The conversation begins here

Briefly, the suite of ’sociable technologies’ like blogs, wikis, Flikr, del.icio.us etc , all under the web 2.0 umbrella, have opened up all sorts of interesting opportunities for us as visitors/viewers/users to respond, creatively or otherwise to what we find in our museums’ real and virtual spaces. This blog is initially for me to note down ideas and keep track of my tangential research paths as I immerse myself in the network.

I decided on the title ’Making Conversation with Museums’ after reading an entry, quite a while back now, on Bridget McKenzie’s blog Cultural interpretation & creative education entitled Schools and museums are not for learning, I was most struck by her discussion of how awkward the term ‘learning’ is semantically, she said:

At the weekend I might say to my daughter, what shall we make today? We’ll make cakes, pictures, dancing shows or plaits in her hair. I might also say, what shall we play? We might invent a new skipping game or a display of cuddly toys. I don’t think I ever say to her, what shall we learn today or what skills shall we practice today? That isn’t natural in a conversation between adult and child.

‘Making’ is a much more attractive and meaningful word than ‘Learning’ (never mind ‘e-Learning’) in this context. ’Conversation’ refers to informal learning, learning that happens beyond institutional structures, learning that has no beginning and no end.