making/history

 

A little more than a week from now, I'll be doing something I've never done before in my museum career.

I'll be attending an American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) Conference.  (In Louisville, Kentucky.)

It's not that I don't like History Museums, or admire the people who work in them, but my museum "tribes" tend more toward Science Center and Children's Museum folks (and their respective conferences.)

So what prompts me to make this trip to Louisville?  Well, Maker Stuff.  And by "Maker Stuff" I mean the vast worldwide network of MAKE Magazine, and Maker Faires, and the eclectic group of artists, craftspeople, tinkerers, and engineers (amongst others) who get herded under the big umbrella term "Makers."

A few months ago,  I was invited to a meeting of museum folks in Atlanta, and it turns out that many of the other folks in the room were History Museum people. And (me being me) at a certain point I started to berate those nice fellow museum professionals for "completely missing the boat" on the Maker Movement.  It also immediately became clear that many of the people at that meeting had absolutely no idea of what a Maker Faire or MAKE Magazine even were! YIKES!

I mean, what genre of museums is better placed than History Museums to engage people with the stories and stuff behind inventing, designing, building, and manufacturing things?  It's in their institutional DNA!  Not to mention the enormous opportunities for History Museums to tap into new sets of audiences and communities that are deeply engaged in Maker activities that would love to connect with such awesome repositories of the stories and stuff associated with Making.

(Of course this is not to say that there aren't any History Museums plugged into the Maker Movement. The Henry Ford has hosted several Detroit Maker Faires, and The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) is hosting a workshop later this month called  "What is a Maker Space (and why would I want one in my museum)?")

Shortly after that fateful meeting in Atlanta, Bob Beatty, the COO of AASLH, basically said "OK wise guy, I agree that History Museum folks should know more about the Maker Universe, what can we do about it?"

So I'm off to Louisville to launch something called making/history.  What can making/history be? I'm not really sure yet, but that's part of why I'm going to Louisville --- to meet and talk with a bunch of cool and smart History Museum people to find out.


If you're reading this post, and it resonates at all with you, please help in making/history in any (or all) of the three ways below:

1) Spread the word! (Tweet, Facebook, Email, Phone folks in your networks who can help with this.) I want to help brainstorm and instigate with folks who are interested in connecting more Makers with more History Museums.

2) Meet me in Louisville!  The plan is to let me set up shop in the AASLH Exhibit Hall on Thursday, September 17th.  I'll be doing Maker show-and-tell and giving away free swag, but most of all chatting with more folks to help making/history happen!

3) Add your two cents! Are you already plugged into the Maker Universe, or History Museums, or both?  Share your ideas for ways to increase the connections between Makers and Historians in the "Comments" Section below, or by emailing me directly.


See you in Louisville!


P.S. By an amazingly happy coincidence, Louisville will be hosting a Mini Maker Faire on Saturday, September 19th (the last day of the AASLH Conference --- good timing, or what?) that is FREE and open to the public (including AASLH Conference Attendees --- hint, hint!)




Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

The Big Picture AND The Fine Details: An ASTC 2014 Recap

This year's ASTC Conference was a wonderful combination of discussions and sessions on "big picture" topics like Community Engagement, and the science behind Maker Spaces, as well as "fine details" like the best tech tools to use in our work, or the coolest educational demos.

This balance of philosophical and practical permeated the conference and all of my conversations and experiences outside the formal conference sessions as well. I'll comment on a few of the sessions I attended or presented at here, along with some links to follow-up resources. On the "Big Picture" side, the session “Where is the Science in a Maker Space?” tackled the tensions inherent in the paradigm shifts that the popularity of Maker Spaces, Maker Faires, and Design Education are forcing museums to confront. You can find a nice recap of the session here on the ASTC blog. (There are also descriptions of other sessions and activities there as well.)

Panelist Lisa Brahms from the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh also provided a link to research and resources about building a framework for Making in Museums and Libraries. Check out the makingandlearning.org site!

Troy Livingston and Kate Tinworth presented the “20+ Trending Tech Tools” session with some great apps and digital tools to help every museum person work smarter, not harder. Kate and Troy posted their presentation slides here, but they will also be updating that webpage with additional notes and content from their session. Great stuff!

A fun session (pictured at the top of this post) was “Twist and Shout: Using physical movement in STEM education.”  As the name implies there were lots of movement activities, but panelists stressed research connecting the importance of physical activity with learning. A true microcosm of the big picture/fine detail dichotomy at this year's conference!  (Here's another blog post describing the session --- with bonus video and references!)

While I could detail quite a number of other memorable conference experiences (including the "Science Busking" session that featured the World's second biggest whoopie cushion!) I'll finish up this post with a big tip of the hat to Keith Ostfeld, from the Children's Museum of Houston, and his fellow presenters for putting on the eight annual "Indie Style" session --- this year with a HOMAGO (Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out) twist.

The session featured multiple low-cost, high impact activities guaranteed to help advance museum visitors’ curiosity, creativity, and comprehension. Even better, all the participants shared the directions and materials for making the activities at your own museum. You can download a Dropbox folder of all the documents by following this link.

Looking ahead to 2015, the ASTC Conference will be in Montreal.   Since I'm part of the Conference Program Planning Committee, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that if you'd like to submit a session proposal just click on this link.  Also, if you attended this year's Conference in Raleigh,  PLEASE take the time to fill out evaluations about the conference in general, as well as specific sessions you attended. Your comments can help make next year's ASTC Conference even better!



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)