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Museums, Audiences, and Capturing Learning Experiences: Tweeting to Connect

Research report Dr Narelle Lemon (June 2015) As part of the Visiting Research Fellowship at Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences

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Table of Contents

Museums, Audiences, and Capturing Learning Experiences: Tweeting to Connect .. 1 Table of Contents ...................................................................................................... 2 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 3 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................ 3 PRESENTATION OF RESEARCH AND DISCUSSION ....................................................... 4

TWEET CHAT.......................................................................................................... 9 Tweet Chat content ............................................................................................. 17 Q1. How do cultural organisations support learning? .......................................... 17 Q2. How do you think we could utilise a cultural organisation in your local community for education? .................................................................................. 21 Q.3 Why are objects important in the teaching/learning of subjects? .................. 25 Q4. What objects have you used in your teaching so far? .................................... 28 Q5. How do you access objects (original/replica/recent)? ................................... 33 Q6. How do you use objects to stimulate inquiry? ............................................... 34 Q.7 What can students do with objects? ............................................................. 36 Q8. Are some objects more useful than others? What are your experiences, recommendations? ............................................................................................. 38 Impact post the first tweet chat........................................................................... 39 Further engagement ............................................................................................ 43

CONCLUDING REMARKS .......................................................................................... 52 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 53 OUTPUTS ................................................................................................................. 54

Presentation and Interactive Workshop.............................................................. 54 Web ..................................................................................................................... 54

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Museums, Audiences, and Capturing Learning Experiences: Tweeting to Connect

Research report Dr Narelle Lemon (June 2015)

INTRODUCTION This research investigates how museums are sites for learning and how we can access cultural awareness off-site meaningfully and purposefully. The research aims to inquire into how social media can be integrated to build student and teacher engagement with museum sites, objects, and cultural knowledge. The Fellowship enabled the formation of the hashtag #MuseumEdOz that is facilitated on Twitter. The hashtag development emerged from a need to provide a national forum for sharing and a dedicated discussion for museum educators and teachers. This focuses on building a community that is flexible with anywhere, anytime access, accommodation and engagement with multiple voices, and a shift away from professional isolation. It supports the generation of questions, sharing ideas, resources, and best practice. Most importantly it creates possibilities for an open dialogue associated with museum education from the perspectives of curriculum integration across multiple discipline areas and professional learning opportunities. The aim of the research was to:

1. Develop and maintain an online community of educators from museums and schools in Australia;

2. Develop and maintain online community focused on museum education in Australia;

3. Extend the possibilities of conversations between different key stakeholders, that is museums, teachers, and museum educators;

4. Contribute to learning opportunities for students by building teacher capacity to understand how museums and museum educators are accessible;

5. Understand the needs of museums, museum educators and teachers nationally in association to learning in and with museums; and

6. Understand how social media can facilitate conversations, connections and community with the focus on museum education.

METHODOLOGY This project is a digital ethnography. That is, a study of online communities and human-technology interactions through the use of qualitative research methods. Digital ethnography allows for “us to follow ethnographically the (dis)continuities between the experiences realities of face-to-face and social media movement and socialites” (Postill & Pink, 2012, p.2). This is as Pink (2009) calls a part of the process of making an ‘ethnographic place’ where there is an emergent understanding of relations between things and processes that are not bounded by territories. As boyd (2008; 2014) reiterates, participation and interaction with social media allows for extended practices and activities that are “geographically unbounded” (boyd, 2014, p.8) that construct networked publics. Networked publics

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have different characteristics than traditional physical public spaces: 1) persistence: the durability of online expressions and content; 2) visibility: the potential audience who can bear witness; 3) spreadability: the ease with which content can be shared; and 4) searchability: the ability to find content (Boyd, 2014. p.11), or alternatively. Data collected included observations of hashtag activity monitored through tweets shared during the #MusuemEdOz hashtag and supported through analytics platforms of Tweet Archivist, Hashtracking, and KeyHole. Hashtag mapping of relationships between contributors was access through NodeXL and approaches to 'dashboarding'. Storify was also accessed to archive the tweet chat. Method of analysis is both qualitative and quantitative. The statistics for participation in the tweet chat included an analysis of participants’ roles and locations. While social media analytic platforms also provide an insight into statics of engagement with the hashtag. Tweets were hand coded to capture the intricacies and context of online discussions between participants guided by emergent thematic analysis.

