Technology, Orientations, and the Land of Oz

Publication Type  Conference Paper
Year of Publication  1995
Authors  Morrissey, Kris
Conference Name  Hands On: Hypermedia & Interactivity in Museums: Selected Papers from the Third International Conference on Hypermedia and Interactivity in Museums: Volume 2 (ICHIM 95 / MCN 95)
Publisher  Archives & Museum Informatics
Conference Location  San Diego, California
Editor  Bearman, David
Keywords  evaluation; teenagers; visitor
Abstract  

In a moment of bravery, I invited eight unacquainted teenagers to the Michigan State University Museum and allowed actually encouraged them to tell me what they liked and didnt like about our museum and museums in general. And they did! Teams were then turned loose in the halls with clipboards, a tape recorder and the goal of developing their own version of an orientation to each floor. They were at first shy, goofy, sarcastic and then animated, excited, enthused and finally, thoughtful. reflective and productive. They wrote and audio taped their own narration, digitized the narration and ventured into editing the digitized sound. A moment of excitement came when one team discovered that they could electronically cut out a mis-pronunciation of the Capital city of the Aztec EmpireTenochtitlan and then paste in a new pronunciation. This experiment to bring in younger perspectives and voices is part of our effort to use technology to develop orientation programs that are engaging, effective, personally meaningful and cost effective! As a university museum, the Michigan State University Museum prides itself on our collections, our research and our scholarly approach to our exhibits and programs. Over the past decade or so, we have striven to keep our intellectual integrity while increasing our accessibility as we explore ways to re-define who we are and how we relate to our visitors. One of our first efforts was to install an information desk and an orientation room. We then faced the problem of how to produce an orientation program that could be kept current with minimal resources.

URL  http://www.archimuse.com/publishing/ichim95_vol2/morrisey.pdf

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