LCDR Edward Beale ~ SDSU Coursework

EDTEC 671: Learning Environment Design

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Informal Learning Exhibit Specifications

The New London Sea Chantey Museum
Informal Learning Environment ~ Specifications
(Download: 36kb .doc)

Exhibit/Display Design—Part 1

Develop the specifications for your exhibit. Describe the following:

1. What will attract visitors to enter your exhibit or approach your display?
As visitors approach the exhibit area, they’ll hear some representative music, perhaps over a soundtrack of sailing ship noises, creaks, and waves. Pictures of sailing ship rigging, sailors, even perhaps a small scale model of the forecastle of a ship with rigging.

2. Once there, what will engage them in the exhibit or display?
Visitors will have access to historical information presented chronologically. Several colored “tracks” will cater to their different interests.

  • The Yellow track will follow sea chanteys through history, showing how they were used and developed over time
  • The Blue track will follow sea chanteys as music, showing their origins, evolution, and eventual influence on modern music
  • The Red track will concentrate on the lyrics as social commentary and recordkeeping, showing how culture at once influenced and was affected by culture.

3. What will enliven prior knowledge or experiences relevant to the exhibit or display?
The visitors may not have much experience with sea chanteys, but will understand sailing, history, culture, and music. The exhibit will align their prior knowledge in these areas with specifics about Sea Chanteys.

4. How will you present new information? (objects? text? media?)
New information will be presented in large displays, on computer kiosk screens, on overhead speakers, and through interaction with the live support staff.  Displays will offer “tiered” information, with key points printed for viewing from across the room, then track information in medium, color coded text. Finally, specific information will be presented in smaller text, in no more than 12 lines.

5. Will visitors have an opportunity to apply their new feelings or understanding? Draw a sketch? Make a choice? Try a solution?
The exhibit visitors will be able to participate in online quizzes of comprehension. They will also have the chance to join a resident chanteyman/chantywoman for a sing-along, just like sailors of old.

6. What will prompt visitors to think or feel and/or discuss?
Several exhibits will cover how sailing traffic allowed commerce to continue, then prospel during the founding of the USA. Direct ties between historical and modern ocean shipments will show the connection between the past and the present.

Image: Capstan7. What physical interaction might stimulate thought and/or discussion?
An interactive “halyard” station will allow guests to “haul around” in time to their own chantey sings. A working capstan model (see diagram) will allow other visitors to sing along in time with raising the anchor chain.

8. How will you facilitate further exploration?
Visitors will be given an exploratory book with mini-cd containing representative chanteys, lyrics, and additional historical material.

Lesson Plan & Learning Materials—Part 1

Develop the specifications for your learning activity and materials. Describe the following:

1. How will you attract museum visitors to want to use your learning activity?
Learning activities will be guided by museum staff, who will call them to task in the same manner as sailors of old. Large buttons and text will draw them into static or kiosk exhibits, then smaller text will help them expand their knowledge.

2. Once they have it, what will keep them engaged with it? Will you offer a "reward" for completing it?
Visitors will have the opportunity to download their performance from the internet. Individual performances will be showcased, and visitors can rate them on a scale of one to five stars.

3. What will enliven prior knowledge or experiences relevant to the learning activity?

  • Everyone knows how to shout. The Chanteyman/woman will start with a shouting exercise, then slowly work the participants into a metered shouting exercise, then into a full-blown chantey.
  • Most visitors are familiar with sailing ships. Connecting their prior knowledge about sailing ships and how chanteys were used aboard ships will active prior knowledge.

4. How will the learning materials add value to the exhibit?
The learning materials will add value through graphical representations of settings where chanteys were needed. The material will also bring chanteys alive through recorded music and interactive participatory sessions.

5. Will visitors have an opportunity to apply their new feelings or understanding? Draw a sketch? Make a choice? Try a solution?
Of course!  After taking a few minutes to become oriented to the critical nature of music during many shipboard evolutions, the visitors will be invited to join a real chantey singer to complete a simulated shipboard task.

6. What will prompt visitors to reflect on what they see or experience?
Some displays will ask questions outright. Other exhibits will draw pointed connections between seagoing activities and modern daily activities.

7. What physical interaction might stimulate thought and/or discussion?
Hauling on a halyard line or walking the capstan are certainly physical activities! After the activities, the museum staff will demonstrate how difficult completing the activities would be without chanteys… Critiquing other participants will also follow as a natural discussion from a live chantey performance.

8. How will you facilitate further exploration?
With the take-away package, the participants will have all the tools they’ll need to continue exploring the history and application of Sea Chanteys. Additional material will be available in the gift shop or for purchase online, such as DVDs, chantey compilations, and written historical material.

Additional Information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London%2C_Connecticut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_shanty

 

Updated: 4/16/07
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