PRESENTATION OF RESEARCH AND DISCUSSION #MuseumEdOz was launched in the last week of May 2015 (24th to 30th May 2015) with a week of focused tweeting on museum education through the cohosting of @EduTweetOz. The cohosting with Peter Mahony and Narelle Lemon through this Twitter handle was a conscious decision to engage with teachers nationally and museum educators. Firstly, as the hashtag development was formulated as a part of the MAAS Visiting Research Fellowship it was important to have a MAAS staff member profile. Secondly, @EduTweetOz is a dedicated community of 7000 plus Australian teachers and was seen as a way to communicate with a targeted audience of national educators. The administration of @EduTweetOz was approached during March about the proposal to cohost with a focus on museum learning. This proposal was well responded to with an immediate acceptance of topic and date. As this Twitter handle was to be cohosted it was imperative that the audience were aware of two hosts, thus Narelle was identified as NL and Peter as PM (see Figure 1). It was seen that beyond the first tweet chat that the cohosting would then shift to the running by Narelle with research connections continuing.

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Figure 1: Tweet examples of cohosting identification

The tweeting throughout the week included a variety of scheduled and unscheduled events focused on museum education and building partnerships (see Table 1). Table 1: #MuseumEdOz live tweeting schedule

#MuseumEdOz

Dr Narelle Lemon, La Trobe University (@rellypops)

AND Mr Peter Mahony, Museum of Applied Arts and Science

(@vergeofperil)

Hosting @EduTweetOz

24th to 31st May 2015

Sunday 24th May 7pm pass over Conversation: What is museum learning Last day of Museum Australia Conference

Monday 25th May Live tweeting of museum education programming at MAAS – disciplines/content to covered/student tweeting/school tweeting

Tuesday 26th May Live tweeting of museum education programming at MAAS – disciplines/content to covered/student tweeting/school tweeting Tweet Chat @7:30pm

Wednesday 27th May Live tweeting of museum education programming at MAAS – disciplines/content to covered/student tweeting/school tweeting Engagement: Hashtag tour (#TweetTour)

Thursday 28th May Live tweeting of museum education programming at MAAS – disciplines/content to covered/student tweeting/school tweeting

Friday 29th May Live tweeting of museum education programming at MAAS – disciplines/content to covered/student tweeting/school tweeting Engagement: Ask me anything conversations - what are boundaries to access?

Saturday 30th May/Sunday 31st May pass over at 7pm Conversation: Strategy talk – how do we engage learners? Conversation: What have we learnt about museum learning?

The community established throughout the first week of #MuseumEdOz generated momentum from advertising the hashtag through blogs, Twitter, and face-to-face networks including Museum Australia Conference (held the week before the hashtag launch with industry partners). The Figure 2 shows six segments of interactions, grouped by cluster using the ClausetNewmanMoore cluster algorithm, over the period of 19th May to the morning of 26th May, just after the live tweet chat held the previous

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night at 7:30pm AEST. Figure 2: MuseumEdOz Twitter NodeXL SNA Map and Report for Tuesday, 26 May 2015 at 15:27 UTC (after the Tweet Chat)

The graph represents a network of 202 Twitter users whose recent tweets contained "MuseumEdOz", or who were replied to or mentioned in those tweets, taken from a data set limited to a maximum of 18,000 tweets. The network was obtained from Twitter on Tuesday, 26 May 2015 at 15:29 UTC. The tweets in the network were tweeted over the 7day, 14hour, 23minute period from Tuesday, 19 May 2015 at 00:47 UTC to Tuesday, 26 May 2015 at 15:11 UTC. There is an edge for each "replies to" relationship in a tweet, an edge for each "mentions" relationship in a tweet, and a self loop edge for each tweet that is not a "replies to" or "mentions". The graph is directed and was laid out using the HarelKoren Fast Multiscale layout algorithm complied by NodeXL. The NodeXL chat shared in Figure 2 shows Top 10 Twitter handle Vertices, Ranked by Betweenness Centrality as @rellypops, @janpcim, @edutweetoz, @vergeofperil, @mvteachers, @mareewhiteley, @curatorcurious, @kyliebudge, @heritage_ppl, and @alli_burnie. The top word pairs during the tweet chat are shared in Figure 3.

