I picked up Nina Simon’s delightful book “The Participatory Museum” as something different. Nina’s work focuses on Museums, not corporate learning or learning in school environments. However, the mission of many museums is at least partially to support learning.
Design Overlaps
There were places though out the book where best practices in participatory design for museums mirrored best practices for designing on-line learning environments. Notice how the following two quotes parallel each other.
“There are two counter-intuitive design principles at the heart of successful participatory projects. First, participants thrive on constraints, not open-ended opportunities for self-expression. And second, to collaborate confidently with strangers, participants need to engage through personal, social, entry points. These design principles are both based on the the concept of scaffolding. Constraints help scaffold creative experiences. Personal entry points scaffold social experiences. Together these principles set the stage for visitors to feel confident participating in creative work with strangers.” -The Participatory Museum (p. 22)
In relation to developing educational discussion models:
“Don’t we best learn from each other by just talking with each other? No, we claim. Among educators especially, just talking may not be enough. The kind of talking needed to educate ourselves cannot rise spontaneously and unaided from just talking. It needs to be carefully planned and scaffolded.” -The Power of Protocols, An Educator’s Guide to Better Practice (p. 4)
Constraints and scaffolding are two design structures that help create successful participatory-social interactions. Nina’s book mentions Vygotsky’s importance in developing and articulating the need for scaffolding.(p.12) I was tickled to see his ideas showing up in the context of museums. I could see the influence of Constructivist thinking sprinkled throughout the book. Okay, so I’m going into wonky territory here. But, as someone who is always trying to connect ideas I had fun trying to make the connections.
Chapter Highlights
The book is well laid out. I have no background in Museum studies, but the ideas presented were accessible. A few chapter highlights follow…
Chapter 1 “Principles of Participation”
This chapter does a great job of outlining the benefit of all levels of participation. A common pitfall is thinking that “creation” is the be-all-end-all goal of a social-participation project. One of the things this chapter does well is show the value of intermediate participatory activities like critiquing and collecting. These activities promote higher level thought, evidence pattern matching and personalization of content.
Chapter 2 “Participation Begins with Me”
The importance of audience centered design (think, learner-centered design), personalization (think also, individualization) and giving people tools to connect. All are touched on in this chapter. I found the section on personal profiles interesting. I learned there are two types of profiles, “aspirational” and “what you do.” I’ve seen both kinds in my own on-line life, but never heard those terms used before. I appreciate the thought that went into identifying what makes a successful profile. Successful profiles:
- frame the experience in a way that makes (people) feel valued
- give people opportunities to deepen and satisfy their pre-existing interests
- give people confidence to branch out to unfamiliar opportunities
There are interesting examples given throughout the book. In this chapter Harrah’s use of customer profiles and 39 Clues (a favorite of my kids) were cases studies that I enjoyed. I’ve put more of my favorite examples from the book at the end of this review.
Chapter 4 “Social Objects”
Evaluating an object for it’s ability to spark conversation, by focusing people on a common object it makes people more comfortable engaging with one another. I had not heard of Jyi Engestrom (see clip explaining social objects as key in creating successful social network…I’ve got to learn more here). Object-centered design argues that social networks are not people gathering for the sole purpose of socializing, rather networks are formed by a shared object. I would wonder if this idea could also encompass a shared objective or interest?
A Social Object is:
- personal
- active
- provocative
- relational
I’m limiting my chapter highlights here. I could go on. Suffice to say my copy of the book is looking loved with dog ears and underlining. The whole book is well thought out. Consideration is given to identifying the specific goals and outcomes of a participatory project before embarking. How to evaluate, manage and sustain participatory projects. The stories of successful and unsuccessful projects support the points developed and made the reading truly a delightful experience.
Innovative Examples of Participatory Projects
- Confrontational Profiles (ex. Apartheid Museum p. 53)
- Skyscraper Challenge (reflection prompt “a time we worked well together,” family experience in digital story telling p. 70)
- Facing Mars Exhibit (public polling of audience before and after experience p. 86)
- Human Library (fantastic idea with applications from prejudice to peer learning p. 100)
- Structured Dialogue in the Signtific Game (structure p. 111)
- Voting Bins for visitor pins upon exit (simple genius, also tagged bookshelves for return items p.7)
- Postsecret (what an engaging question can do p. 141)
- RadioLab (novice models and think a-louds p. 218)
On a personal note, I was excited to see mention made of the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I was there years ago and thought it was the museum of magical realism. I also liked the idea of an “unsuggested” reading list so much that I joined LibraryThing to see what might be unsuggested for me.