Curated jointly by the Digital Learning Network and the Museums Computer Group, this event will bring together the two worlds of museum technology and museum learning and encourage them to talk and learn from each others’ skills and experience.

Book tickets now at: http://mcg-dlnet.eventbrite.com/.

Room G.107 in the Alan Turing building, University of Manchester.

Book now for what promises to be a popular day featuring best practice case studies, workshops around key digital challenges and an ‘unconference’ session where you suggest the themes ensuring we discuss the most pressing challenges that you’re currently facing.

Follow@dlnet  or @ukmcg on Twitter for updates.

Amy Ryall and Martin Bazley helped deliver one of the sessions on the programme, dealing with the use of digital technology.  The session was highly subscribed and participants had access to computers on which they looked at a number of online examples, including http://www.lives-at-war.org.uk/.  Lives at War is the product of an intergenerational project in Brighton involving students from Longhill High School and a group of older Brighton residents. It uses a virtual reality world which is populated with the products of the project – films, stories and memories.

Screenprint of Lives at War

During discussion of this and several other online resources, a number of points arose regarding the effectiveness and appropriateness of the use of digital technology for learning about difficult histories. One advantage of using digital media is that it can help make material more engaging; but in dealing with difficult and sensitive subjects a game-style approach may not be appropriate. Making something ‘fun’ can distort the learning outcomes originally intended, and does not necessarily lead to an understanding of the subject. Making it engaging, interesting, challenging and immersive are all realistic aspirations when employing digital media, and can be achieved without reducing the impact or understanding of challenging subjects merely to a bit of fun.

Using digital ‘characters’ can make participants forget that history is about real people and turn it into a cartoon in which nothing is genuine. If we achieve one thing when teaching history, it is to convey the understanding that history happens to real people, the good things and the bad things.  It is also important for those using the digital media to feel that their input and interaction matter. We cannot expect young people to learn about history if they are invited to interact as if they have a say in the outcome, only to be told at the end that it didn’t happen like that: far better to engage young people with actual decisions that were made at the time and then explore why those decisions were taken.  Reflecting the consequences of such decisions is not always best done via the sort of game logic that is typically of digital learning activities, which tend to impose over- simplified models in order to make them workable in purely functional terms.  

For example, one game set in a military situation involved making decisions about logistics, which were tricky to engage with and also made no reference to the human side of conflict. The group found this lack of understanding frustrating and it led to them moving through the scenario quickly, without engaging with the history involved. It was a good example of digital methods not leading to historical understanding. Others, which involved a ‘reward’ style system – participants answering a question in order to make a character do something – caused similar issues. For both these two examples, interaction focused more on the digital interface, rather than learning about and understanding the subject material involved. This would not be considered helpful in any learning scenario, but with subjects involving difficult or sensitive histories it seems particularly problematic. In any situation, the key to dealing with subjects in history is to treat them with respect. By reducing them to a series of click-throughs to get to the end, we risk actually causing respect for the subject to be lost by learners using the resource.

In short, digital methods of engaging learners in challenging histories have to start with the history and keep the focus on it. As for any learning engagement method, a strong focus on intended learning outcomes should guide development of the resource.  Learning outcomes must be decided and agreed engagement at the outset and must also remain the driving force behind the resource throughout, informed by evaluation and testing with members of the target audience. Ultimately a digital learning resource is only effective if it fulfils the desired learning outcomes, and getting this right is an iterative process, as summarised in the diagram below.

 We would welcome any comments on the above or suggestions for other points to consider when planning use of digital technology to support learning around challenging histories.

Amy Ryall, Professional Development Manager, Imperial War Museums ARyall@iwm.org.uk

Martin Bazley, Digital Heritage Consultant, Martin Bazley & Associates martin@martinbazley.com

The Staffordshire Hoard poses a challenge  to tell the story and produce learning content because it is such a mystery, how can we tell the story of the Hoard when it is unknown? In case you don’t know the Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found. It was discovered by a metal detector in field in Staffordshire in July 2009.  The story that the media has tended to focus on is about how it was discovered and how much it was worth. It was acquired by Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (BMAG) and Stoke Museums in March 2010 at a cost of £3.285 million. 

