museumsandtheweb.com - user generated content

PoliCultura Portal: 15,000 Students Tell their Stories about Cultural Heritage

diblas — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:05:24 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

PoliCultura Portal: 17,000 Students Tell their Stories about Cultural Heritage

Keywords:

digital storytelling

Keywords:

multimedia

Keywords:

Multimedia

Keywords:

multichannel application

Keywords:

Portal

Keywords:

user generated content

Abstract:

School outings to cultural institutions are potentially wonderful opportunities for bringing youngsters closer to culture. Unfortunately, most of the times, they are not as successful as they might be. Students welcome these events as “free time” rather than learning occasions; they do not pay enough attention to the explanations during the visit, especially if they are not supposed to be the subject of evaluation when back to school: thus, the overall educational impact is quite poor. Families too undervalue these occasions. Teachers, on their side, are often at a loss on how to effectively prepare the class for the visit, how to “follow-up”, how to raise their students’ interest.

It is now widely proved, in the field of pedagogy, that the learner’s active role, as well as a clear goal, can trigger motivation and lead to the achievement of substantial educational benefits. This can explain the success of Policultura (www.policultura.it), a program aimed at school of all grades, where students create multimedia (and multichannel) “stories” about cultural topics. Started in 2006, Policultura has gathered so far more than 15,000 participants, aged between 4 and 18, with 700 stories approximately. 20% circa of these stories are about school outings to cultural institutions: kids (1) get set before the visit, studying the overall cultural frame. Oftentimes they are divided into groups, each in charge of a specific aspect which they are supposed to go in depth into; (2) they go to the visit, take pictures (with their cameras or cell phones), take notes, in view of the story making. Aware of their task, they pay attention, ask questions and clarifications, gather content, etc. Teachers report the surprisingly high level of engagement of these young “multimedia authors”. When (3) they get back to school, the production phase begins: texts are written and refined, pictures are chosen, drawings are made and scanned, additional material is looked for, etc. In order to create their multimedia story, schools use 1001stories, an online authoring environment made available for free by HOC-LAB of Politecnico. The result is an exciting educational process and a beautiful multimedia “motion picture”, where the cultural institution is the “star”. Reports say that families too get involved in the process and sometimes, at the end of the work, they are led to the museum/park/institution etc. by their kids, who are by then so knowledgeable that they act as guides (Garzotto, Paolini, Museums and the Web 2008).

All the stories are gathered in a brand new, state of the art, portal (that will be made public in December 2011). An advanced exploratory interface allows users to access the stories using different canvases, highlighting different features, selecting different facets, etc. Continuous feedback provides the user with information about how the different facets are correlated (e.g. the discipline vs. the type of learning experience, the specific subject vs. the level of schooling). Facets can also be correlated with words clouds derived from the abstracts (in English and Italian) of the stories. Other facets concern more pedagogical aspects. Users can drop their comments, though they cannot rate the stories (for pedagogical reasons). PoliCultura-portal is likely to be the largest (worldwide) collection of students-generated multimedia content.

The paper will illustrate how PoliCultura has been beneficial for the cultural heritage domain, and how PoliCultura Portal can be used to promote digital storytelling at school.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations III

Authors:

Nicoletta Di Blas

Paolo Paolini

Luigi Spagnolo

Mini-Workshop on Outdoor, Museum Interactions

dbear — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:05:45 +0000

Type:

Session

Programs:

Taking the Museum to the Streets

Date & Time:

April 8, 2011 - 3:30pm - 4:30pm

Location:

Commonwealth C/D

interaction

multi-user

interactive

user generated content

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

In April 2010 the Museum of Copenhagen, in cooperation with Gibson Group Ltd and Spild af Tid/Waste of Time, launched a giant multi-touch multimedia installation in one of the central squares in Copenhagen. In the first half year of its 14 hour a day functioning, The WALL, as it is called, has attracted more than 400,000 users ...

Designing activities to encourage online engagement with museum collections

Gail Durbin — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:01:11 +0000

MW2011

Keywords:

Activity

Keywords:

user generated content

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

user profiles

Keywords:

content design

Abstract:

This half-day workshop is for people who want to set up online activities for their visitors for the first time or who have some experience of doing this but want to expand or deepen their work. It will focus on the design of activities and not the technology. The aim will be for participants to go home with a number of ideas that they might put into practice on their own websites.

The workshop will combine approaches. There will be intense input using content from a variety of sites but essentially the session will be very practical, with small groups working together to share experience and to solve problems that may have come from their own museum. I plan to contact participants in advance to find out what particular issues they face and or are hoping to find solutions to.

I find it hard to say now what the exact content will be but I will come well prepared with background and stimulus material. We might, for example, think about how we would set up an activity based round the use of Flickr or Twitter or some other off-site facility. We could choose a topic like recycling and devise online activities to encourage debate of the issues. We might think about activities that ended by generating output in the form of a set of postcards from Moo or a book from Blurb. We could discuss the ways of stimulating deep engagement with serious art history or scientific issues. We could test ideas. We might discuss the value of user profiles or the impact of differing learning styles on this type of work or find ways of making connections between the gallery and the website. All participants will have a folder of useful material to take away.

I will work to make the time varied, stimulating, fun, creative, active and participatory and above all I want everyone who attends to find ideas relevant to their own situation and the motivation to go away and carry some of them out. In addition I hope to run the event in a social way so anyone new to the conference will leave this workshop knowing a few people to have a drink with in the days that follow.

Type:

Workshop - full or half day

Designing Activity to Encourage Online Engagement

Authors:

Gail Durbin

On air, online and onsite: The British Museum and BBC’s A History of the World

matthewcock — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:48:41 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

On Air, Online and Onsite: The British Museum and BBC’s "A History of the World"

Keywords:

broadcast

Keywords:

radio

Keywords:

partnerships

Keywords:

museums

Keywords:

social media

Keywords:

user generated content

Abstract:

A History of the World in 100 Objects was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 100 15-minute programmes divided into 3 series in the Spring, Summer and Autumn of 2010. Presented by Neil McGregor, Director of the British Museum, each programme investigated in depth an object from the Museum’s collection and through the year formed a narrative that told a history of our world from man’s first artefact, the handaxe to the present day (the identity of the 100^th object has not been made public at the time of writing).

This paper takes a brief look at the history of collaborations between museums and broadcasters, before going to present how the BBC and BM project team developed a digital offer (centred on www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld) that both supported and extended the core programmes, building on the central idea that objects have a unique power to tell stories and make connections across the globe.

The paper will discuss the arc of the project in the three spheres – on air, online and onsite at the British Museum and in museums across the UK – and show how the project was developed and sustained in the build-up to the first broadcast and throughout the year, on Radio 4 and other BBC radio and TV channels, the A History of the World and British Museum websites, the blog, mobile site, and social media sites. In addition to the core 100 British Museum objects, the project extended to include contributions from over 500 museums across the UK and several thousand individuals, who uploaded their object and its story to the site – both online, at schools and at events throughout the UK.

We will also discuss some of the issues encountered during the scoping of the digital components– particularly focusing on maintaining the centrality of the broadcast offer, while opening it out to wider contribution and ownership – both that of partner museums and the public. We will then conclude by assessing the reach and impact of this unique project, and look how it can be used as a model of future public service partnerships between broadcasters and cultural organisations in a digital era.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Multi-Channel

Site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/

Authors:

Matthew Cock

andrew caspari

Katherine Campbell

After the Web Page: The World as Matrix for Meaning

jtrant — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:03:08 +0000

Bearman, D., & Trant J. (2007). After the Web Page: The World as Matrix for Meaning. Museums and the Web 2007.