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Figure 3: The top word pairs during the #MuseumEdOz tweet chat Vertices are a point where two or more straight lines meet. Thus in relation to Twitter and how participants engage with one another (friends/followers), “NodeXL allows us to visualize both of these quantities at the same time by mapping them to different properties of the vertices in the graph canvas” (Hansen, Shneiderman, & Smith, 2010, p.157). This is where Postill & Pink’s (2012) notions of digital ethnography allow us to understand that while the #MuseumEdOz hashtag was being established the relativity of the value in both face-to-face and social media movement and socialites was evident. Of the Top 10 central Twitter handles Narelle (@rellypops) was linked face-to-face through professional relationships over time with five and Peter (@vergeofperil) was linked to 3, while online Narelle had links with 8 of the ten (disregarding herself). The overlapping and intricacies of face-to-face and online connections assisted greatly in the launching and growth of #MuseumEdOz. Another key player in the establishment of the hashtag was @janpcim. She has an ongoing professional relationship with @rellypops, is a museum educator who hosts @MVTeachers and is well linked through her own cofounding of #histedchat. This links in the engagement with @heritage_ppl, @mareewhiteley, and @curatorcurious, demonstrating how powerful intersecting connections online can link individuals and organisations united by similar interests and inquires. After the tweet chat and moving towards the later part of the week, on the 28th May the networking changed (Figure 4).

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Figure 4: #MuseumEdOz networking and extension of global contacts (via NodeXL)

Then looking as time progressed and the hashtag moved from a week of focus into the first Thursday of the month live tweet chat, the 15 June 2015 networking map became far more focused with regular contributions specifically focused on the tweet chat (Figure 5). This is unpacked later in the report.

Figure 5: Focused mapping of participants in #MuseumEdOz (via NodeXL) During the week of the launch of #MuseumEdOz the top users were captured via Tweet Archivist (Figure 6).

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Figure 6: Top contributors in #MuseumEdOz (first week of active activity) (via Tweet Archivist) The volume of tweets throughout the week clearly demonstrated how the tweet chat contributed to a significant volume of tweets including original contributions, conversational tweets, and sharing of perspectives from being a teacher, museum educator or curator (see Figure 7).

Figure 7: Volume over the week of #MuseumEdOz (via Tweet Archivist)

TWEET CHAT A key part of the hashtag launch was to establish a profile for a live tweet chat. This activity was also deemed vital in establishing a future pattern of the main focus of the #MusuemEdOz hashtag and community. The live tweet chat focused on the questions represented in Figure 8.

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Figure 8: Tweet chat 1 #MuseumEdOz questions as cohosted by Narelle and Peter.

Twitter is a microblogging platform that emerged in 2006 where small elements of content are shared such as short sentences with or without media such as a photograph, video, or web link, in up to 140 characters. Users demonstrate reflective practice and concise articulation as they share tweets in the online forum. Short and sharp responses with opportunity to post multiple tweets in response to the dialogue is considered normal practice. A participatory learning culture with active content generation (Davis et al., 2015) underpins Twitter. The formation of #MuseumEdOz was guided by the need to target specific audience engagement, that is to support teachers and museum educators, as well as curators and cultural organisations themselves, to engage in a dialogue about museum learning across disciplines and key learning areas. The use of the hashtag supports the community to "share ideas, resources, and encouragement, and connect with other educators” (Carpenter & Krutka, 2014a, p.416). This was most important as there had been significant observations from both teachers and museum educators independently about the difficulty to make contact, consult, and discuss what is possible in regards to philosophy, value, access, curriculum development, inquiry, and specific discipline needs. In developing a dedicated hashtag opportunity is created to share resources, ideas and pose questions about learning in museums anytime and anywhere. We aim for an online supportive community via Twitter to explore new ways to engage the multiple layers of these audiences. The objective was to provide a voice for museum educators and for teachers, with opt in from curators and cultural organisations with a Twitter handle. The development of an Australian profile on social media to further strengthen internationals presence in this space via hashtags such as #MuseumEdChat or #museumed was a guiding factor in the highlighting of voice. This was seen as a way to demonstrate how social media can be a professional learning platform providing opportunity for connection in real time and across boundaries with fellow museum educators, curators, museums, and teachers. As the community of practice develops it is envisaged that support and the access to resources, pedagogical strategies, and ideas will become more fluid in the