The conservation and research programmes at BMAG and Stoke Museums will gradually discover more about the Hoard. But how can we can convey this learning process – even better, how can we allow people to discover and learn with us? I should of course add – with no budget! The answer for us at BMAG has been to attempt to capture what is being discovered and learnt as it is happens via blogs, videos and recently a live web chat, using the free/cheap digital platforms at our disposal. The conservation team Deborah Cane (project leader), Deborah Magnoler and Cymbeline Story have been blogging about their conservation work and so have other people working on the project. You can see many of the blog posts on the Staffordshire Hoard website  (due to a web glitch older posts are not showing at the moment).

Conservation Team: Cymbeline Storey, Deborah Magnoler and Deborah Cane

The video work has been done with a cheap flip camera by the conservation team themselves. The flip camera was the perfect fit for doing something quickly and easily at low cost but that still produced good quality images in HD. I edit the film using the flip software and subtitle the videos using Universal Subtitles. We have produced 19 short Staffordshire Hoard themed videos since March 2011. The range of subject matters include conservation methods, new discoveries, the 2011 Mercian Trail tour, the 2011-12 Washington D.C. exhibition, behind the scene tours and a family Anglo-Saxon Day. They are available on the BMAG Youtube channel (all 19), Staffordshire Hoard Vimeo channel and the Staffordshire Hoard website.

The live web chat was the idea of Geoff Coleman, from birminghamnewsroom.com (Birmingham City Council’s online press office), who had previously used Cover it Live (a free live blogging tool) for other council work. Curators Dave Symons and Morn Capper were asked about 30 questions by the public from the UK, USA and Germany over one hour, and as many as possible were answered. You can see a captured version of the the Hoardchat on the Staffordshire Hoard website and new images of some of the Staffordshire Hoard objects that have been conserved were put on Flickr to tie in with the event . We are going to do it all again with the Conservation Team soon.

Live web chat: David Symons and Morn Capper answer questions about the Hoard

From people’s comments on our blog and their own blog posts it appears that many are enjoying the ability to learn with us, to ask questions – and make some calculated guesses! Museums attempt to tell the story of objects but we don’t know that story, we’re working on the pieces that will hopefully fit it together. And that means that people beyond the museum can be attempting to work it out at the same time as us. The most popular video and blog posts have been related to the Mystery Object. The interest in this started when we posted a video about how conservator Deborah Magnoler had noticed that two pieces of the Hoard fitted together.  

Click here to view the embedded video.

A third piece was discovered but the object remained equally mysterious and David Symons posed the question of what it might be in a post on the Staffordshire Hoard website. Since then we have been inundated with replies on the blog and via twitter and Facebook - many of them very good guesses. He then wrote another Mystery Object post looking at these suggestions – and as a result more guesses kept coming. He’s promising another post again very soon on the new suggestions!  The great thing about this process is that we are learning together with the public, and learning from the public. 

The mystery object is made up of three pieces that fit together

As plans for a new Staffordshire Hoard gallery come together and we learn more we will of course be able to develop a more sophisticated digital offer that attempts to interpret the Hoard and brings it to life both in the new gallery and via other platforms. We already have lots of exciting plans and building on what we have already achieved and learnt is going to be important – remaining open, sharing, listening, answering questions and admitting we don’t know all the answers! 

Linda Spurdle, Digital Manager, Birmingham Museums.

DLNET talked to Alex Flowers, the Digital Programmes Manager at the Victoria and Albert Museum, about the variety of digital events he offers to visitors, and the 3D printing event being run in conjunction with the upcoming “British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age” exhibition.

Hi Alex, welcome to the new look DLNET website. In your role as the V&A, what sort of events and resources are you responsible for planning?

One of the aspects that I love the most about my job is the variety of projects that I can involve myself in. The Digital Programmes team is based in the Learning and Interpretation department and we work across all audiences, combining on projects with other programmes and departments.

