Opening Up Museums

January 31, 2013 by Brian Hughes

I really enjoy Nina Simon’s blog, and her recent talk is especially exciting: Museum 2.0: Opening Up Museums: My TEDxSantaCruz Talk.

With an upcoming year-long exhibition highlighting the 125-year history of Teachers College, EdLab designers are focused on eliciting “audience” participation in our exhibition environment – three floors of Russell Hall (nearly 30,000 sq. ft.!).

I like how Simon frames the issue of participation around the challenge of making it meaningful – because it’s all too easy to create meaningless activities. But at the same time, she suggests, the hooks for engagement have to be simple enough that people are willing to try something new.

That’s tough to do!

I find that easy and interesting are often at odds. For example, our current goal is to use Twitter as a tool of engagement. But what do you ask people to contribute? 160 characters is already technically simple for folks with a Twitter account, but what kind of content should we elicit?

For me, solving this issue for a particular content is the essence of an exhibition design process – a process that should result in a unique and engaging solution that serves as a great foundation for learning.

One strategy is to aim to make the results of small contributions cumulative – either in a way that creates one large result, or as a mosaic showcasing individual contributions. Another is to make them personal (perhaps identity-oriented is a similar but useful way to think of this).

Another strategy is to offer an extrinsic reward – to offer a prize, for example. But this seems to be less genuine, or at least less likely to relate to learning. On the other hand, this could be a hook that engages a contributor to do more.

One recent example of a bad interactive solution that comes to mind is from the recent Creatures of Light exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History (sorry guys). While the exhibit had some nice elements, I was disappointed by the gigantic firefly (six feet long?) that hung from the ceiling and glowed at the press of a button (working from memory here) at the entrance of the show. What did this accomplish?

I assume it was supposed to echo the bioluminescence theme of the exhibit, but for my 3-year-old it really just raised the question, “Are fireflies really that big?” I’m not saying that elements need to work for everyone, but really: aren’t there dozens of more exciting ways to show off the mechanisms of science while creating a stronger foundation for learning? (Wouldn’t a six foot magnifying glass aimed at a life-size firefly been many times more awesome? Aren’t there ways to use lighting to better effect?)

Using a traditional exhibition toolbox (scale, lighting, drama, etc.) alongside newer technologies is a big challenge. I’m excited to see what we can come up with here at Teachers College!

Epistemic Games… and GAPS?

June 22, 2012 by Brian Hughes

This is an intriguing new marketing direction for the Epistemic Games Group: GAPS

Games and Professional Simulations [GAPS] is a cooperative group comprised of six research groups across the country. We are headquartered by the Epistemic Games Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

(Love the idea, dislike the acronym?) Also check out this vialogue featuring Padraig Nash’s recent talk on “distributed mentoring” at the EdLab. Cool stuff!

A Paywall for the New York Times

March 29, 2011 by Brian Hughes

A nice summary by Pamela of the NYTimes paywall debate. I am very interested in how this will play out—to see if the current price point will work for the Times, if they’ll ride this into the ground (laying off staff, etc.), or relent as Ruaridh imagines (see first comment). Either way, it will be a glimpse into the future of journalism. Oh, and while we’re here… let me add that I hope they kill off the ridiculously classist Real Estate and Fashion “reporting” first.

Transmedia for Social Change

February 18, 2011 by Brian Hughes

Today I attended the final day of an intensive workshop event hosted by Working Films. The event brought together a diverse group of talented filmmakers, powerful activists, and leaders in the education sector – I was lucky I got to crash their party! In their own words, it was:

a residential workshop designed to help filmmakers and non-profit organizations leverage the power of films that document some of the most significant problems – and innovative local solutions – that unfold every day in schools across the United States and the world… [The last day] is a day of serious strategy for groups already committed to advancing change in the educational sector!

Cool stuff. At the center of the event were seven amazing films (links below). After hearing from the production teams and seeing clips from their films, we workshopped “social action” strategy in small groups.