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online environment with possibility to transfer to face-to-face interactions and partnerships. Most importantly #MusuemEdOz has been envisaged as one approach to extend experiences for teachers in museum education while providing a forum for posing questions, discussing best practice, and innovative educational approaches to engage learning for all in the museum setting with objects, exhibitions, and cultural assets. In focusing on teachers who already use social media such as Twitter to “engage in professional development with colleagues by using popular hashtags related to subject area” (Carpenter & Krutka, 2014a, p.416) we were looking to build possibility of extending the dialogue of what is possible in museum education and with students in the future. This approach sees Twitter as a medium that can bring together voices to deepen the conversation and thicken access to perspectives. A key driver was the formation of a community. Focus is on the first tweet chat as a new initiative to bring multiple voices and audiences together with a united interest. This aligns to what the research finds whereby synchronous tweet chats of one hour duration with a moderator and based around a hashtag are popular among tweeting educators (Brown, 2012; Carpenter & Krutka, 2014b; Wesely, 2013). As reiterated by Osterman et al (2012) whom found that by engaging audience with twitter key actions required “linking resources, creatively engaging the public to utilize new social media tools, and attempting to create an active two-way form of communication” (p.241). The tweet chat was a significant activity for the week of the launch of the hashtag as it modeled a specific activity that was aimed to be continually scheduled in the future as a once a month support for the teacher and museum education community. As seen in Figure 9, the participants and the network connections involved a variety of levels of contributions. The larger dark blue circles represent significant contributions, with the small outline circle with no colour representing minimal participation.

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Figure 9: #MuseumEdOz tweet chat visual of participants and the network connections.

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Significant growth in traffic was seen in the use of the hashtag during the scheduled tweet chat (see Figure 10) while contribution of original content also grew to 34.8% (Figure 11), and exposure reached 2 million (Figure 12). Figure 10: Visual representation of the timeline of contributions during the tweet chat (via Keyhole stats)

Figure 11: Tweet chat original content (via Keyhole stats)

Figure 12: Tweet chat exposure (via Tweet Archivist)

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Analysis from 19 May to post the tweet chat (am 27 May) identified key contributors to knowledge (see Figure 13) Figure 13: Main contributors to #MuseumEdOz after the live tweet chat (via Tweet Archivist)

In looking more closely at who participated in the tweet chat the following data was collated and analysed manually using excel. Twitter handle position (or role) as indicated via the Twitter profile, location (both state in Australia and city), and if the participant was a teacher the area (early years, primary, secondary or higher education) and method (if relevant) was collected.

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Table 2: Breakdown of tweet chat participants’ demographics TWITTER HANDLE POSITION

LOCATION AREA METHOD

@whosanktheboat Teacher Unknown Unknown - - @MVTeachers Museum Educator VIC Melbourne - -

@maasmuseum Cultural

Organisation NSW Sydney - - @vergeofperil Museum Educator NSW Sydney - -

@salterator Teacher VIC Bendigo Higher

Education - @thomas_tennille Pre service teacher VIC Melbourne Primary -

@_e_diamond Teacher NSW Canberra - -

@AnnabelAstbury Cultural

Organisation VIC Melbourne - - @angecasey Museum Educator NSW Canberra - - @micran_mr Pre service teacher VIC Melbourne Primary -

@lobroo Teacher QLD Brisbane Primary - @sallyluane Teacher VIC Melbourne Secondary History

@JamesDestined Museum Educator NSW Sydney - - @kyliebudge Museum Research NSW Sydney - -

@CorieGrana Cultural

Organisation INTERNATIONAL UK - -

@LisaHayman1 Cultural

Organisation VIC Melbourne - - @ALIplaylearn Museum Educator NSW Sydney - -

@SCU006 Teacher NSW Coffs

Harbour K-12 - @MarkeetaRP Teacher SA Adelaide Primary -

@curatorcurious Curator VIC Melbourne - - @camhock Museum Educator VIC Melbourne - - @Hoosey71 Teacher WA Mandurah Primary -

@jesiathe Cultural

Organisation NSW Sydney - -

@heritage_ppl Cultural

Organisation TAS Hobart - - @marina_rot Museum Educator INTERNATIONAL Venice - -

@aladytraveller Curator INTERNATIONAL London - - @lyndakelly61 Museum Educator NSW Sydney - -

@MsLRodrigues Teacher VIC Melbourne Secondary Geography @TESOLoz Teacher NSW Sydney K-12 -

@rellypops Teacher VIC Melbourne Higher

Education - @vergeofperil Museum Educator NSW Sydney - -

TOTAL: N=31

In total there were 31 participants in the hour long tweet chat. There were representative from every state in Australia other than Northern Territory, with several international participants (see Figure 14). This was a positive outcome for the first tweet chat of #MuseumEdOz.

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Figure 14: tweet chat participants location. Of the international participants, all three came from a European location (see Figure 15). Figure 15: International breakdown of participants.

TWITTER HANDLE POSITION LOCATION @marina_rot Museum Educator Venice @aladytraveller Curator London @CorieGrana Cultural Organisation UK

The role of the participants included a variety of roles that informed the discussion (see Figure 16).

