Updates
What We Have Learned So Far: Literature Review
In the Spring of 2012, as part of the formative research for the Learning Lab, SCLDA conducted a literature review to address this question: How will museums in general, and the Smithsonian in particular, adapt to and remain relevant in the digital age with search, social, mobile components, and instructional tools for learning. A literature review is simply an investigation (in this case a systematic review) of the scho...
What We Have Learned So Far: Thinking Partners
It's an intriguing question that you've most likely heard before or perhaps even asked yourself at one point or another, “If you could invite any six guests, dead or alive, to your dinner party, whom would you invite?" Typical responses range from world leaders, to famous athletes, influential authors, or A-list celebrities. It's an entertaining exercise that helps outsiders learn a little more about the respondent—what are their ...
Students Get Their Hands on the Prototype
For a couple of days in early October, researchers from SCLDA travelled to California to work with our collaborators, Navigation North, and two schools in Chico, California to better understand how young folks (these were 6th graders), especially those in a classroom, might access and use the digital assets of the Smithsonian. We had a great time, learned a lot, and are very thankful to the principals, teachers, and students who off...
Codename Design Joins the Learning Lab Development Team
Happy to announce that our team continues to expand with the addition of Marc Baumgartner and Graham Dobson of Codename Design, a product, web, and graphic design studio based in Vancouver, Canada. Marc and Graham are helping the team think about all the details of the user experiences we are trying to develop, and then designing the actual user interface for the Learning Lab, ensuring that it is contemporary, simple to use, and ...
Sampling and Remixing
Something I have been thinking about, in terms of cultural heritage, and the kinds of things we take care of here at the Smithsonian, and how they might become more useful to you, is sampling. DJ and Producer Mark Ronson talks about music in terms of a “post sampling era:" We live in a post sampling era. We take the things that we love and we build upon them. That's just how it goes. When we add something significant and origi...
