Today was the big day of the ACM Conference. Lots of stuff--some good, some not so much. I'll try to keep it as brief as possible, but that won't be too brief, I fear.

First session of the day was the opening plenary session. The mayor of Houston stopped by to say howdy, which was nice. Awards were presented to several museums who had created innovative programs over the past year.

The keynote speaker was Steven Berlin Johnson, an author who most recently wrote "Where Good Ideas Come From." He gave us some interesting insights into how revolutionary ideas develop and how (at least tangentially) children's museums can foster them. Most importantly, he debunked the idea of the "Eureka!" moment--the myth that most great ideas come from a lone genius shouting "Aha!" (Newton's apple, for example). He gave many examples of the conditions that allow great ideas to emerge, but he stressed that they rarely come from the "Eureka!" moment of a lone genius but are more likely developed over time, through collaboration and multidisciplinary contact. He tied this to children's museums by pointing out that, while education and work constantly push people to specialize, museums encourage interdisciplinary explorations and connections between diverse people and ideas. He said that he would like to see museums that can offer to their visitors a few fascinating kernels of information that stick in the mind and may, years later, become the seeds of the next great ideas. He summed up his message with this pithy phrase: "Chance favors the connected mind."

My first concurrent session was Technology in Children's Museums. And for a technology program, I have to say they had really ugly Powerpoint slides. All three speakers were independent (i.e. not on museum staff) exhibit designers. One of them, Paul Orselli, was there to (sort of) present the anti-technology viewpoint.

Julia Griffey started out with a quick list of pros and cons of technology in children's museums. Cons included the concern that children already have too much screen time in their lives, the cost to purchase, maintain and upgrade technology and the tendency of many museums to use technology badly. The pros included its ability to draw children instinctively, its attractiveness to major donors, its ability to save space (several displays can be condensed onto one screen) and its ability to provide experiences (live videoconferences, for example) that other media cannot provide.

Brad Larson emphasized using technology to create social interaction. His rules were that technology should encourage activity in the real world, encourage conversation, be simple enough to describe in one sentence and have backups and replacement options in case of failure. He was also a major proponent of using social media to promote and explain the museum's offerings.

Paul Orselli then voiced his reservations about using technology in museums. His fundamental point was a good one--most children have the chance to interact with technology and screens at home, at school, at the library, etc. What museums have that no one else can offer is interaction with real objects, real stories and real people in a real place. He cited a large study by Reach Associates surveying 40,000 museum members across a variety of museum types, and for all types of museums, a "vast majority" (his words) of members said they didn't want technology in museums.

At this point, the pro- and anti-technology factions in the audience hijacked the session for a protracted debate. What I think they all failed to understand is that they were essentially saying the same thing in different ways. The pro-tech crowd mostly argued for using technology to enhance exhibits whenever possible, while the anti-tech side (Orselli himself cited several cases of good technology use in museums) advocated using technology only when it would enhance the exhibit experience. Upon examination, I don't think there's really a huge difference between these positions. One audience member did make a good point that it's much easier to sell major donors on exhibits that incorporate, or even feature, technology.

One more think I took away from this--both the Houston and Queens Children's Museums have public library branches inside their museums. I'll be interested to see what Houston's looks like tomorrow.

Next up was the Future of Early Childhood Education lunch session, for which the facilitators were poorly prepared (not enough handouts, no microphones). This was more of a table discussion program than a presentation. We spoke a lot about our PALs and our plans for a shared library/museum facility, bringing together the best of both worlds for early childhood learning and literacy. A couple of other good ideas and/or relevant concerns caught my interest. One was a library that offered a summer kindergarten readiness program and another was a museum that talked about the need to educate parents as well as children. Many parents don't understand the connection between play and learning, thinking of them as two separate activities. They will be much more encouraging of their children's creative and imaginative play if they learn the developmental benefits of it. Oh, and one of the people at our table was from my 'hood--KidSpace Museum in Pasadena.

After lunch was The Art and Science of learning, with a panel of several speakers. This session focused mainly on research. Lots of interesting ideas (and quite a few boring ones) at this session. I'll try to pull out a few that struck me.