Social Action

Action. Justice. Change. Transformation. Learning. There was a lot of passion in the films, and a lot of potential to start conversations, dialogue, etc. So that’s where we started. It was a lot to take in: the filmmakers (and by extension the production companies) shared their visions of the kind of impact they wanted their films to have. Better educational opportunities? Yes. Empowerment for underserved groups? Yes. Social change? You bet. Some of their ideas overlapped, some diverged.

A theme from the ongoing discussion that stood out to me was what someone in the group referred to as a “transmedia strategy” – from the idea of transmedia storytelling across multiple platforms and formats (Kinder 1991, Jenkins 2003). The conversation that emerged throughout the day was how the filmmakers – if they wanted to enhance the transformative potential of their films – were likely going to leave the more familiar domain of film… and enter into meatspace and cyberspace in new ways.

Or, in other words, the essential question of the day was: How can films lead to action?

I think everyone was sympathetic to the idea that discussion isn’t enough – that talk is cheap, as they say, even with respect to democratic action. And there was a shared sense among the activists and the educators that the films could do even more.

Notes on Transmedia Strategy

So this was my schtick about trying to get things done online: Start by creating opportunities for “engagement” across a spectrum of actions ranging from simple to complex. (Twitter = simple. Facebook = pretty simple. Embedding video = getting harder. Coming to your site = not so simple. Using your tools = takes some dedication. Putting content on your site = hard.) The Internet may be somewhat indifferent to your ideology (so to speak), but it is definitely not indifferent to the design of your software/applications/etc. A strategy that includes many of these elements – and successfully engages your audience – is a sufficient transmedia strategy.

Across the seven projects (“projects” seems better than “films” in this context), there was already a variety of thinking about online and social action strategy. Interestingly, I sometimes couldn’t tell if an idea for an “app” or a website was a tie-in or a tool – and it occurs to me now that that’s probably a bad sign. Allow for a quick clarification of terms: for me, a tie-in is a filmworld thing (to bring people to the experience of the film), and a tool is an educational thing (that empowers people to change things). The two can go hand-in-hand – and I nodded my head positively as we talked about that – but it is an uneasy relationship.

I suspect it would pay off to disentangle a tool from other tie-ins. They’re different animals. A good example of this kind of distance is the “professional development experience for teachers.” That’s something that someone else builds, and inserts some excerpts from your film into. It’s not a tie-in as much as a tool. And: let someone else make that tool.

But, let’s say you want to build a tool for social change, and you want to do it yourself.

You want to build a way to help parents connect. A way to give young learners a voice. A way to make families without children care about education. A way to help people achieve a new literacy. (Let’s agree to ignore the teachers here on the premise that they got the professional development kit.) You’ve now taken off your filmmakers’ hat off and put on a crazy new hat. You’re building a new tool.

First of all, you still need the aforementioned transmedia strategy: that’s your so-called social media funneling people of all kinds toward your film experience. A tool isn’t that. And, perhaps sadly, it’s not your film either – that helps, but it’s a non-starter in an online/digital/phone/app space. It’s also not your festival-in-a-box (that’s a tie-in). If you want a great tool, don’t confuse amplification with transformation. Amplification is about getting the word out and the conversation started. Transformation is when you enable every person to make it their own.

Sidenote: let’s agree not to aim to change policy on day one. Not with the tool that you’re going to put online (or on a mobile device). Let’s be realistic here: it would be a huge win if your chosen constituency finds your tool as useful as a scrap of paper. You’ll have to build up from there.

So, secondly, and most importantly, you need to make a useful tool. A humble, easy-to-understand tool. One with a little inspiration and imagination. It’s just one part of your transmedia strategy. It’s the part that aims at a very specific group of people and allows them to engage or enact the ideas that are buried deep within your film. It’s a super simple thing that may spring into the world wholly-formed, or take shape through many stages of refinement and revision. Sure, it’s a tie-in, but it shouldn’t look like one. It has to be a gift.

