Developing heritage educational resources. Another work cycle is possible through participation
In recent years, museums have become participatory places where the local communities take part in their development as inclusive cultural institutions.
As a result of the increase of technological innovations applied to the sector, some of these processes have spread very quickly, but as Kennisnet (2019) shows the digital heritage education field still needs to improve a lot because teachers and students are not involved enough in the development process of the educational materials.
In a way to change this situation, it is proposed in this essay a conceptual framework all the stakeholders can work together participating in the development of digital heritage education resources for and with young people through engagement.
Participation and engagement
Participation is defined as the act of being involved in a process with others and on the other side, engagement is defined as the capacity of keeping the interest of someone on something.
Taking these definitions the way of keeping the interest of someone is to be involved in this process. In the case of the development of digital cultural heritage education resources in museums for young people four stakeholders are involved: educators, museum staff, young people, and creatives.
As Schoonover et alli. (2019) propose, the way of engaging stakeholders should be creating a space where the groups feel safe and open to critical thinking, aligning motivations where values, framing, goals, and benefits are fixed through open discussions and building trust in the relationships, timing, reputation, and belonging to the project.
Related to this method, three dimensions of engagement can be defined:
- Behavioral engagement: participants are more motivated (Skinner, Kindermann & Furrer 2009).
- Emotional engagement: participants have powerful affective relationships like interest, enjoyment, or a sense of belonging (Trowler 2010).
- Cognitive engagement: the participant’s impact on the project is bigger as they try to be more involved (Wang, Bergin & Bergin 2014).
In the case of young people, Kearsley & Schneiderman (1999) propose the engaged learning method where all levels of engagement are included. In this way, the young people have an active role in the process of being motivated for creating, problem-solving, reasoning, decision-making, and evaluating the project.
The participatory project cycle
The work cycle with the stakeholders must be through participatory techniques, in a transversal way, and following the three steps for stakeholder engagement defined above. For this reason, all work cycles should be in a safe space and using tools for building trust and aligning motivations.
The steps proposed in this work cycle are:
- Idea generation and validation: it includes a previous step of researching and the tasks of defining problems, possible solutions based on models and previous case studies, goals, timing, etc.
- Design: it includes the tasks of designing a first mock-up through collaborative tools defining every useful detail.
- Development: it includes the process of creating content for the resource and developing the digital material according to the goals and timing established previously.
- Testing: it includes the tasks of designing, setting, and evaluating a participatory process to test with the target group the effectiveness of the resource according to the goals of the resource.
- Redevelopment and launch: it includes the tasks of evaluating how the goals have been accomplished in the testing session and define the improvements. After that, the redevelopment will be done and the resource will be launched.
- Final impact evaluation: it includes the step of evaluating how the target group is satisfied with the final resource and how they are engaged with the materials.
Through all the process three steps flow continously: research, participatory design, and impact evaluation. They are used to keep high innovation and quality standards.
For developing a powerful and participatory work cycle, the tools must engage the participants, inviting them to participate and share their opinions in an inclusive way.
Some of the tools that can be used are: an empathy map from the Europeana Impact Playbook for highlighting the problems using a blank board, brainstorming in focus groups, mind mapping, creating personas as an archetypal character of users, using cards, etc.
Some European projects like the User Participation Project or We Live project have developed planning and methodologies and they have compiled tools ready-to-use for developing projects in a participatory way. Also, you can check in Wotify for free a large number of tools and strategies developed by Platoniq for developing participatory processes and the stakeholder's workflows.
Bibliography
- Kearsley, G. and Shneiderman, B. (1998): Engagement theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Educational Technology, 38(5): 20–23.
- Kennisnet (2019): How available and usable is digital heritage for education? Initial Findings. Zoetermeer: Kennisnet.
- Schoonover, H. A., A. Grêt-Regamey, M. J. Metzger, A. Ruiz-Frau, M. Santos-Reis, S. S. K. Scholte, A. Walz, and K. A. Nicholas. (2019): Creating space, aligning motivations, and building trust: a practical framework for stakeholder engagement based on experience in 12 ecosystem services case studies. Ecology and Society 24(1):11.
- Skinner, E.A., Kindermann, T.A., & Furrer, C.J. (2009): A motivational perspective on engagement and disaffection: conceptualization and assessment of children’s behavioral and emotional participation in academic activities in the classroom. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 69: 493–525
- Trowler, V. (2010). Student Engagement Literature Review. The Higher Education Academy.
- Wang, Z., Bergin, C., & Bergin, D.A. (2014). Measuring engagement in fourth to twelfth-grade classrooms: The classroom engagement inventory. School Psychology Quarterly, 29(4): 517–535.