Throughout the year we run courses for adults in a variety of digital skills, crafts and media. As the programme manager I am responsible for finding tutors and working alongside them to develop the content of the course. Once they are up and running, I ensure that everything is going smoothly, answer the participants’ questions and more often than not, make emergency visits to the studio to manically update patches for our software, locate missing leads and reconnect printers to the network! 

There is also a digital learning strand of our family events programme which runs one Sunday a month and during the majority of the school holidays. We tie these into the current exhibitions on at the museum, giving us a chance to explore the collections through creative workshops and sometimes we have the pleasure of working with our artists in residence to get the public involved in their practice.

Could you tell us about what you are working on at the moment?

Starting on 31 March, our big show for the summer, “British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age”, opens it’s doors. London will be buzzing over the coming months with the Olympics and Jubilee, so it seems like a particularly apt moment to showcase the best British design of the post-war period, a time when we have seen an incredible evolution in processes, materials and styles. In terms of our digital learning, we are looking at a number of different disciplines in our programme which reflect the breadth of the exhibition. We have courses on photography, electronics and programming, graphic design, mixed media approaches, as well as fabric design workshops which this term look at classic British floral patterns – the products of digital learning certainly do not have to stay on the screen or on the web.

One of the highlights of the term will be our family events happening over the Easter break in April. For two weeks we will be transforming our studios into a mass production line, allowing people to drop in and to design and 3D print their own customised classic British car. The exhibition is displaying quintessentially British transport like the Mini Cooper and the Routemaster Bus and we have some wonderful blueprints and initial sketches of the Mini in the collection by Sir Alec Issigonis which we will be showing copies of for inspiration. Black Country Atelier approached us initially to develop some kind of event and this exhibition seemed like the perfect chance to work with them.

Could you outline why these events have been developed?

Our family events are a big part of the museum’s learning focus as it is during the holidays that we get our greatest volume and variety of visitors. We want to make sure that when they visit as a group there is a meaningful experience in the galleries which can be had as a family and can be taken away with them. Giving people the opportunity to use 3D printing will hopefully inspire them with the joy of design, provide an outlet for creativity and get them to think about the process that goes into creating some of the incredible objects on display in the exhibition.

3D printing was something I was aching to explore in the museum – what could be better than a digital design learning programme which encourages people to actually produce their creations? In September we held our Digital Design Festival as part of the London Design Festival and showcased around 50 artists and designers including Assa Ashuach, who brought in his custom built software for designing commercially with 3D printing, allowing the consumers to customise their product in colour and form before it is delivered.

He raised some really important question such as how 3D printing may change the role of consumer and designer alike – will it be a democratisation of the design process or even a force in making the designer redundant? Though this is probably not the case, good design is a skill which has to be honed, it does create interesting potential futures for the how production and “making” of objects can really become a cottage – or even living room – industry. If you go down to any designers fair you will see small business which have popped up from this technology, making everything from jewellery to custom electronic gadgets.

What was the rationale for the choice of technology to support this event?

For the event we will be running workshops throughout the day that people sign up for, where they will use Google SketchUp to modify their car design before sending it over to the MakerBot printers. In terms of software, if there is a high quality open source or freeware program which we can use, we will. If we want the learning experiences to continue out of the museum when the visitor leaves, it is perfect if they can go home and download the very same thing which they used in the workshop. We do use a lot of expensive software in some sessions, such as the Adobe Suite and Final Cut Pro, but often because this is what you would find in a professional studio and people expect it to be there. With families I think it is important that there are not any barriers to continuing that learning from the museum and that parents are not coming in and feeling that in order for their child to be creative and keep up with the most current software in schools, that they have to spend a lot of money on kit.

As for the Makerbots, Black Country Atelier are supplying them, and so that is what we are going to be working with. However, we did display a Makerbot in our “Power of Making” exhibition last year and had digital designers show other printers like RepRap in use in the gallery’s “Tinkerspace”, an area where at the weekend, artists and designers would lead free activities. Again, the MakerBot is open source and can be built at a relatively modest cost for the technology and creative opportunities which it allows you.

What are the important challenges that you have to face to bring about the results you want to achieve?