So let’s get to the unpleasantries. Unpleasantry #1: If you want your film to be part of a tool, you have to give your media away for free. Yep: that’s how the Internet wants it. That’s how educators want it. That’s how students want it. You don’t have to give it all away. And this isn’t just a strategy to get people to come and pay for another experience. This is a reality. It’s a reality for films that are good, authentic, truthful, honest, and transformative. If that means your film, that’s probably a good thing. Get over it. Keep your day job. Etc.

Unpleasantry #2: Developing good tools is hard. It’s easy to throw a lot of money at the problem and lose. But that doesn’t mean it’s expensive. You just need new friends. These new friends will be young, opinionated, difficult to communicate with, and just generally strange by your standards. (That’s okay though, right? You’re a filmmaker for goodness’ sake.) The words they should be saying to you are: simple, iterative, open source. That’s not a recipe; it’s just a good foundation. If they’re not saying those things, good luck to you. I have no idea what you’re building.

Unpleasantry #3: You need data. You need to convince your new aforementioned friend(s) that you need data. Each and every new aforementioned friend will not like the idea of gathering data, but with a little push, he or she can create a nice foundation. Traffic? Sure. An understanding of how individuals use your tool? Excellent. Demographic data? That would be nice. It’s unclear what you’ll do with it now, but it’s for the future. It’s for growing. It’s for understanding what you’re actually doing. Collect it. Organize it. Save it. If your tool is successful, it’s going to help you tell your story. Data is the cinematography of the digital world. (Hypothesis for further exploration: collecting great data is the high art of social change.)

Bonus round: give your users control over their content and their data. This will ingratiate you to the geeks and the media literate, but it’s also a great practice that will help you build a community around your tool. Give them an easy way to give you feedback, too.

Lastly, importantly,

I hope this vaguely coherent rant is more clarifying than it is discouraging. There is a ton of room in this world for transmedia for social change. We’re giving up too much if we leave it all up to Facebook, Google, and Apple. Jump in and play a bit. Hey, you’ve made a film… do you really want to do that again anytime soon?

Also, don’t forget about the people in your films. They are the people who have been given the most powerful tool of all.

Lastly, a big thanks to the multitalented organizers of the workshop, and, of course, anyone who had to suffer through an encounter with me, lol.

The films:

Programming as a New Literacy

December 29, 2010 by Brian Hughes

I’ve just read Douglas Rushkoff’s shortbook Program or Be Programmed, wherein he shares “Ten Commands for a Digital Age.” Though his portrayal of various “biases” of digital technology (e.g., timelessness, abstraction, depersonalization) is polemical, he succinctly describes major challenges of new technologies in 144 pages.

His main point is to describe a new literacy – a digital literacy he says we must achieve to continue to shape our world in positive ways. He argues that the consequence of not being able to “program” (or, he allows, at least being familiar with the scope and power of programming) would be to allow digital technology – and those who wield its powers – to overdetermine our lives.

I am sympathetic to this message, but reading his argument served as a good exercise to review the larger picture – and consider how well this kind of story about “digital literacy” hangs together.

One area Rushkoff’s book helped me reflect on was the design of online learning environments. In line with his descriptions of digital biases, current learning management systems are often positively shaped around the “advantages” of digital technologies. Asynchronous discussion boards are favored. Students are asked to use their real identities. There is “space” for collaboration.

So far, so good. But Rushkoff helps us ask: what about the “speed” of dialogue and collaboration? It seems to me that instructional designers (teachers or their assistants) could make the mistake of hoping that student interactions (with the course, and with other students) only increase. Or, similarly, that the administrative evaluators of such courses favor more frequent interactions.

As Rushkoff points out, such desires could be our ill-considered adoption of digital biases, and in fact, slower, less-frequent interactions could be preferable. While he harkens back to the “early days” of online bulletin boards, and points to the “depth” of discussion that came out of less frequent “logging in and signing on” (p. 24), I think it could more simply be a case of “less is more” – that writing and editing take time, and focus can help one achieve better communication. I wonder, therefore, how we could sharpen the design of online discussions to favor more reflective engagement.

