You are hereUnconference Session: Social media in museum education
Unconference Session: Social media in museum education
State-of-the-art: Museums use social media mostly for marketing reasons and PR. In many institutions social media (social networks, sharing platforms, blogs, wikis etc.) is treated as an information tool, not as a dialogue oriented and participatory media tool. There are a few institutions using holistic social media concepts to guarantee participation, personalization, communication, networking, exchange and transparency.
Social media in museum education: For museum education social media can be used to ensure learning opportunities for online visitors and as an integral part of an educational project (on-line or blended). Social media offers a flexible, user-friendly and open use of all kind of museum related content. But in fact, social media for museum education is still rarely utilized.
Examples of social media in museum education (in note form):
- Museum of Modern Art, NY: apps with access to online community content
- Klassik Stiftung Weimar: usage of wiki software to generate new content about special topics
- Smithsonian American Art Museum: flickr - Fill the gap! activity
- Brooklyn Museum, NY: A crowd-curated exhibition (a holistic concept)
etc.
Ideas for the use of social media in museum education (in note form):
- wiki softwrare for groups to collect, share and distribute knowledge about a special topic
- create a facebook profile for your mascot that can be used for children and schools to answer questions and to supplement the real site visit with information and further content
- let visitors create their own online exhbition and let them share it and use it for their next real museum's visit
etc.
Conclusion: "Learning by doing" (participation, personalization, communication, networking, exchange and transparency included) could be a holistic concept for museum education with the support of social media.
In some national contexts you are right. In English speaking countries, like the USA or GB, social media is already being used in several ways with different intensions (See survey by JOHNSON et.al., 2009 Internet URL: http://museumsocialmedia.pbworks.com/w/file/38784654/MuseumSocialMediaSu...), although museums are still using social media most often for “events listings or posting reminder notices (66,4%), to reach larger or new audiences (50%) and to post online promotions or announcements (47,3%)" (See FLETCHER, 2010 Internet URL: http://www.pram-aam.org/ResultsSummaryMar2010.pdf). In European countries, like Germany or Switzerland, the use of social media in museums is still not established and therefore mostly utilized for marketing reasons (See for a broader perspective LILL & SCHWEIBENZ, 2009 Internet URL: http://www.mai-tagung.de/maitagung+2009/lillschweibenzwordmai2009.pdf, VOGELSANG & MINDER, 2011 Internet URL: http://conference.archimuse.com/mw2011/papers/audience_a_holistic_approa... and SCHMID, 2011 Internet URL: http://kulturzweinull.eu/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/das-social-media-eng...).
And this was a summary for an unconferenced session (informal session) and it was not intended to prove an strengthen our thoughts and suggestions with surveys, case studies, research results or scientific theories.
I just found a blog entry on Community Organizer 2.0 about Lily the Black Bear as a representative for the North American Bear Center. Read more about it on http://www.communityorganizer20.com/2010/12/29/wha... or see the facebook profile on https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/lily.the.black.bear