mix music? Imagine
a garage band application for the nations’ museum artifacts. What could you do with something like
that?
Teen response: Anything you wanted to.
Paul: Absolutely! So we have a couple examples for you.
Michael: I’m an old boring guy and I’m interested in certain things and that’s going to be very
different than what you are interested in. My business proposition to you is what if I you have
access to all 200 million things in my museum to do whatever you want. There’s no DRM on it,
there’s no prohibition to burn your own copy, make your own DVD’s, turn the stuff into t-shirts,
games, nothing. I can’t predict what you’re interested in. I know with 200 million objects there’s
probably something you are interested in and I just want to make it available to you all day, every
day, for free. And I did some math--if I put one of those objects online for you to take a look at every
day, it would take 375,000 years to get through them all.
Paul: Does that float your boats?
Teen response: I like the concept of it, but for you guys, organizing it is going to be really, really
hard. It’s a lot of work, so maybe you could have two different perspectives on each work – like an
old person would want to read about the historical information and a young person might want to
know how it relates to something they are doing now or how it is affecting what their friends are
doing.
Paul: Very good.
Marianne: I work in a museum of design, so I’m curious if you’re curious about how stuff is made
and why it looks the way it does and that kind of thing.
Teen response: (Nodding teens) Yes, I am.
Marianne: Let me ask because I heard from some of the staff that some of you worked with the
Chicago Public Library project on the development of the design of the space. Were any of you
involved in that?
Teen response: No.

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Marianne: Do you see any differences in the space that was created for the teens and the spaces in
the rest of the library.
Teen response: Yes, (Teen laughing and nodding)
Marianne: And what are the kinds of differences that you see? What makes it different?
Teen response: I’ve seen upstairs there are a lot of people on computers, but they don’t have
headphones or new technology and there’s no way to express yourself. When you come down here
you have imagination and can do more stuff.
Marianne: So you have more tools I guess: computers…
Teen response: This space is much more open and much more colorful than the old part of the
library. It is a place we can come and have our little space, our open space where we can sit with our
friends or we can sit apart from our friends and do what we would like to do on the computers.
That’s the difference. It’s not focused around books and the conventional part of a library. It’s
focused around media and being a teen.
Teen response: It’s not just for teens. Adults can come here and read and stuff. The library had a lot
of meat and no juice. This space has a lot more juice to it. If I want to do research I can go to the
reference library and looks through all the books and stuff. Here you are able to read books that
aren’t about research, they are stories and stuff like that. You can come here and one person can go
play the piano and the other can play games while someone else is having a study group. In the
reference library you can have a study group, but you have to be really quiet about it, but here you
can talk out load.
Marianne: So, let me tell you what our proposal is for a design-based museum. The idea that you
recognize that there are differences in how spaces are created—different tools, different colors,
different materials. I’m sure you have different chairs in the regular library; all of those things that
contribute to your enjoyment and engagement in that space. So we want to provide some of the
tools in an open, accessible way for you to become designers yourselves and to think about any kind
of product—t-shirts or mug. I was thinking about with the Burnham Plan project that, for example,
in Chicago you ride the El or a bus. So, for you to contribute to the transit plan, how to make the
buses or train cars more comfortable—should they have wi-fi or different kinds of seats that would
be more about you sharing with your friends on the train. Is that something that would be of
interest to you, to be engaged in that kind of community of designers?
Teen response: Yes. Definitely.
Marianne: Okay, that is what we want to propose for all of you. That we would give you the tools
and create a forum for you to explore our collection and your community, to design something
yourself, to show it online or in a museum, to get feedback from your peers and professionals, and,
hopefully, to get that product actually made and introduced into the real world. Sounds like a good
idea?
Teen response: Yes.

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GROUP #4

MEMBERS: Morgan Arenson, Mk
Haley, Larry Johnson, Maria Lovett,
Kate Rawlinson, and Rob Semper
(as reported by Kate Rawlinson)

Discussion
Participants spent the initial part of
the break-out discussion reviewing
certain trends and assumptions
revealed through the expert panels.
Some are listed below:

 Trends:

1. What’s happening around the country:
 Varied use of spaces by teens (hanging out, messing around, and geeking out)
 Web too much (overwhelming teen users)
 A desire to connect online on-site
 Mentoring by peers
 Fear of change in institutions
 Use of wide-range of handheld devices
 Network is anywhere and everywhere
 Tools and objects are changing; new interfaces are developing constantly
 Acceptance of idea that museums are just spaces for doing interesting things
 “Open” education through movies, music, e-learning, etc.
 De-institutionalization and great use of informal learning
 “The world is flat”; everyone has a voice; things are distributable

2. Accessibility – both physical and psychological:
 Museums perceived as elitist and hard to get to
 Perceived as “safe” space
 Digital allows distribution
 Requires commitment of human capital

 Assumptions:

1. Collections/assets are gems to be expanded:
 Perception is an issue. Need to look at stereotypes of museums
 Serve vital function, but need to expand their role and improve standing
 Need to address known problems or identify opportunities to explore
 Need new entry points to resources like libraries are doing

