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).