Museums and Wikis at MW2009

As Frankie Roberto has already blogged, I'm really pleased that he and I have been accepted to co-author a paper for April 2009's Museums and the Web Conference in Indianapolis!

The full programme is now available for the conference. We'll be speaking as part of a session on Thursday 16 April called 'Wikis and the Expanded Museum Community'. Our abstract is available online already and we'll be writing the paper over the next month or so and this will be available in advance of the conference online.

Also speaking in the session will be Tracey Baker, Joe Hoover and Rose Sherman from the USA, and Justine Richardson, Canada, Marsha MacDowell, Dean Rehberger, Amanda Sikarskie and Mary Worrall, USA. I'm particularly interested in the first paper by Tracey et al. as I mentioned their MN150 Wiki in my dissertation.

The conference looks really good. I've already signed up to attend the following pre-conference workshops:

• Developing effective e-Learning resources: a practical guide - interesting on two counts for me - partly because I'm now working specifically on e-Learning rather than just web generally, but also because Steve Gardam, one of the speakers, is my former colleague, initiator of the BPMA Wiki which has been so important to me recently, and also a good friend.
• Evaluation Methods: A Practicum - I'm hoping this will be useful just generally for help with evaluating the projects I'm now working on at the Museum of London

I'd have liked to attend Martin Bazley and my colleague Mariruth Leftwich's paper, Pedagogy and Design: Understanding Teacher Use of Online Museum Resources but unfortunately they're speaking at the same time as us so I'll have to content myself with reading their paper online!

I'll definitely try and catch Using Online Maps for User-Generated Content in Museums as it'll be interesting to hear about other project similar to the Museum of London's Postcodes project which I now montior. The session called Young Audiences and Creators also looks very relevant. It includes two papers:

• Doing it for the kids: Tate Online on engaging, entertaining and (stealthily) educating six to 12 year olds, by Sharna Jackson
• The Roar of a Virtual Campfire: Using Video Podcasts to Attract Young Adults to New York's National Parks, by John Harlan Warren

At the Museum of London, we have a whole range of online resources and games for children of all ages and it will be useful to hear Tate's perspective on the 6 to 12 age group. I'd also like to look into using podcasts more as well.

It's certainly going to be a great experience - to speak at such a well-known and well-thought-of conference, to meet a lot of names that I've read about and also a chance to hear others talk about subjects directly related to my current role. I look forward to meeting anyone else who's going in April!

MA result!
As a p.s. I thought people may also be interestd to hear that I passed my MA with merit in the end, with 66% for my dissertation. I was a little disappointed with my dissertation mark as I had been hoping for a distinction, but I'm mostly just very relieved that it's over now. Many thanks to everyone for their support during 6 fairly gruelling months!