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 Issue of touching versus seeing needs to be addressed

2. ROI – revenue streams are critical to possibilities
 Need to address constraints – museums and libraries are different and ROI difference
needs to be explored
 How to make everything available for free?
 How to connect to demographics of appeal (maker fairs, singles night or date night)

3. Who is the “boss”? – youth versus experts – issues of ownership
 “Think before you ban.” Larry Johnson
 Need better understanding of why are teens are a voice to be heard?
 More facilitation than direction
 Restructure organizations into teams who own and operate to encourage collaboration
 Teens start the conversation rather than respond to it
 “The Smithsonian is not an institution that understands me.” Gen Y perception (from M.
Edson)
 Explore what is the measurable value of some youth driven programs beyond perhaps
short-term project creation?

The second part of the discussion narrowed down the question to focus on, “How might we
integrate social media into physical spaces both formally and informally?” Some of the
answers/suggestions were:

1. Provide tools
 “Think before you ban.” Larry Johnson
 computers in galleries linked to social networks
 mobile devices in museum (rentable or free)
 social media space set aside in lobby or central space
 visitors leave behind audio recordings to picked up by others
 youth advisory board
 ability for teens to post visuals of themselves in museum)
2. Bring outside stuff in
 projection of media from social site in museum space such as screen for twitter fall or
projected Flickr report from schools
 comments on twitter or Facebook picked up and pushed out on museum’s page
3. Provide sense of ownership through membership/community (create permanent ID for
users)
4. Geotag or geocache
 post geo-location data at various points in the building
 geotag works in exhibit
5. Provide launch points (2-D barcode, cell phone)
6. Create enticing bread crumbs

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 E-mailable tours to track what visitor liked
 barcode/FID tags on location for objects
 “photo” + “text” breadcrumbs of visit, like Origami project
7. Actual objects integrated into online social space
 Create object-centered communities by posting official object “hash tags” on gallery
wall label. Allows people to attach tweets, pics, blogs, etc. to object.
 Use object hash tags as a way to search audience reactions in real-time
 All photo based scavenger hunt in museums for teens
 Stream live lecture series online and allow audience Q&A
 Include a page for an object moderated by curators/experts
 Provide click & grab to re-purpose objects in new virtual space (game)
 Youth create i-phone app
 Use mobile devices to allow visitor to post stories object might be telling (personal
response or oral history)
 Post objects with “What is it?” questions on twitter or FB
 Create hunts such as “Where’s Waldo?” to find detail of work on display on mobile
device
8. Make/Share/Remix/Post/For the User By the User/Document
 Two-person conversation about object and how it might have been used
 Youth-produced video response to collection posted to website
 Provide expertise for visitors to make on video about collection-related topic to post on
YouTube and vote on best video
 Youth-created podcasts
 Create new version of object (individual or group DM process)
 Remix posters
 Take pic of artifact and find contemporary equivalent and share (past/present)
 Youth identify experiences/issues related to objects, create videos, which become part
of exhibition (online or onsite)
 Use collection images or remixes to print t-shirts, etc.
 Users design products for sale in gift shop, which are voted on, and best gets produced
to sell (designer gets percentage of profit)
 Highlight work of amateurs by re-blogging blog posts, tweets, etc. using their photos
 Identify youth to be “guest” tour guide and post tour via social media (audio, video,
text)
 Student observations/reflections posted on class blog/Ning
 Conduct tagging project and gather info on objects and about users
 Gather reflections on content delivered through wall texts/criticism, user friendliness,
etc.
 Have users write own labels and post
9. Facebook/Flickr Fan Pages
 Youth as FB fan page administrator/reporter for month

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 Facebook Fan pages created by youth per object/artist
 Create fan page for exhibit and post updates (# visitors, news coverage, back story, etc.)
 Create a Flickr group for museum of “best” pics of spaces and/or collection
10. Pandora told me…
 Create Pandora-like application for collection images
11. Behind the Scenes/Talk to the Experts
 Museum staff blog/tweet or create Facebook page about their work
 Youth learn about various museum roles and do exhibition project with students taking
on various roles (curator, registrar, exhibition designer, educator, preparatory, tour
guide, photographer, marketing, etc.)
 Museum staff members create video podcasts of stages of organizing/installing an
exhibition (selecting, conserving, framing, crating/uncrating, installing work/labels,
lighting, etc.)
12. Outreach
 Beam special events into Second life as a way to reach out to global audience
 Create a Linked-In group and post job announcements and news there

The group selected three possible activities to present under the theme of “Search, Show, Share.”
Students were told: We want to connect the tools, interests, and experiences that you already use
and have with the collection in our museum. It might look like this:

1. Pandora Told Me: If you provide us with some simple data related to your personal interests, we
can provide you with a personalized tour through our museum that specifically hits items you
may find most appealing. This tour can be delivered to your own mobile device, we can loan you
a device with the tour on it, or you can even have a paper version. You can do this from home or
school to get a sneak peek if you like.

