As a follow-up to my posting about learning about bubbles that "glow in the dark" under UV light during the recent museum conferences in Denver, I should point out that the Tekno Bubbles company sells the special formulation that makes the bubbles that glow under a blacklight. As far as I can tell, the (very cool!) effect doesn't work with regular bubble solution.
With a recent redesign of the POW! website, I wanted to make folks aware of a new batch of FREE exhibit resources on the site.
Need some exhibit ideas? Trying to find the perfect vendor for fake food or UV lights? Do you want to add to your professional resource library by downloading some articles about topics like Prototyping? You'll find all these and more at the Free Exhibit Resources section of the POW! Website.
If there are additional resources you'd like to see, let us know in the Comments Section below.
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The Association of Children's Museums (ACM) held their annual conference last week in Denver. Here are some of my takeaways, in no particular order:
• Joan Almon, of the Alliance for Childhood, related this scary statistic: School-age children in the U.S. spend 44 hours per week in front of screens (computer, TV, GameBoys, etc.) but only 30 minutes per week playing outside.
• Don't visit the Denver Art Museum with a briefcase or laptop bag.
• Soap bubble solution can be made to glow under "Black Light".
• Great museums have all the right people "on the bus".
• Conversational presentations are STILL better than PowerPoint sessions!
What were some of your takeaways from this year's ACM or AAM conferences? Share your thoughts in the Comments Section below!
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Johnny Lee is currently a Graduate PhD student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University who, amongst his other projects, has been sharing ways to "hack" (in the positive, original sense of the word) the Wii Remote (Wiimote) to create amazing low-cost projects like digital whiteboards and desktop Virtual Reality displays.
Johnny is sharing his computer code in a totally open source way and also uses YouTube to disseminate his projects and research! Check out his "Procrastineering" blog as well.
What does this have to do with museums? Well, Exhibit Developers, Museum Educators (and Visitors!) constantly struggle with creative and appropriate uses of technology in museums. (Which when most people use the word "technology" in an exhibit context, inevitably means "computers".) This is especially true given the scary statistic that school-age children in the United States spend on average 44 hours per week using "screen based" (TV, GameBoys, Computers, etc.) technologies, but only 30 minutes engaging in outdoor activities! Do we really need to provide more screen time for young visitors to museums?
From the standpoint of both cost (Wiimotes run about $40, and the other materials Johnny Lee uses for his hacks are of the Radio Shack variety) and creativity (even thoughtful computer software is not nearly as engaging as messing around with a "cool" technology like the Wii remote to make new creations) consider how you could replace some of the staid technology in your museum with a place to hack Wii remotes!
What are some of your favorite "non screen-based" uses of technology in museum exhibits? Let us know in the Comments Section below!
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I'm on the road in beautiful Denver, attending the ACM (Association of Children's Museums) Conference.
I'll recap the conference and my impressions next week, but in the meantime one of my favorite Exhibit 101 credos: "Always keep a spare!"
NOT spare exhibits, but spare parts (or spare consumables) to ensure that your beautiful $10,000.00 exhibit is not shut down for a week because it needs a 50 cent replacement part.
As you can see in the picture above, it's also nice to include spare parts storage inside the exhibits cabinetry itself where possible. (As noted by Kim Wagner, in a recent post at her Ms. Exhibits blog.)
Have any great techniques for keeping exhibit spares handy? Let us know in the Comments Section below.
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Soon two of the big museum conferences, The Association of Children's Museums (ACM) and The American Association of Museums (AAM) will be taking place in Denver. And many, if not most, of the presenters at both these conferences will be packing a laptop loaded with PowerPoint presentations.
Even if each of these PowerPoint presentations is able to start smoothly without technical glitches involving projectors, connectors, and software, usually a big IF, I'll ask the question many of the folks trapped in the conference rooms will be thinking: "Why are some of the most creative people in the world using such powerful computer technology to present such boring, non-interactive speeches?"
Honestly, when is the last time you did something more at a conference presentation than sit on your fanny and stare at the screen and speakers on the dais for 75 minutes or so before the moderator apologizes for running long and leaves only time for one or two audience questions, if any? Most of the time, the talks could have easily been given, and often greatly improved, by eliminating PowerPoint.
Couldn't we just BAN PowerPoint from Conference Presentations?
Lest you think I'm a raving Luddite, I happily embrace computers and technology in all facets of the museum world, but I just think that the staid PowerPoint approach stifles creative presentations and dialogue between conference participants. (And, after all, even such eminent thinkers as David Byrne and Edward Tufte have wildly different takes on the topic.)
Even if you don't believe the museum world is ready to go "cold turkey" on PowerPoint, there are less drastic alternatives.
Mary Case, of Qm2, put me onto a short WIRED magazine article (and video example, seen at the top of this posting) about a presentation technique called "pecha-kucha." As the article notes, pecha-kucha (Japanese for "chatter") applies a simple set of rules to presentations: exactly 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. That's it. Say what you need to say in six minutes and 40 seconds of exquisitely matched words and images and then sit the hell down. As a quick Google search indicates, pecha-kucha is catching on around the world. Why not give it a try at museum conferences to wean us off of bloated corporate-style presentations?
Another way to open up the conference format to alternative presentation styles may be as simple as "A Day Without PowerPoint". Pick one day during the conference that ALL presentations must be done without PowerPoint (or similar computer tools like KeyNote, for those trying to weasel around the ban!) Add a check box on the conference proposal forms that allows session chairs and participants to indicate their willingness to present sans PowerPoint and go from there. As a bonus, you get monetary and environmental gains from eliminating the projectors and associated technologies from the conference sessions for one day.
So, I beg all of you filling out evaluation forms at ACM or AAM to write "A Day Without PowerPoint" on each one you turn in, or better yet look for ways to eliminate PowerPoint from YOUR next talk!
Have some presentation tips or tricks you'd like to share? Let us know in the "Comments Section" below.
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