-Lorrie Beaumont spoke about the development of the Adult-Child Interaction Inventory (ACII), a tool to assess museum exhibits. It was developed by studying parents and preschool children, and it measures what (and how many) verbal and non-verbal interactions the exhibit stimulates between the parent and child. It thus allows museums to figure out what types of exhibits most effectively stimulate these interactions. ACII was developed using research from 21 exhibits at 15 museums. It sounds like it might be a useful tool for assessing the effectiveness of any grant-funded exhibits we may have in the future. More information is available here: http://informalscience.org/documents/0000/0106/ACII.Guide_low_res.pdf

- Susan Magsamen spoke about the Ultimate Block Party, which started in New York City as the "world's biggest block party" in Central Park. They created six different play domains (building, imaginative play, etc.). The idea was to provide a fun and enriching experience for children while educating parents about the benefits of play. They expected 5-6000; 50,000 showed up! Next up is a Baltimore Block Party, which will involve dozens of local arts and cultural organizations. There are more block parties planned for the future, and more than 75 cities have signed up to put one on. Sound like a great family event. More info here: http://www.ultimateblockparty.com/home.html

- Jenni Martin of the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose spoke about efforts to achieve gender equality in science education. She cited a study showing that parents were three times more likely to offer scientific explanations to boys than to girls. They designed a girl-friendly science-themed exhibit area (with an Alice in Wonderland theme) and found that, in that environment, science explanations by gender were equal. She also expressed the need for science museums to incorporate exhibits where children use evidence to draw conclusions (as opposed to open-ended activities.) Since that's what professional scientists do, it's a necessary tool in the tool kit of a good scientific education. Good point, and one that hadn't occurred to me before.

- Houston is using an IMLS grant to create FLIP (Family Literacy Involvement Program) kits. These are checked out by local public libraries and include books and materials, activities and ideas for interaction and learning related to those books. Their assessment of these kits included a study of 130 families, some given FLIP kits and some just the books. FLIP kit parents reported significantly better rates of learning new things about their children's interests and abilities and changing their reading practices at home. One of the purposes of these kits is to remind parents to have fun with their children when reading and not to see it as formal teaching unrelated to play. The FLIP kit model is being expanded to 10 more cities, and the format will soon be available to any library or museum that wants to use it. More info here: http://www.cmhouston.org/flip/

One last thing I wanted to mention. The final speaker (Leslie Bushara of Children's Museum of Manhattan, I believe--could be wrong) cited some research findings of interest to libraries. She said that research indicated that an ebook is as good as a book for literacy development, but that an interactive book (such as one for a Leapfrog) can have a negative impact. Because the child is distracted from the story and asked to do activities along the way, they don't get the reading experience they do from a book. I'm kind of glad to hear it.

Next up was Do it Yourself Exhibits. Not the most useful session for me, but I'll mention a few things. The speakers noted that in-house exhibit creation saves money, allows you to keep more creative control of your museum, gives staff more pride of ownership and allows for less downtime--if it's built in-house, it can probably be fixed in-house. On the minus side, it takes a lot of time and testing to create new exhibits and it requires a lot of (and often a huge variety of) expertise. One of the panelists listed a number of useful resources for finding parts and ideas. Let me know if you're interested.

The last session of the day was Learning to Notice, and I have to confess I was totally baffled by this one. The presenters told of a 6-year research project involving dozens of researchers and hundreds of museum patrons, thousands of hours of videotaping, re-doing the videos with avatars in Second Life (not kidding!), weekly meetings, journals, etc., etc., etc. The final result? It's better to engage museum visitors by talking to them about what they're interested in and asking open-ended questions vs. lecturing to them. This conclusion seems so self-evident to me that I really don't understand why this study needed to be done and why this presentation was on the schedule. I had my "Eureka!" moment after returning to my room (but wait, didn't we learn that "Eureka!" moments are a myth?). This type of interaction with patrons comes naturally to librarians--it's the basic way we do our job at the reference desk. Museums, on the other hand may have traditionally seen themselves as possessors and dispensers of knowledge from on high. Their outlook may have been, "We have the knowledge. You have come here to acquire that knowledge from us. So shut up and listen." What seems self-evident to a librarian may be counterintuitive to a museum docent. Or at least that's the best explanation I can come up with.

After dinner tonight I zipped down to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston on the light rail. Didn't have a whole lot of time in the galleries, but I saw a few good paintings. It seems like they mostly have second-tier paintings by top-level artists, and a few masterpieces from lesser-known painters. They did have a really nice Matisse and a very uncharacteristic Rousseau, though. I'll have to come back someday and see the rest of the collection. Sorry this was so long. It was a full day. G'night.