2. Digital Scrapbook: As you enjoy your tour, you can trigger photos of yourself in the space, photos
of the objects, or video bits. At the end of your visit, we will give you a disc or a URL that includes
all of your pictures, as well as professional bits of each object you visited for a complete package
that documents your day. The file is, of course, editable. You can upload your own pictures or any
other content for your tour.

3. Shout-out!: Now that you have some great stuff, perhaps you want to share. We have even
more content available on line for you to upload mix and match, and then use to share your
experiences and educate the masses, etc. It can be an opinion piece, teaching, highlight reel, or
whatever. The community will vote on the best “shout-outs” and they will be featured on our
website.

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Feedback from Teens
Mk: Our challenge for you is to think about ways we can use social media tools to get you to have a
different type of experience in our museum. We have a couple examples to show you. We also want
you to use tools you already have access to. So, do you use internet, email, belong to Facebook,
MySpace, or Ning?
Teen response: Yes.
Mk: We tried to pick a representative day in our museum. The first is a personalized experience. Do
most of you know what Pandora is?
Teen response: Yes.

Mk: Excellent. In our Pandora you just enter one term and it gives you music that it presumes you’ll
like because it’s the same type of music. We’re going to give you the same option in our museum. In
our “Pandora” you give us some information about something you like and we’ll give you a
personalized tour through our museum of things you might like because this first term. You can
enter any term you want. You can enter “elephants” and we’ll personalize a tour for you of our
museum of all our works related to elephants, all our works by elephants, about elephants. Or you
can choose something from our museum collection. (Rob is setting up laptop presentation of idea to
be screened to teens.)
So, if you select one item that we have in our collection, we can personalize a tour for you for the
rest of your day there. Let’s pretend you like Joe Lewis. (While showing an image of a sculpture of
Joe Lewis...) Based on that one piece of data you gave, we’ll plan your entire day. We’ll give you a
map of other pieces of artwork you might like.
Rob: So, from the Joe Lewis sculpture it might take you to another painting that relates to that, and
then it might tell you to go to another painting. But, then let’s say you are interested in something
else. Instead of Joe Lewis, you might have entered a term about a certain period in history, so it
would take you to another painting and give you a different tour.
Mk: So the idea is that the tour will take you to things we are pretty sure you will like because you
told us what you are interested in, but we’ll also expose you to new things that you didn’t even

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know you liked. How many of you have found new artists that you have never heard of on Pandora
because of that path?
Teen response: (some raised hands) Yes.
Mk: I didn’t even know that I liked Elvis Presley because I entered “Dean Martin” and it told me I
might like Elvis, and I do. So that’s just the first part of your visit. So you can start this at home and
see what your day might look like before you even leave home. You can have a nice print-out of that
we can give you at the museum so you have a hard paper map. You can download onto a mobile
device or we can give you a mobile device at the museum to use. So whichever way you are most
interested in using to take your tour, we can provide that to you. So, now you’ve gone through the
tour and seen the things you love, but now we’re going to solidify that tour for you with a “digital
scrapbook.” As you visit the museum, you are going to trigger the taking of a photo or video,
whichever you like. We can either do that with a remote control or with a RFID tag you can just hold
it up to something and it will automatically take your picture. So you choose where you want your
picture taking and what you are doing in it. At the end of the trip we are going to hand you a DVD or
a website that has your entire day on it. So, it’s going to a picture of you interacting with the Joe
Lewis sculpture, for example, and right after that on the DVD we’re going to give you the
information on Joe Lewis, a pretty picture, all sorts of information, archive assets, so it’s a
combination of your scrapbook, pictures you took yourself, as well information we want you to
have. So you leave the museum with a nice little scrapbook/photoblog you can show your parents of
“how I spent my day at the museum.”
And then if you want to take that one step further and share with people, that DVD/or website is
completely editable. You can upload pictures your friends took that day or anything else you want.
In the event that you thought it was so good, you want to share it, we will let you do that as well.
Much like the Smithsonian team mentioned, we’re going to give you access to large amounts of data
and you can do an educational piece--that is educate other people on how you spent your day. So,
we’re going to call that “Shout-Outs” because you can shout-out on a certain topic, mix and match
the data as you see fit and then composes that back online. Then the community, which is you, folks
you visit the museum, can vote on which pieces they like best and you can keep rising to the top.
Pieces that get the most votes will get featured and prominently displayed on our website. We may
have some sort of reward program or recognition program.
So there are three different levels of activity with your social media here:
 Plan your day with our Pandora-like interface
 Take my picture and document my day and
 Share that information with either my classmates or the rest of the world

Hopefully, these are tools that you already know how to use—Facebook, video playback, you know
how to take a picture. And then you choose how far you want to take them. Would you do that?
Teen response: Some said “Yes.”
Teen response: Kind of. I have friends who don’t have computers or only one or adults who don’t
know how to use them. So maybe in about 10 years those activities would be good, but maybe you
need to print out a thumbnail.
Mk: Oh we could easily print out a book, not just a thumbnail.

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Reimagining the museum convening final report 3.24

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