Family Time in Museums: Online or Unplugged? At the movie theater we see repeated messages about no texting or talking—what about museums? While some museums ban personal devices, others embrace them. What does research tell us about personal devices as they affect learning? What turns these devices on or off: visitors’ ages, educational levels, learning styles? How are museum educators approaching this contested area? A learning specialist, a museum educator, and a museum technologist present diverse viewpoints, leading to a lively moderated discussion. This presentation was given by Paul Gabriel. Moderator: Alice Parman, Independent Interpretive Planner Presenters: Paul Gabriel, Educational Consultant/Educational Therapist, Independent Emily Hope Dobkin, Youth Programs Manager, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History Susan Edwards, Senior Writer/Editor, Web Group, J. Paul Getty Trust

1. Attention, Please!
Family Time in Museums: Online or Unplugged?
Western Museum Association Annual Conference 2013
Paul Gabriel, Educational Consultant

3. Our first technology that took us outside of ourselves,
across time and space, was symbolic capacity:
oral language, visual art, sculpture.
Next came writing and other arts of agrarian civilization.
Then the industrial media:
the telephone, sound recording, radio, film and television.
Now we have digital devices and the web…
devices we can carry around with us and share all the time…
like two of our first virtual technologies…
oral language and our brains!

4. But in the end, all we’ve achieved rests on the first virtual technology:
our brain.
All enhance and stretch its potentials.
All share its constraints.

5. Enables?
Enhances?
Technology
Disables?
Distracts?

6. The Binding Problem!
The brain’s big black box
Slow Brain
Fast Brain
Attention

7. Body Outside/Body Inside
Hearing
Gosh!
Seeing
Smelling
Tasting
Episodic Memory
Touching
Emotion
That’s a lot!
Social Dynamics
Semantic Memory

8. Attention is a precious resource.
It costs.
It takes effort.
It makes free-choice learning possible.
So…
Use devices to help your visitors lose themselves
in your exhibits…
OR LOSE THEM TO THEIR OWN DEVICES!