I’m still gathering my thoughts on the fast and furious Twitter conversation of the week of December 18, 2017, sparked by Rebecca Herz’s post, Can Museums Be Neutral? While I’m working on my response I’d like to add to the discussion by publishing the thoughts of Dan Spock (formerly Director of the Museum at the…
…always a museum person. This will be a short post in the midst of holiday activities, but I was inspired to write after having lunch with a longtime museum friend and colleague, Caryl Marsh. Caryl’s work has had a profound impact on contemporary museums. Along with educator Judy White, Caryl was in the forefront…
In my first two posts regarding what’s next for museum educators (September 17 and October 1) I promised to take a look at some of the skills educators should be cultivating so that they can contribute more effectively to the museum’s role as an informal space for learning and engagement. It happens that I’ve been talking with Allison Wickens, an energetic…
Recent posts on Museum Commons have addressed issues of museum empathy and the use of social media to include the visitor voice. In this connection the Education Department of the Levine Museum of the New South contacted me about a new summer program that is using social media to connect more closely with the…
Karen Lee and I with our 2011 students after a prototyping session at Science City, Kolkata Teaching and learning in India Toward the end of June I’ll be traveling to India with Karen Lee, a former colleague who continues to work at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Since 2009 Karen and I have…
I’m currently reading a terrific book, Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World, edited by Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski. Although this book is about history museums, a number of articles, especially ones by Nina Simon, “Participatory Design and the Future of Museums,” and Kathy McLean, “Whose Questions, Whose Conversations?” made…