I had a fun experience last week, driving along listening the always engaging public radio show This American Life hosted by Ira Glass. As I was listening to the story, which featured a museum interactive, I suddenly came to a realization: “they’re talking about software I developed!” The software, though not named, is the “All About Me” program we developed with Healthworks Museum in South Bend, IN several years...

Great to see the article I wrote with Lynn Baum and Jan Crocker on popup exhibits out in the March/April issue of Informal Learning Review, the longstanding publication drawing together new research and understandings on informal learning in museum environments. The title of the article describes the focus: “Community Connection: Pop-Up Exhibits and the Distributed Museum.” There are a couple trends going on: museums are honing in...

Just came back from the Association of Children’s Museum (ACM) annual conference — always a highlight of the conference year for me, the main national gathering of children’s museums. The overarching theme: creating “collective impact” through museums. Here are a few quick notes — when I have time, I’ll double back and write more extended posts on some of these: Activist Orientation: ACM is positioning...

Yesterday Mary Maher, editor of the Association of Children’s Museums publication Hand to Hand and I had a fun Hangout with Dan Spock, Director of the Minnesota History Center Museum and all around museum innovator.  We’re using the Hangout to generate content for an issue of Hand to Hand coming out in May focusing on uses of stories as a way of connecting with visitors. I’ll post the video of the hangout below —...

I was reminded today by Susie Wilkening’s article on long-term memories of exhibits (in ASTC Dimensions) of an exhibit that made me cry. I tried to hide it, but there I was, huge lump in the throat, eyes saturated, ready to spill it. It was in the Center for Civil Rights and Human Rights in Atlanta (and I’m hearing a lot of other museum people describe the same thing). If you’ve been there, you know the exhibit I’m...

Remember back when you were in grade school and wrote haiku?  The old 5-7-5 syllable form from Japan about nature? Here’s a chance to reconnect the synapses and try it out again, this time with a new mission and with a worldwide group of museum friends. We’re forming a “Museum Haiku Group” with the goal of writing and sharing haiku daily (mostly) over a 2-4 week period, once each season. A “haiku sprint.”...