Using Twitter to Give Everyone a Voice

Museum education departments want to share the impact they are having on learners and the expertise of their staff. Twitter provides opportunity for collaboration, giving voice to learner and staff perspectives. How do you share learner impact in 140 characters or less? Join us as our panel showcases successes and challenges with documenting and tweeting the learning experience from our museums. We’ll highlight examples specific to audience, such as young learners who are non-verbal, teen learners who can create content, and teachers who can share connections they are making to our programs. Strategies will include connecting to hashtags and Twitter chats, and Twitter as a vehicle for extending the learning experience before and after the onsite experience. Emphasis will be on how tweets can demonstrate the impact of programs. In addition to our learners’ voice, we want to share the voice of our staff as well. We will explore how social media managers are actively cultivating a variety of perspectives and empowering other staff to share on Twitter, both using the organization’s channel and creating their own handles. We will include examples of the types of training being conducted to prepare staff to share on Twitter. If you are interested in fostering empowerment and the voice of your learners and staff through Twitter, you are not going to want to miss this forum to explore and contribute ideas to this growing social outlet. For examples of museum education channels, view this developing list: https://twitter.com/MirandaRHK/lists/museum-learning-channels/members Speakers Session Leader : Miranda Kerr, Manager of Digital Learning, Shedd Aquarium Co-Presenter : Sarah Elliott, Learning Content Producer, Royal Ontario Museum Co-Presenter : Cynthia Raso, Manager of Community Engagement, Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center Co-Presenter : Laura Hoffman, Manager of K–12 Digital and Educator Initiatives, The Phillips Collection MCN 2016 Presenting Sponsor: Piction New Orleans, LA