May 30 Site visit #4

Today being a Saturday, I decided to take day trip to Lucca which turned out to be a very quaint walled city reminiscent of many Tuscan/Umbrian medieval cities. The major difference is you can walk on the old wall surrounding the entire old city (citta vecchia). I visited the Cattedrale di Lucca where I saw the Volto Santo. The guide book recommended seeing the Tomb of Ilaria del Carretto located in the sacristy of the cathedral. There is an admission fee to do so and for 6 Euros, one can get an all inclusive admission to 3 sites: the Tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, the Museo della Cattedrale di Lucca and the Chiesa e Battistero dei Ss. Giovanni e Reparate. The tomb of Ilaria had a card guide with detailed interesting information/interpretation of the tomb.

The museo della Cattedrale turned out to be a gem of a museum! What a pleasant surprise this little museum turned out to be. The museum displays the treasures of the Duomo & the Church of Saints Giovanni and Reparata (the former cathedral of the town). As with many other museums/tourist attractions in Italy, they had an audio tour which I think is utterly unnecessary because all the displays had labels with descriptions both in English & Italian. I really thought that the museum did a great job of displaying the objects with appropriate spot lighting. Most importantly, the museum had classical music piped in throughout the entire museum. Overall, the museum visit was a good experience although it still lacked interactivity.

Lastly, I visited the Church & Baptistery of Saints Giovanni & Reparata. This is an archeological site with access to the excavations found underneath the 12th-century church. Unfortunately, there were very few signs/labels. However, these few labels were in both English & Italian. Prior to entering the church, I was given a printed handouts in a plastic sheet. This was quite useful however, there was way too much information on these handout. I craved for the story behind these ruins under the church... where's the story/re-enactment/photos - missed interpretation opportunity...

May 28 Site visit #3

Today I visited the Museo de Storia della Scienza (Museum of the History of Science), Piazza Giuducci. Unfortunately, the museum is undergoing major renovation work with 2 main floors of the museum closed. There were some exhibits on the ground floor and the basement. No evidence of ed tech except of the use of ceiling-mounted data projector which projected a slide presentation marketing the opening of the Museo Galileo.... Although towards the end of the exhibition hall in the basement, there were 2 virtual tour kiosks. The virtual tour was very well done - interactive and informative. It seems that the main purpose of these kiosks were more of a tool to market the virtual tour CD rather than to educate the visitors.....

May 27 Site visit #2

Kristy & I did our 2nd site visit together to Galleria dell'Accademia. Even though we have the Amici degli Uffizi card, we had to stand in line to get in. Fortunately, Kristy arrived just as the line had cleared and we could get in without having to wait in line. Some observations of ed tech use include:

• presence of audio tour
• 4 flat screen TVs with BlueRay/DVD player
• visitors tend to crowd around the flat screens. Kristy spoke to some visitors and confirmed that they felt that such multimedia presentations enhanced their museum visit experience and they would like to see more
• guided tours were permitted in the museum but only by certified guides. One wonders if the use of ed tech could put these human guides out of their jobs...
• there was a virtual kiosk with interactive tour but was located only in the bookstore area which is located near the exit. It was probably intended to promote the sale of the CD-ROM of the virtual tour

Looking at Micheangelo's Statue of David, I find myself asking "so what?" While I admire the beauty of David's physique, I can't help but yearn to learn more about who he is, what he might be thinking and about Michelangelo's motivation for carving the statue... I wondered about the museum's mission apart from preservation of the statue and other art works??? It was interesting to note that there was a temporary exhibition comparing the works of human forms by a contemporary artist, Robert Mapple Thorpe NY (1946-1999)

Kristy & I discussed about potential ideas for ed tech use, taking into consideration how the technologies could pay for itself:

• PDA loaded with virtual guided tour where visitors can annotate images of exhibits and select the ones they want to download onto a CD for a fee to take home with them since photography is prohibited inside the museum and visitors want to take home souvenirs of photos.
• Computer terminals near the entrance where visitors can select exhibits they want to see and the program will plan a route that will efficiently take the visitors through the museum to see selected exhibits. Visitors can then pay to print the customized tour map.
• Instead of using the metallic, expensive-looking customized virtual tour kiosk, a basic flat screen with desktop computer terminal can be used

Final Assignments:

