Beyond the Brochure: Issues with Supporting a Broader Audience via Online Communities

Janet Fouts, The Exploratorium
Online Communities

William Barnett, The Field Museum
Understanding and Integrating the Online Experience

Sue Talley, Pepperdine University
Nurturing Online Communities

Sarah Marcotte Thompson, Los Angeles Natural History Museum
LMNH: Communities of Practice

Sherry Hsi, The Exploratorium
Session Organizer

Session Overview

Why should online communities be a part of a museum experience? Will online social interactions, web-based activities, digital media, and online exhibits detract or replace the traditional museum experience? We explore open issues of whether online visitors are a legitimate audience for museums to support. The online community and the museum can be a symbiotic force to promote member interest, learning, and loyalty. Online communities can also allow the visitor to control the pace of the experience, contribute new ideas, and provide immediate feedback to the museum. However, the online medium is less familiar, kinesthetic, and tangible. Moreover, virtual visits might discourage members from coming to the physical museum. Museums have limited capacity for onsite visitors, but there can be limitless online visitors to museums which support online user audiences via electronic bulletin boards, web-based interactive media, live chats, and other new ways to socialize and collaborate online. Will the essence or hallmark of museum visits be compromised by supporting virtual museum visits? What is the real value-added by building an online community and online audience? How does the nature of the museum organization and museum membership change as a result of online visitors? This session will be important to museums or centers who wonder whether they should invest time and resources into developing a larger online presence and build online visitorship via online communities. This session will also be useful to designers who have already committed to building online communities, but have not been able to generate significant participation or web traffic.

Online Community Links

Handhelds in Public Spaces: Networking for Nomadic Inquiry and Active Engagement

Charles Patton, SRI International
Personal or Institutional? Wither the Handhelds in Science and Technology Centers

Sherry Hsi, The Exploratorium
Designing Wireless Applications for Exhibit-mediated Inquiry and Extended Experiences

Mark Smith, HP Labs Palo Alto
Future Mobile Information and Media: Advance Device Technologies and Content Delivery for the Mobile Space

Session Overview

Recent advances in wireless network technologies now allow nomadic inquiry to expand the experience of a museum visit outside the museum’s walls and extend learning beyond the visit itself. Networked handheld computers and mobile technologies enable individuals to access information via the Internet from any location. Handhelds are being used to bridge indoor hands-on laboratory type activities, outdoor field trip experiences, and home-based work. However, important issues arise when ubiquitous technologies are introduced into an informal learning setting, changing the nature of both individual experience and social interactions. Are these technologies effective in supporting nomadic inquiry and active engagement as users move through public spaces? What kinds of multimedia content promote learning for which users, and in which kinds of environments? When should these devices support personal inquiry, and when are they most effective for group-based experiences? Handheld / wireless technologies hold promise for supporting the continuity of the educational experience from school to home to museum to field trip to community—but neither the continuity nor the learning is an automatic consequence of the technology.

This session will explore and discuss the use of handheld/wireless technologies to support learning and active engagement in informal learning environments. First, researchers from the Exploratorium will present findings from The Electronic Guidebook research project investigating the use of handheld computing devices and wireless networks to support richer experiences for visitors before, during, and after their visits to the museum. Second, researchers from the Center for Technology and Learning at SRI will report on ways that technology can be used effectively to support coupling between a learner’s personal device, a classroom, the outdoors, and public information spaces. The session will conclude with members of Hewlett-Packard Labs who will provide insights into the future of nomadic ubiquitous learning based on working prototypes and near-term technologies.