One of the biggest challenges which we face for events such as this are down to pure crowd control – we can turn our computers on and off again if they are not working properly, but trying to get a crowd of 500 people interacting as you would like is a different matter. Therefore, we have had to simplify the process as much as possible, make sure the workshop is logical in explaining the activity and that there is always some way for people to take part if there is no space in the studio.

In digital learning in general, one of the biggest challenges will be doing more with less. In the face of decreasing budgets we have to be shrewd in how we can deliver high quality, exciting and innovative learning experiences. Ingenuity is one solution; constraints are a great inspiration in themselves. Partnerships and developing relationships with groups, institutions and individuals mean that you can pool your ideas and your time to achieve much more than you would alone.

How would you like to see your work benefiting the visitor experience of the V&A?

The V&A, even before I came to work here, was one of my favourite museums to visit. The collections and building are an incredible mix of traditional and bleeding edge contemporary, and I would hope that my work would be one of the ways in which the visitor can bridge those two extremes. Through using the digital tools we have at our disposal and by applying them in ways that they may not even have been intended to be used for, I would like to think that we give people a chance to look at the collections in a new light, reflect on the maker’s own thought processes and to leave the museum being able to look at the designed world with an extra layer of understanding. But although I say that, the biggest benefit I would hope for would be to be able to say that they had fun and left inspired!

Thanks Alex. It’s great to hear that the V&A’s Learning and Interpretation Department continues to push the envelope of what digital engagement in museums may entail and is producing, quite literally, tangible 3D learning outcomes!

The V&A’s new exhibition, “British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age”, opens 31 March, and the Digital Kids event, ‘British Cars: Print-it 3D!’, will run 2 April – 6 April and 9 April – 13 April in the Digital Studio of the Sackler Centre.

The Learning Team at the National Library of Scotland (myself and colleague Beverley Casebow) have been working with schools and community volunteers in Moray (north east Scotland) to create an insider’s guide to the area. Using the Library’s collection of 19th century ‘Handbooks for Travellers’ as inspiration, we wanted the app to reflect the unique voices and cultural heritage of the region as well as highlighting the area’s key historic industries – fishing, weaving and whisky.

Through the Library’s collections of archive film, historic maps, manuscripts and images, students and volunteers have chosen 20 “points of interest” to create an insider’s guide to this stunning area of Scotland proud of its historic associations with Macbeth, Vikings and the Picts.  From a lighthouse designed by Robert Louis Stevenson’s family to early dinosaur footprints on the Moray coast to the magnificent ruined cathedral in the centre of Elgin, it’s all brought to life by local students and community members.

It’s been a great outreach project for the wider community too as students have enlisted the help of older residents to recall the once bustling fishing port of Lossiemouth, the local Doric ‘Gaelic’ dialect and an interview with a Prime Minister’s granddaughter. We’ve also used the students’ own photography and artwork in the app so it’s a real example of a cross-generational, cross-curricular, multimedia project to coincide with the 2012 Year of Creative Scotland. We’ve been thrilled that it has also allowed the students & volunteers to discover their unique digital storytelling voice and provided the perfect platform to make our historic collections relevant to a 21st century audience. The app will be available free on the App store at the end of March 2012.

Hi Rhiannon, welcome to the new look DLNET website.  Can you tell us about the Picturebank which has been introduced to Museum of London Website?

The new Picturebank at www.museumoflondon.org.uk/picturebank was built to replace a previous version which had loads of great content, but was beginning to show its age and had few key disadvantages that this new one corrects.  The Picturebank supports (and was developed alongside), the Pocket Histories – short introductions to areas of London’s history which use the Museum’s collections to tell their stories.  The Pocket Histories are intended to be for a general audience which includes school and college teachers/tutors and students but also generally interested adults, parents looking for homework resources etc.  The Picturebank, on the other hand, was developed specifically for schools and colleges.  It takes images from the Pocket Histories and explores each object further in an interface that was built with the needs of the classroom in mind.  Users can browse by period or by topic, or simply search by key word. Each object page can be viewed in a variety of different formats with just the enlarged image, or with a description and/or suggested discussion questions that can be turned on or off.