UNKNOWN3%

VIC36%

NSW39%

TAS3%

SA3%

WA3%

QLD3%

INTERNATIONAL10%

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Figure 16: Roles of participants on #MuseumEdOz tweet chat

Tweet chat content Figure 17: Sample tweet of how questions were posed on Twitter during the tweet chat

Q1. How do cultural organisations support learning? Contributions included actions such as providing:

⇒ Expertise ⇒ Unique collections ⇒ Interesting experiences for learners ⇒ Tangible history experiences ⇒ Better learning experiences ⇒ Hands on experiences ⇒ Virtual possibilities ⇒ Research opportunities ⇒ Endless opportunities through internships, lectures, online, face to face ⇒ Educators ⇒ Safe space for exploration ⇒ Diverse understanding of knowledge

Teacher35%

Museum Educator

29%

Cultural Organisation

19%

Curator7%

Pre service teacher

7%

Museum Research

3%

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⇒ Holistic approaches to learning Sample tweets included:

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Question 1 conversations that were generated within the tweet chat reminded us how vital educators are in order to bring alive the collection to translate the objects into context and relevant curriculum links for learners.

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We were reminded that learners have the opportunity to see possibilities of how curriculum areas work together in a museum, thus reinforcing integration.

The possibility for sharing ideas, connected to reciprocity became evident very quickly within the tweet chat and #MuseumEdOz community.

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Q2. How do you think we could utilise a cultural organisation in your local community for education?

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Contributions to question two highlighted key themes of:

⇒ Facilitating ownership and raising awareness:

⇒ Working in partnership to design learning experiences including making the expert available:

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⇒ Highlighting how museum educators are invigorate by new learning experiences just as visitors to the museum:

⇒ Consider the spaces available to support agency:

Conversations within the tweet chat directed at question two included integration of evaluation and feedback from multiple voices to provide support for learning opportunities:

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Especially highlighted was the power in presence of cultural organisations for learning:

Q.3 Why are objects important in the teaching/learning of subjects? Key themes that emerged from responses to question three included:

⇒ Inspiration for innovative learning activities and outcomes:

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⇒ Objects are a powerful learning tool including supporting immersion, hands on experiences, questioning, conversations, perspectives, voice, tangibility, and connecting with evidence for inquiry:

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The conversations within the tweet chat inspired reinforcement of the significance of objects in learning.

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Q4. What objects have you used in your teaching so far?

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The fourth tweet chat question reinforced the participant’s passion for learning in cultural organisations and the accessibility to objects to support learning.

Contributions included actions such as:

⇒ Open ended walks

⇒ Anything and everything

⇒ Photos

⇒ Objects connected to personal stories

⇒ Fashion that stimulate perspective

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⇒ Art works

It was interesting to note one teacher participating in the conversations shared that she has not used objects in her teaching to date. However the tweet chat had inspired ideas. This is a great demonstration of the significance of this online conversation. In that bringing together teachers and museum educators inspires possibilities for learning in and across museum sites.

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Furthermore, multiple conversations within the tweet chat unpacked this insight and encourage perspectives on shifting pedagogy further.

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Q5. How do you access objects (original/replica/recent)? All call for a community of practice based on supportive sharing was highlighted in the responses to this question.

Other key themes that emerged included: ⇒ Digitized collections

⇒ Memorial box use

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⇒ Primary object(s) use

⇒ Access however you can

Q6. How do you use objects to stimulate inquiry?

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Q.7 What can students do with objects? Many ideas were shared in how students can engage with and use objects to support their learning and meaning making. These included:

• Creation of questions • Curate their own exhibition • Contextualize their learning • Can use digital resources to bring objects alive

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• Make connections • Engage with higher order thinking

Further more a conversation within this question asked: what are the factors that encourage students to express their views?

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Q8. Are some objects more useful than others? What are your experiences, recommendations?

Some of the experiences that the participants shared were focused around digital resources:

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It was acknowledged that access to objects determines the use and usefulness.

Impact post the first tweet chat Many of the participants shared their inspiration from the tweet chat and the new community formed through #MuseumEdOz.

