MOSI-ALONG: Social media, the museum and the community

MOSI-ALONG: Social media, the museum and the community Andrew Whitworth (University of Manchester) and Fred Garnett (London Knowledge Lab) The 'Ambient Learning City' What is a community? Local? Geographical? Interest-based? Identity-based? Communities SHARE things... Note the English etymology Shared places, physical locations... invested with meaning as well as utilitarian value e.g. schools, shops, post offices... Places to gather, engage in communal activity, such as a pub, a sports stadium... ...or, this being Finland... ...the sauna. Social media and the 7-step 'Aggregate then Curate' model MOSI-ALONG set out to study communities' use of social media to collectively create sets of digital resources. And we were interested in how communities could make connections with organisations such as museums and libraries in this regard. Curation Community Different forms of VALUE... Participatory curatorial strategies (Simon, 2010) Each 'side' learning FROM THE OTHER about what makes for quality in resource collections The MOSI-ALONG project So far we have developed a general model for this process, with 7 steps: As this is only a short paper.... See the proceedings for detail on the underlying theories (learner-generated contexts, information obesity, community learning, etc.) Communities are also often associated with places of learning... Libraries, schools and universities obviously... ...but also museums, TV/radio stations, hospitals... But though these are IN the community, they are not necessarily OF the community. Restrictions on access can exist... ....meanings and interpretations of role, community history and so on can differ MOSI-ALONG is part of an initiative to make Manchester an 'ambient learning city'... Communities and learning providers working together to sustain the stock of information on which communities can draw.... ...with the help of new technologies. We also learned about the difficulties which can ensue! Particularly: copyright ingrained patterns of working energising participation and networking Common themes and processes emerged as we worked with communities on collections of digital content More detailed evaluation of this model is taking place Oct - Dec 2011 with the help of three groups: Adult community learners based around St Wilfrid's, Hulme 'FuseTV' at the University of Manchester (student TV station) Academic support officers at the Uni of Salford We want to: check which social media are most effective at which step find out who, or what, act as 'digital learning champions' as the process unfolds Each stage acts as a validation of the quality of the steps which have preceded it. Some steps may not be reached or be bypassed (with consequences for quality). The model is an IDEAL. Thank you. mosialong.wordpress.com #mosialong drew.whitworth@manchester.ac.uk The BBC are also interested & helping out... & thanks to JISC for funding the project. (www.jisc.ac.uk)