Social Network Platforms for Museum Exhibit Designers

London Movie Museum - A Dalek

  

During our LIBR559M learning module on aggregation the question is asked as to whether or not social networking sites/platforms such as Ning.com would offer a solution for special interest communities.  In terms of affordances, I think that having a certain degree of “control” over the aggregation of special interest information can give a greater sense of ownership over the peer learning process during community building. The social network also promotes networking by letting it’s members stay up-to-date with each others’ projects and personal learning objectives and discoveries. It would also include the option of starting conversations, which are then captured and preserved collectively on its platform. According to Wikipedia, some of the other affordances for such platforms, also known as, PLE (Personal Learning Environments) can include:  

“setting their own learning goals

manage their learning; managing both content and process

communicate with others in the process of learning”

 These platforms make communication and the sharing of information relatively easy for the digital native in his or her specific community. However, some constraints may include:   

• requirement of having a membership with the platform/community (as an outsider you may only be able to view the dashboard, but you cannot access it)
• learning curve if the member is a relatively new digital immigrant
• the time committment required to be an active contributing participant 

Although I haven’t been a member with a particular Ning community, I personally have participated in membership-based forums and eventually abandoned them due to the time committment involved in composing and responding to posts. It was also due to the shifts in my areas of interest, where the communities were no longer a fit for me.   

As I am preparing for a museum 2.0 project, I have come across some interesting social networking sites/platforms that facilitates the peer learning of museum information professionals keenly interested in leveraging social media to create participatory experiences in museums. I found the information on these sites to be quite useful for my project and have since become inspired to seek out and participate in similar communities as a student and as part of my professional development activities.    

• http://museum30.ning.com/ - Museum 3.0: What Will the Museum of the Future Look Like? A Ning network, which aggregates blogs as well as Twitter and Flickr feeds to faciltate discussions and information exchanges on the new “museology“. This community has some excellent links to museum blogs and discussions that specialize in topics such as audience analysis and communications strategies.
• http://www.exhibitfiles.org/ - ExhibitFiles: A Community Site for Exhibit Designers and Developers. This particular site, is “in-house” social networking platform, and was developed by the Association of Science – Technology Centres to promote engagement, networking and collaborations among science centres and museums. Each member has a “favourites page”  of  “Bits and Networks” which has RSS feeds from blogs, Twitter, Flickr and LinkedIn.

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