Why a Picture Bank?

One of the things that often emerges in consultations that we carry out with teachers is that the key thing that museums can support them with is access to ‘stuff’.  Teachers tell us that they know how to teach and what to teach, but that we can provide them with images and information that can enhance their lessons and provide the ‘wow factor’ of seeing images of real historical objects that teachers cannot provide themselves.  They might use our images because they want to get their students enthused about the objects they will see at the Museum, or it might be completely independent of a museum visit as part of teaching a particular topic.  Teachers might use images for classroom displays, or to create their own presentations or worksheets, or students might use them in their own work.  Objects are a great starter for discussion and enquiry-based learning.

I think access to images of objects is the very first kind of online learning resource museums should think of offering.  The web is so full of teaching resources these days but what museums have that makes us unique, our USP if you like, is our collections and the knowledge that we hold about them.  Images are the most versatile learning resource that a museum can provide, particularly on a limited budget because there are so many different ways that teachers and students can use them, regardless of ability or language.  We developed some resources for teachers of students with special needs last year and it became immediately clear that it’s very difficult to produce a small number of resources that cater for the range of learning difficulties that we wanted to cater for.  Teachers already have access to skills and tools that allow them to make their own resources that are tailored to the needs of their particular students. By providing images of objects, we hope to provide teachers with more source material from which to construct these resources.   

How is the Picturebank populated?

The back-end of the Picturebank is something that I’m quite proud of.  I mentioned the previous iteration of the Picturebank earlier.  It had two key disadvantages in my view, one was that adding  images to it was quite a laborious process, the second was that it was difficult to keep up to date. The new Picturebank is linked to the Museum’s collections database using the new Collections Information Integration Module which also powers the Museum’s Collections Online facility (http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Collections-Resea…). The CIIM has enabled us to add project-specific data to core object information from the collections database, allowing for audience-specific titles, captions, discussion questions and other information particular to this resource. This system has two big advantages. Firstly, if core information is changed in the database as part of the Museum’s routine collections management practices, for example a new image added, a location changed or an object removed, the Picturebank will automatically update.  Secondly, the CIIM makes it possible to add to and edit the Picturebank as and when the Museum needs to.

Do you think using museum websites in this way produces a positive learning experience for users?

When we think of digital learning resources these days, we increasingly think of quite interactive experiences, maybe games where users become a character and immerse themselves in a particular experience, or interactive whiteboard presentations or films. Of course the Museum of London also provides this kind of resource.  In comparison, particularly for younger audiences, a Picturebank of static images and text may not appear to be the most exciting and engaging resource.  I would argue, however, that it’s a really important foundation upon which to build other resources. As I’ve already said, a museum’s collections and its knowledge of them are what makes it unique. We know that the public have an inherent trust in museums as a reliable source of information. The now ever-present web, which offers anyone the opportunity to create content about any subject that they choose is an incredibly rich source of information for any learner, and many of those creating such content have budgets and opportunities which far outweigh those available to museums.  I think, therefore, that there is an important place for museums providing access to simple, easily accessible sources of reliable and trustworthy information and objects as a foundation to their digital learning resources.  As other resources are then developed, in an ideal world, they will feed in to these banks of images so that learners can find out about more about the objects that they come across as part of other museum learning experiences.

What do you see as the future of the Picturebank?

I’m currently looking at the possibility of developing a jigsaw tool add-on to the Picturebank which would allow people to create their own jigsaws using the images.  The aim of this would be to provide a fun and alternative way of looking at and engaging with each of the images.  Meanwhile we are continuing to add content to the Pocket Histories and the Picturebank so expect more images to appear over the coming years.

The Horizon report was officially launched at the Museum Computer Network Conference in Atlanta in November 2011, you can download it here.  It is an international report about leading museum technologies, with the main aim to identify and describe emerging technologies which will have a large impact on museums over the next five years.

The 2011 edition highlights six emerging technologies or practices that are going to have an impact on the sector and breaks them down into three distinct time frames or horizons.