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Further engagement #MuseumEdOz has established a pattern of regular tweet chats, at the moment scheduled for the first Thursday of the month (June and July) but changing to the first Tuesday of the month (August onwards). The conversation online via Twitter begins at 7:30pm and runs for one hour in duration. The June tweet chat was cohosted by Narelle and Angela Casey from the National Australia Museum (Figure 18), with the July tweet chat hosted by Lynda Kelly from the Australian National Maritime Museum (Figure 19). Figure 18: Tweet chat 2 questions

Figure 19: Tweet chat 3 questions

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These have been archived via Storify at: Tweet chat 2: https://storify.com/rellypops/museumedoz-tweet-chat-2-4-june-2015-with-angecasey#publicize Tweet chat 3: https://storify.com/rellypops/museumedoz-tweet-chat-3-hosted-by-lyndakelly Table 3: Tweet chat 2 participants

TWITTER HANDLE POSITION

LOCATION AREA METHOD RETURN PARTICIPANT

@MissAlyceBailey Teacher VIC Melbourne Secondary ICT, Photography No

@alli_burnie digial musuem NSW Sydney

No

@SCUliveideas Univeristy SA Adelaide Higher Education No

@nma Cultural Organisation NSW Canberra

No

@savvygirl5 Pre service teacher VIC Melbourne Primary

No

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@janpcim Museum Educator VIC Melbourne

No

@nicolelouise2 Pre service teacher VIC Melbourne Primary

No

@alcorn79 Arts NSW Sydney

No

@emmakb Museum Educator NSW Sydney

No

@vance_narelle Museum Educator NSW Sydney

No

@aimee_gale Teacher VIC Melbourne Primary

No

@siobhan10639740 Pre service teacher VIC Melbourne Primary

No

@micran_mr Pre service teacher VIC Melbourne Primary

No

@FimJishwick digital museum NSW Sydney

No

@Murfbrown5 Pre service teacher VIC

No

@michelestockely Museum Educator VIC Melbourne

No

@thomas_tennille Pre service teacher VIC Melbourne Primary

Yes

@lyndakelly61 Museum Educator NSW Sydney

Yes

@heritage_ppl Cultural Organisation TAS Hobart

Yes

@vergeofperil Museum Educator NSW Sydney

Yes

@camhock Museum Educator VIC Melbourne

Yes

@angecasey Museum Educator NSW Canberra

Yes

@rellypops Teacher VIC Melbourne Higher Education

Yes

@kyliebudge Museum Research NSW Sydney

Yes

@MVTeachers Museum Educator VIC Melbourne

Yes

@lobroo Teacher QLD Brisbane Primary

Yes

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Figure 20: Tweet chat 2 participant roles

Figure 21: Tweet chat 2 return participants’

Teacher15%

Digial musuem

8%Univeristy

4%

Cultural Organisation

8%

Pre service teacher

23%

Museum Educator

34%

Arts4%

Museum Research

4%

Yes (returned participant)

38%No (new paricipant)

62%

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Figure 22: Map of networking at the end of tweet chat 2 (via NodeXL) Table 4: Tweet chat 3 participants’

HANDLE PROFILE LOCATION ROLE RETURNED PARTICIPANT

@museum_music

PhD student (looking at how/why/what music is curated/composed/displayed in museum spaces), broad spectrum nerd, paid to be a swot. Melbourne, VIC no

@TESOLoz

Life-long learner.ESL teacher/mentor. Developing language through the arts & rich texts. Founder of #tesoloz ESL ed chat, last Fri of the month 8-9pm Syd, NSW Teacher yes

@lyndakelly61

Museum worker, researcher, webby-type, social media tragic, mother, cook, chief bottle-washer; like good food, great wine, bluesy music. My own views expressed. Syd, NSW

Director of Learning @ Australian National Maritime Musuem no

Vergeofperil

Education & Digital Learning Manager @maasmuseum. Co-host of #MuseumEdOz with @rellypops. DQ: How do museums offer authentic and Syd, NSW Museum Ed yes

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deep learning experiences?

@alcornb79

Kangaroo Island born, now living in sydney and working in the arts. Syd, NSW

Ed & Outreach at Whitlam Institute yes

@jesiathe

Museums. Plants. Research. Kulcha M8. I work for the @austmus @AMSciFest, but the tweet-pinions here are my own. Syd, NSW

outreach @ Aust Museum yes

@heritage_ppl

Communicates & connects cultural heritage – tangible & intangible. Things that should be remembered & things that should not be forgotten. @woodac2 @wood_cdwo1 Hobart, TAS yes

@savvygirl5

MTeach Latrobe 2015 | HR/IT Consultant | Passionate Learner | Arts | Hist | RE | Lit | Tech | Ed for 21st C | Photographer | Communicator | 2B Edupreneur | Vic PST yes

@jdirel23

Completing Graduate Diploma of Education (Primary) @ La Trobe University : Guitar Teacher : Vic PST no

siobhan10639740F

PST (Primary)LaTrobe Uni, Passionate about individulised learning, advocate for Montessori in the State System & more engagement with Science in Primary Schools Vic PST yes

