Building a Virtual Museum on the History of EdTech Wiki: Extended Summary

October 1 - 21, 2008

Overview

Often repeated admonitions of the dangers of ignoring the lessons of history have to date not been heeded within the educational technology community. Basic historical accounts of the field's development, key contributors, and important successes and failures have not been compiled and sufficiently disseminated to provide as sources of guidance and direction. As the pace of change in new technologies, and suggestions for new pedagogies accelerates, the deficiency of a historical record needs to be corrected. University of Manitoba's Learning Technologies Centre, SCoPE, and Richard Schwier from the Educational Communications and Technology Program at the University of Saskatchewan have initiated a project to create a freely accessible "museum of educational technology". There's much to be learned from using a wide lens, and inviting international perspectives.

In this three-week online forum we will begin the conversation about our history. This will be the initial development of what we hope will become a living, growing and collaborative resource. In April 2009, the site will officially open with a final week of discussion (and a little bit of celebration).

Contributors:

(+ 25 participants at Oct 1 Elluminate session)

Live Sessions

(Via Elluminate: http://tinyurl.com/4wupyt)

• Project Launch: A Living History | slides | recording
  Facilitator: Richard Schwier
  Moderator: George Siemens
  October 1st, 10:00 am (PDT) 17:00 UTC (see world clock)
  
• The History of Learning Technologies
  Facilitator: Elizabeth Berge
  Moderator: George Siemens
  October 14th, 9:00 am (PDT) 16:00 UTC (see world clock)

Historical Lenses

• People lens
  
• Cross-disciplinary influences lens
• Edtech pedagogies lens
  
• Media lens
  
• Our own experiences lens
  
• Intercultural or cross-cultural lens
• researchers lens
  
• organizational lens
• "thinkers" in ICT lens
  
• publication lens
• panacea lens
• social lens
• theoretical lens
• national lens

Examples of online museums

Virtual Museum of Canada
Agora
Maple Leaf Museum
The Apple Museum
Military Communications and Electronics Museum (virtual tour of a physical museum)
Natural History Museum
Oklahoma World War II Stories Web site.
The Tech Museum of Innovation
Museum of Unnatural Mystery
Canada Aviation Museum

What we liked about these sites

• teachers resources
• fun & games
• wraps social tools (blogs, wikis, etc) around museum artifacts
• imagination was triggered, takes you there
• variety of media - video, audio, images, animations, etc
• look and feel appropriate for era (black & white images)
  
• avoid overloading
  
• variety of content, of interest to many people
  
• easy to navigate
• FAQ of questions and answers from viewers
• narratives, biographies, stories told in part through pictures
• an education program, section for kids
  
• serves a specific purpose
• good search - on keywords
• revolving featured collections allows quick perusal of items you may not think to search for
• customization of content, e.g. around a theme (My Personal Museum - mashup)
  

Museum memories

Think about a good museum you visited...

• Being able to interact with the exhibits
• Having a quest to complete as part of the tour
• See something new or different or changing upon every revisit
• Some of the works ...may be the same, but I view them in a different frame of mind, perspective, and sensibility each time I go
• Spaces/ light and how the different objects are brought to attention or highlighted
  
• Non-linear multimedia layers on a timeline, patterns or associations which bring together various perspectives around a theme
• Guiding narrative should include interesting questions, which make you better observe details, and/or episodes that illustrate and relate the artifacts or people in their social and personal context.
• Architecture, inviting atmosphere (lighting, sound)
  
• Sense of discovery
• Choice between guided and self-guided tours
• Path through time, path through "areas" with choice to explore areas in more depth (like Ikea!) so left with feeling that haven't missed something important.
  

Similar online projects

Technology in Education
Encyclopedia of Educational Technology