Summer Reading: The Participatory Museum

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…