@HalleJadeLadd

#preservice primary school teacher. Swimming Teacher and Coach. Austswim Presenter. First Aid Trainer. My passion has always been to Teach. Vic PST no

@sparrow_bee Museum worker, tech lover, leaf tea drinker Syd no

micran_mr

Pre-service teacher with background in Archaeology, focus on connections between learning and material culture Melbourne, Victoria+D19 Vic PST yes

@alli_burnie

Museum storyteller • Digital Producer @maasmuseum via @ngadc • #MuseumSelfie project bit.ly/OqPX5L • #musetech #musesocial • alliburness@outlook.com syd yes

@audasmike_ Editor, proofreader, and typographer of note. Bendigo PST no

janpcim

Museum educator. 30+ yrs classroom teacher.#histedchat #edutweetoz. Passionate Melb no

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teacher & learner. Tweet for @MVTeachers.Views my own.

@MissJodes23

Teacher now in museum ed. HistoryNerd. Loves innovative, interdisciplinary and accessible ed. Also into music, books, craft, yoga and sunshine. USA/Melbourne no

@salterator

Education consultant. (Specialist areas: open plan settings, innovative pedagogy, community building). PhD candidate. Tweets mine etc Bendigo HE yes

connectedtchr

33 years in Education. iPad Enthusiast. eLearning Manager. Passionate Fan of Ancient History. Keynote speaker. Also tweeting @HEATT2015+E21 SA no

@KateMur89248887 Vic PST no @michelestockley Vic Museum Ed no

@hewhitty

researching museums, literacies, families; thinking on the agency of things; museums as stages; visitors as actors; enchantment of picture books and swimming. Syd Museum Ed no

@lindaxbarron

EM community engagement @slqld. Interests include libraries, education and training, food and wine. Brisbane

Community engagement no

r @saadetugur3

Studying MTeach (Primary) at LTU. Passionate about teaching & science. Exploring the twitterverse & connecting with other PST’s/educators from around the globe.

Melbourne, Victoria PST no

@mrkempnz

Kiwi in Singapore, Head of ICT & Learning Innovation. Leader, Speaker, Google CT, #whatisschool & #asiaED co-creator, 2014 Best Educational Tweeter Singapore no

@interactivate

Visitor Experiences are my thing. Manager of Visitor Experience @SAMuseum and interested in museums, visitors, tourism and technology. Adelaide

Visitor Experience Manager @SAMuseum, no

@JoachimCohen123

Education Outreach Programs Manager, Intel Australia - Striving to discover, share and inspire Innovation in Education. My tweets are my own thoughts. Syd Outreach no

@elyw

Publishes museum collections online at Museum Victoria, bioinformatics geekery and Melb no

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team lead for Biodiversity Heritage Library in Australia.

@lrgibilisco

I am a preservice teacher joining Twitter to actively engage in professional development with technology and others in the education industry online. Melb PST no

@ChristineHealey

#MuseumEd Coordinator, PhDcandidate, VTS facilitator, Teacher, Hugh Rogers Fellow. Passionate about #ArtsEd, value divergent thinking. Tweets are personal.

Melbourne, Victoria Museum Ed no

@DiPrato

Deputy Principal - Marcellin College. Marist Association. VCSSDPA Social Media. All opinions are my own. Say hello. #permissionistriumph

Melbourne, Victoria Teacher no

@angecasey

museum educator, novel reader, fidgeter, optimist. bloody but unbroken. curious. Canberra Museum Ed yes

@Murfbrown5

PST, cancer nurse and mother of three who is passionate about early literacy.

Melbourne, Victoria PST no

rellypops Arts education, Museum education, teacher education Melbourne, Victoria yes

Figure 23: Tweet chat 3 return participants

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Figure 24: Tweet chat 3 participant locations

Figure 25: Tweet chat 3 networking post conversation (via Nvivo) The future 2015 tweet chat schedule is shared in the following table with a variety of teachers, organisations, and museum educators nationally involved in the cohosting. Table 5: 2015 Tweet chat schedule Name Role Date Theme

Ellie Downing

Outreach at Australia Museum

4-Aug

Ways to increase accessibility and understanding of science through transformative educational activities; a look at the relationship between space and educational experiences.

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Cindy Valdez-Adams

Teacher NSW

1-Sep

Teacher perspective – reflecting on school visit to Art Gallery of NSW teacher and student perspective.