Here are the Technologies to watch and some of the case studies:

Near term Horizon (the next 12 months) Mobile Apps examples:

• Balboa Park’s mobile Apps
• MuseumMobile
• Getty Museums partnership with Google Googles

Near term Horizon (the next 12 months) Tablets examples:

• WaterWorx from the Powerhouse Museum
• Wikipop from the Brooklyn Museum

Mid term Horizon (2-3 years): Augmented Reality

• Browsing the Powerhouse Museum Around Sydney
• Who do you think you Really Are? from the Natural History Museum, London

Mid term Horizon (2-3 years): Electronic Publishing

• The British Library’s Turning the Pages
• Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative at the Getty

Far term Horizon (4-5 years): Digital Preservation

• CHIN’s Professional Exchange – Digitization
• The Digital Preservation Coalition

Far term Horizon (4-5 years): Smart Objects.

• QRator at University College London
• Smart Muse at Centre Pompidou, Paris
• NFC at the Museum of London
• The Met and RFID

The Digital Strategies in Heritage conference, or DISH for short, in Rotterdam was held at the begining of December 2011.  Where Wendy Earle from the BFI chaired a panel about digital learning strategies, or lack of, and asked everyone to start thinking really strategically about what digital learning means in the cultural sector and where exactly digital learning practitioners sit in cultural institutions.

The panel consisted of; Rhiannon Looseley from the Museum of London, Shelley Mannion from the British Museum, Wendy from BFI, Bridget McKenzie from Flow Associates,  Steven Stegers from EUROCLIO, and me (Claire Ross, chair of the Digital Learning Network).

It was a really interesting panel that raised more questions than answers, but I think that it was really quite telling that we all had questions about the jobs we do, the experiences we provide, and the roles we play in the wider institution, and how there really aren’t any best practice guides or key institutional guidelines of how digital learning should be approached.  Or in fact evaluated.

Despite Learning being increasingly acknowledged to be a core function of museums, and the multitude of digital and online museum learning resources being produced there is still a lot of confusion about what all of that really means. As we stated in our panel abstract museums ‘have embraced the transformative possibilities of the digital realm. However, introducing digital initiatives into learning raises interesting questions that have not yet been fully discussed.’

On a practical level there are questions about responsibility and job roles; for example who is responsible for creating digital learning content within heritage institutions, and where do they sit within organizations? Tech, learning, curatorial, marketing?

But we raised other interesting questions:

• How can non-technical educators manage digital projects successfully?
• What partnerships have been established? Do they work efficiently? Do these partnerships include non-heritage partners?
• What kind of learning is encouraged?
• How is the impact measured?
• Is a learning framework used?
• Which audiences are addressed and how?

Then we raised more  strategic questions, including ‘what do we mean by learning in a digital context?’, ‘what kind of learning do we want to encourage?’ and how do we know if learning is taking (or has taken) place?

I would love to hear from anyone who has some asnwers to these questions.

I was really interested in questions about digital learning and the institutional mission and where does digital learning fit in with senior management policy decisions? Also issues of how do you get institutional support for digital learning research projects, particularly if you are doing something really new? Does that fit with institutional aims?  Also talking about whether or not personalised digital learning can be implemented in siloed museum departments? Is there collaboration and transparency required to do so efficiently?

The big question for me looked at whether focusing on the user, and whether or not we can create meaningful digital learning experiences with the visitor rather than for the visitor.

Overall  the panel were talking around how museums are rethinking how we engage with our audiences, and there are shifting ideas about learning becoming about active production and participation, and now museums increasingly expect projects to include some kind of digital learning element.  But there are challenges in demonstrating the impact of these on audiences and learners.  But it is important to have a sensible discussion about how these are impacting on the educational practice of heritage organisations.  And really as a panel we came to the conclusion that this hasn’t really been done yet, and perhaps this can be the start of proper discussions about this, and how dealing with digital technology and learning can become more strategic in its approach.

you can see my presentation above, and Shelley’s is below.
Strategies for Digital Learning (#dish2011)

View more PowerPoint from Shelley Mannion