There are already great examples of this online. From the way sites like the New York Times aggregates Comments, to the way tools like Disqus track one’s diverse contributions, there is a lot of good thinking about shaping online discussion. How could educational designers incorporate these and other strategies into a “course” experience?

Who are you designing for?

November 1, 2010 by Brian Hughes

I ran across this interesting frog design deck while reviewing trends in design research – a summary of the Design Research Conference 2010 (DRC) last May. A quick glimpse at the slides provides a snapshot of how designers continue to grapple with user needs, and how they respond with both simple and sensible strategies (and more than a handful of rhetoric, too).

The Skinny on the Media Show

June 11, 2010 by Brian Hughes

The Media Show – a show produced by EdLab’s video team that came out of the After Ed TV project, and a product of Gus Andrews’ imagination – recently won the Fair Use Award at the Media that Matters Festival (see the posting here). The particular episode that won the award (above and on youtube) is a look at the use of Photoshop in advertising, and a short history of image manipulation. Here’s Gus’ description of the show and the episode:

The Media Show is a YouTube channel series staring puppets Weena and Erna, two high-school-aged sisters skipping school to spend time making their own videos in an abandoned storage closet in an advertising agency in New York City. The show’s model of media literacy aims to reconcile the exuberance of fan-created media with a critique of ad-driven corporate media.

In this episode of The Media Show, My Hotness is Pasted on Yey!, Weena and Erna happen across a terrible graphics job in Cosmopolitan, leading them to the website Photoshop Disasters, which gets them thinking about other photo manipulation throughout history. Stalin, Hitler, OJ Simpson, Beyoncé—who hasn’t been touched by photo alteration in some way? The girls explore art and propaganda and end up playing with Photoshop themselves, taking control and manipulating their own appearance.

Perhaps even more exciting than the development and grow of the YouTube-based show, is a case study Gus has developed for using The Media Show in schools (see the Pressible site). We hope this will create an inroad for using these video resources in new and interesting ways.

For example, earlier this spring Gus worked with students at a Brooklyn High School using The Media Show to support a media literacy curriculum about advertising. Skye Macleod supported this collaboration and helped produce videos about the experience (see them here and here).

We’ll showcase the case study in the next few months on the EdLab website, and look forward to talking with educators (and others!) with an interest in this resource.

See more on the history of The Media Show here.

After Ed TV is launched

November 16, 2007 by Brian Hughes

After Ed TV is the new home of EdLab‘s nascent web video channel. We designed this site to serve as an archive of past episodes, but also as a destination for upcoming promotional efforts. Our primary goal at this point is to see if we can get other organizations to post our multi-video player on their websites – which we hope is seen as a low-effort way to make any website more active. New videos on the future of education appear on a weekly basis.

The next phase of our growth will be getting the word out about the website. Our audience is, broadly, learners and teachers. We’re currently working on events and other outreach efforts to broaden our exposure and visibility. Coming up in December, for example, we are working with a New York City school to use After Ed TV as a resource for thinking about the future of education. At an Edit Jam event on 12/14, the production team will help students and teachers produce their own web video which will be highlighted in our lineup.

Cheating is the pedagogy of the internet

June 8, 2006 by Brian Hughes

I ran across this fun and informative lecture by Jon Ippolito discussing various tensions between cultural production (in general) and the current culture of intellectual property law – where he introduces his idea that “cheating is the pedagogy of the internet.” It’s the written version of a lecture he gave at Columbia University a few years, when I was lucky enough to hear him. His ideas and criticisms about pedagogy and the internet led to his project called The Pool.

Watch and be introduced to other goodies such as:

I’ve been trying to take some of the ideas he touches on here and push them forward a bit. The law stuff is great, but perhaps it’s not the most accessible inroad to thinking about academic honesty. In lieu of that, I’m interested in what kind of conceptualization of education we would need to make room for new technologies that accelerate cheating. (Maybe it would turn out to be an approach to education we’ve always needed?)