History SA

4 museum education voices across sites of

Migration Museum, SA Maritime Museum and

National Motor Museum 6-Oct Working across sites and varied object integration

Melissa Silk Teacher at International

School Ultimo, NSW 3-Nov STEAM and design influenced by objects

Narelle Lemon

Researcher in museum education and teacher

education. Ex F-12 teacher 1-Dec

Social media, education and museums – innovative practise for engaging audiences

CONCLUDING REMARKS #MuseumEdOz has produced:

• Online conversation with participants from the target audience in different roles

• National growth of support, conversation, and sharing of perspectives • International interest • A professional community of practice that displays mutual respect and guided

by inquiry • A sustained online conversation • A tweet chat format that supports multiple entry points into conversations and

monthly topics • Confirmed a need for such a community • A shift in when the tweet chat occurs, reinforcing that a trial between Tuesday

and Thursday at 7:30pm AEST has resulted in monthly Tuesday chats • Reciprocity • “Elegant lurkers” who continue the conversation face to face

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REFERENCES Brown, E. (2012, January 22). Teachers take to Twitter to improve craft and commiserate. Washington Post. Retrieved from http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-01-21/local/ 35439858_1_twitter-chat-three-teachers-lesson-plans boyd, D. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. New Haven: Yale University Press. boyd, D. (2008). Why youth heart social media: The role of networked publics in teenage social life. In Buckingham, D (Ed.). Youth, Identity and Digital Media. (pp.119-142). Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press. Carpenter, J.P., & Krutka, D.G. (2014a). How and Why Educators Use Twitter: A Survey of the Field. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 46(4), 414-434. Carpenter, J. P., & Krutka, D. G. (2014b). Chat it up: Everything you wanted to know about Twitter chats but were afraid to ask. Learning and Leading with Technology, 41(5), 10–15.

Davis, J. L., Compton, D., Farris, N.D., & Love, T.P. (2015). Implementing and Analyzing Social Media in Higher Education. The Journal of Faculty Development, 29(2), 9-16.

Hansen, D., Shneiderman,B., Smith, M.A. (2010). Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a Connected World. Burlington, Massachusetts, USA: Morgan Kaufmann. Osterman, M., Thirunarayanan, M., Ferris, E.C., Pabon, L.C., Paul, N. & Berger, R. (2012). Museums and Twitter: An Exploratory Qualitative Study of How Museums Use Twitter for Audience Development and Engagement. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 21(3), 241-255. Pink, S. (2009). Doing sensory enthography. London: Sage. Postill, J., & Pink, S. (2012). Social media ethnography: the digital researcher in a messy web. Media International Australia, 145, 123-134. Wesely, P. M. (2013). Investigating the community of practice of world language educators on Twitter. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(4), 305–318.

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OUTPUTS

Presentation and Interactive Workshop Lemon, N. (August 26, 2015). Undertaking a visiting Research Fellowship: tweeting, connecting & finding out. La Trobe Higher Degree Research Forum, School of Education. Lemon, N. (May 19, 2015). Museums, education audiences, and social media. Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences Forum, MAAS Think Space.

Web MAAS (June, 2015). Visit ing Research Fellows. MAAS website. Retrieved from http://maas.museum/research/visiting-research-fellows/

EduTweetOz (May, 2015). Museum Educators talking all things museums this week on Edutweetoz. EduTweetOz blog: Celebrating Australian Educators. Retrieved from http://edutweetoz.org/2015/05/24/museum-educators-talking-all-things-museums-this-week-on-edutweetoz/ Lemon, N. (May, 2015). #MusuemEdOz Tweet Chat #2 – 4 June 2015 with @angecasey & @rellypops. Storify. Retrieved from https://storify.com/rellypops/museumedoz-tweet-chat-2-4-june-2015-with-angecasey Lemon, N. (May, 2015). #MusuemEdOz Tweet Chat #1 – 26 May 2015 Storify. Retrieved from https://storify.com/MuseumEdOz/museumedoz-tweetchat-1-26-may-2015-55665a8108948fc90fc43aa0 Lemon, N. (May, 2015). #MuseumEdOz (homepage). Chat with Rellypops blog. Retrieved from https://chatwithrellypops.wordpress.com/museumedoz/ Lemon, N. (May, 2015). #MuseumEdOz is launched. Chat with Rellypops blog. Retrieved from https://chatwithrellypops.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/museumedoz-is-launched/ Lemon, N. (March, 2015). Would a dedicated hashtag to museum learning work in Australia. Chat with Rellypops blog. Retrieved from https://chatwithrellypops.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/would-a-dedicated-hashtag-to-museum-learning-in-australia-work/ Lemon, N. (April, 2015). One great way to stimulate research. RED blog. Retrieved from http://redwritinghood.blogs.latrobe.edu.au/2015/04/one-great-way-to-stimulate-research.html