• The final written assignments consists of two (2) detailed case studies: one (1) example and one (1) non-example of good use of interactive educational technology in the museums.
• You can use the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi which we will visit together next Monday as an example of good use of interactive educational technology in the museum (or another one that you may identify yourself). For the non-example, you will have many to choose from.
• In both case studies, analyze the selected museum's current situation using the four (4) theoretical underpinnings/approaches to ed tech in informal learning environment that we discussed on the first day, i.e. Use of Instructional Design for museum exhibit development; Pine & Gilmore’s Realm of Experience 4E’s; Czikszentmihalyi’s Intrinsic Motivation “Flow” theory & Falk & Dierking's Interactive Experience Model/Contextual Model of Learning. Additionally, you may want to also incorporate the reading on "Applying the principles of interpretation to museum display" where applicable.
• Then, for the exemplary case study, careful document the example(s) of exhibit(s) that are good, interactive educational technology use. Documentation should include a detailed narrative of the exhibit(s), images and video (where possible).
• For the non-example case study, you should identify the gap between the current situation (lack of ed tech use) and the potential "ideal" situation (good, interactive use of ed tech) and then as an educational technology consultant, make several specific recommendations of proposed ed tech use. Describe in detailed your recommendations which should include narrative of proposed interactive exhibit(s), appropriate "mock-up" images and/or videos (from other sites that are currently using similar technologies to the one you're recommending which you may locate online).
• Since we're visiting the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi on Monday, the deadline for the exemplary case study is Wed, June 10 . The non-example case study with your recommendations will be due on the last day of class, which is Friday, June 19.

May 26 Site visit #1

Today, Kristi & I did our first site visit together to Palazzo Pitti. Some observations include:

• presence of audio tour


• Palatine Gallery - sketches of painting could be digitized to tell the story of how the painting was done


• in many of the rooms, cardboard guides provided information about the artifacts in each room


• one missed opportunity for ed tech: interpret the beautiful painted ceilings, perhaps a video or 3-D rep


• Royal Apartment - some ideas for ed tech integration include: 1) re-creation of how the rooms were used using video; 2) a touch screen terminal of room layout to identify pieces of furnitures; 3) use of audio sound effects to create ambience in the room, e.g. ballroom dancing music , church sacred music, etc.

May 25 Session #1

At this first session, Kristy & I discussed the readings about the theoretical underpinnings/approaches for educational technology in informal learning environments:

1. use of Instructional Design for the development of museum exhibits,


2. Czikszentmihalyi's intrinsic motivation/"flow" theory,


3. interactive experience model/contextual model of learning (Falk & Dierking),


4. Pine and Gilmore's Experience Realm (1999)

Some have argued that there's really no difference between learning in formal (schools) and informal learning environments (museums, web sites, etc.), hence perhaps the title of this course should be ed tech in "free-choice" environment because people choose to go (& learn) in these environment.

Readings assigned:

• Chapters 1 -3 pdfs of this book "Creating great visitor experiences: A guide for museums, parks, zoos, gardens and libraries" by Stephanie Weaver (2007):http://www.experienceology.com/resourcedownloads.htm
• Chpts 9-11 of the Museum Experience by John Howard Falk, Lynn Diane Dierking, Willard L. Boyd:http://books.google.com/books?id=Hd9l6gt6aJ0C&dq=interactive+experience+model&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0
• Experience Design by Hilary McLellan
• The Use of Instructional Development Procedures to Create Exhibits: A Survey of Major American Museums (Schlenk & Shrock, 1991)
• Intrinsic Motivation in Museums: Why Does One Want to Learn? (Csikszentmihalyi & Hermanson, ?)

Blog Assignment:

1) describe any two to three leisure activities you remember (e.g. the Fiesole Archeological Area or any others from recent memory) and break down the experience into time frames (e.g. pre-visit, arrival, first 10 minutes etc.) and use descriptive words/terms to describe each.

2) reflect on the readings about the theoretical underpinnings for ed tech in informal learning environments

3) for each site visits, pls blog the following aspects:

- before going to a museum, you should research & study the museum from promotion through to delivery (by looking at related materials - both web & brochures). You should specifically look out for any specific mention of ed tech use, e.g interactive virtual tour kiosks, audio tours, etc.) on their promotional materials,

- during the visit, you should take notes of you experience (written or recorded in some other media where allowed),

- after the visit, you should reflect on your experience by dividing and discussing how the various parts of your recorded experience fits into the readings about the theoretical underpinnings for the course (e.g. use of ID, Csikzentmihalyi's intrinsic motivation/"flow" theory, interactive experience model) or positioned within the diagrammatical presentation of Pine and Gilmore's Experience Realm (1999).