Monday, 13 May 2013

Connected Learning and Museums

As part of the Mozilla Webmasters "Teach the Web" course I've been reading about "Connected Learning" and I've been thinking about how Connected Learning works in a museum environment.

I will go through the "Learning", "Design" and "Core" principles of Connected Learning and explore how museums currently fit into the theory.

To start off, here's a image that helps to explain Connected Learning:

If you want to read more about Connected Learning, then this article is a good introduction.

Core Values


It would be difficult to find a museum that did adhere to this particular value. However, it is the task of museums to ensure that all have access to the educational opportunities that they offer. Without a proactive approach it would only be the most-engaged and best-resourced that would access museum learning.

Full Participation - learning environments, communities, and civic life thrive when all members actively engage and contribute.

Again I imagine that all museums subscribe to this value. Museums do have a strong civic role in local communities and this is best done not by some sort of 'top-down' passing on of knowledge but by ensuring that all who visit museums are actively engaged in their learning.

Social connection - learning is meaningful when it is part of valued social relationships and shared practice, culture, and identity.

Museums can have a strong role in nurturing social relationships (whether this is a family/friendship group or is part of a learning group whether that is through schools to adult education). These social relationships can be fluid and based on the learning needs of participants. 

Learning Principles


Objects in a museum collection can serve a multiplicity of learning needs. Imagine that we present a group of people with a piece of 19th century embroidery known as a sampler done by an ten-year old girl. Here's an example of a sampler from the collection at Liverpool Museums:

Depending on the interests of the members of the group, there is much that can be learnt. A social historian will learn something different from a design student, a materials scientist or somebody who enjoys embroidery at home.


Museum visitors learning from each other is central to how museums can help people to learn. Imagine an exhibition on conflicts in which Britain has been involved in since the Second World War. Older visitors might remember the Suez Crisis or the Korean War; for slightly younger visitors it might be the Falklands conflict or the violence in Northern Ireland and for younger people they would find the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan more meaningful. It is not hard to imagine these different people sharing their thoughts and experiences based on the exhibition and so learn from each other.

Think about the group looking at the sampler. The different areas of expertise will begin to overlap as the group talks to each other. The design student can place his or her knowledge into a broader context by learning from the social historian. The embroidery enthusiast can tell the materials scientist which kinds of thread work best for an intended stitch.


Frankly, an academically-orientated form of learning is not central to museum learning. Much of museum learning is experientially-based so academic rigour is less important. Of course, this is not to suggest that an academic orientation is not important. Museum learning could lead to a greater academic understanding. How many people have come out of a museum enthused about what they have seen and gone on to find out more?

Design Principles


Much of this has already been covered. The immigrant group who have come together with a common goal (to improve their English); the group exploring a sampler (engaging with each other through an object) and the different generations visiting an exhibition of modern conflict. What museums do less is to use social media and web-based communities for discussion and learning.


I covered this area in an Xtranormal video that I posted on YouTube a couple of weeks ago.

This is area were museums do not meet a principle of Connected Learning. Only a very few museums, such as the Smithsonian, actually allow learners to create and remix what is in their collections either on display or through their online databases.


Museums are actually pretty good at this. There are lots of examples of museums working with other learning providers such as schools, adult education providers and colleges and universities. Museums also work with other informal learning providers such as libraries or archives.