Cold and Frostbitten

Hello everyone!
It's really nice to read everyones updates and see you all in class again. I personally have been having a lot of fun researching the various topics covered in my thesis. Additionally having fun using Professor Brown as a test subject to introduce terminology and history of Heavy Metal to. (I'll admit that has been extremely fun having one advisor versed in Metal and the other learning the genre as we go along.)
Looking forward to seeing how all of your papers come along over the course of the semester. :)

Back to School

I was a little nervous about how I was progressing in the semester until I saw everyone else worrying about how it's only week 3 and they already feel like they're behind! Though by this point you think I would be used to it. The writing has been okay, I'm working through it, though it will definitely be a little disjointed right now until I get a better idea of how I would actually like to structure my research content. Right now I am working on my introduction section and a section on religion and the Erie Canal. This weekend I am hoping to read "Low Bridge: Folklore and the Erie Canal" by Lionel D. Wyld, depending on the progress of that I will also pick up "The Psychic Highway: How the Erie Canal Changed America" by Michel T. Keene. Both get into some of the more general history of the canal. I'm not sure if I'll read all of Low Bridge, as the first few chapters are more relevant for my studies than the second half of the book. The Psychic Highway looks at a lot of the social impacts I am interested in.

Museum Thesis Update

Since the beginning of this semester, I’ve run into nothing but problems with my thesis project. Before winter break, I emailed my two advisors my thesis proposal to inspect and suggest changes. I was able to keep in contact with my secondary advisor and receive notes to improve my thesis proposal. However, I could not get in contact with my primary thesis advisor. Even now, when I am trying to set up meetings with my primary advisor to help steer my thesis paper in the right direction, still receive no response. It’s frustrating with this lack of communication but I'm planning to keep writing and hopefully get some feedback soon.   

    Over winter break, I conducted one survey in person with Buffalo Bills fans. It was the Bills’ last game of the year, most people were not interested in completing a short survey. Then I decided to create an online version of my survey through survey monkey. I posted my survey to my personal Facebook account and then proceeded to post it on three Facebook fan group pages: Bills Mafia, Sabres Mafia, and Bandits Mafia. So far I have 60 responses, I was hoping to have more. Should I repost the survey in each group? Would it be annoying? 

Stay Warm, 

Ally

Blog Post 2-1

So how does the writing process feel? Not... the best, but one step at a time, I suppose. My thesis remains to determine how augmented reality can boost visitor engagement. Either a win state or a loss state, and the loss state can consist of either a decreased engagement for whatever reason, or no increased engagement (a loss state since all that effort and for what?). Visitor engagement is another murky description, I personally narrow it down to a combination of attendance, retention, and what one was able to intellectually gain from the exhibition. So definitions are a good start. Next, a case study for an exhibition had in Taiwan that went very much into augmented reality, it's an excellent study that considers quite a few things, to say the least. But while this one was successful and fairly unique in its own aspect, you have to look at the opposite side of the spectrum, see examples that unfortunately did not pan out, and see how one was able to triumph while the other did, what steps, etc. It's... challenging, but this is only a draft of 8 pages, a lot of time is ahead.

Back in the Saddle

As we approach the end of week 3 I cannot believe how fast this semester is moving. At the same time it is good to get into the process of writing the main portion of my thesis. I have been doing work on the project since the end of last semester but I decided to focus in on the artifact selection process. Having done the research on the best practices for selecting artifacts, I figured it was time to get going on the process. As I went I took pretty copious notes on my thought process for selection and these notes will form the basis of the next piece of my thesis. I will also introduce the topic of K-12 standards and explain how I have been using those to guide my selection process. The K-12 standards have been very helpful as they have helped me in trying to craft a narrative for the exhibit. Overall I am feeling very confident heading into the rest of the semester and cannot wait to move on to the rest of this project.

Figuring out which path to take

After a stressful and hectic end to last semester I was excited to see where my research would take me. At the end of last semester I had proposed looking at 3 different case studies to develop recommendations for best practices when handling controversy, specifically through the use of programming. Though I am still looking at developing recommendations for programming when museums face controversy I am focusing solely on Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. Hide/Seek was a landmark exhibition for the LGBTQ+ community which opened at the National Portrait Gallery in October 2010. A month after it opened the exhibition received backlash for its inclusion of A Fire In My Belly, a film by David Wojnarowicz. The controversy became much larger following the National Portrait Gallery's decision to remove the piece from the show. I won't go in to too much detail as that is what my thesis is for.

Over the break I was lucky enough to be able to look through some of the Smithsonian's press clippings related to the controversy. This research allowed me to delve deeper in to the controversy, where I found that when the show traveled to the Brooklyn Museum the following fall (2011) there was a plethora of programming done to foster a dialogue with the community. This little nugget of information is now expected to grow in to a much larger section of my thesis which will discuss the methods and topics used to develop the programming for the Brooklyn exhibition. As of right now, I am hoping to some how get in touch with someone from the Brooklyn Museum who can provide me with some more insight on the effectiveness of the programming used for the exhibition. I am still working on developing all of the key points and my argument but I feel much more confident and excited going in to the second half of thesis. I no longer look at my research and freeze up, which is probably a good sign.

Thesis Part 2

As we come back from Winter Break and pick back up with our theses, I'm getting back into the hang of working on my project as well as writing.  Project-wise, I've been able to get my scan to a point where I can do a test print, which I'm hopefully going to start tomorrow (weather pending).  I've also created a Visitor Study questionnaire that needs a little bit more work, but is mostly ready to go.  So in terms of my project, I'm feeling good about where I'm at and where I'm going from here.
Writing-wise, I feel a little stuck.  I'm having trouble just getting myself to start, and so far I hate everything I've written.  I know it'll be okay and this is just a draft, but I'm having some problems pushing through that to write my 8 pages for Thursday. Once I start really getting into things I think it'll be okay, but for now I just have to get myself motivated and really get into it!

Where to begin....

Let's start at the very beginning... a very good place to start....
Doe, a deer....
Wait, sorry, this isn't The Sound of Music!
If I could give anyone about to write their thesis any advice, it would be not to start at the beginning.
Sitting in front of a blank screen trying to come up with the perfect thesis statement and introduction is horrible! Instead, I ended up starting writing one of the subject areas that I knew I could write about and then the introduction started to write itself (more or less). I still don't have "the perfect thesis statement", but I feel a lot more confident about the main content of my writing.
I realize that I'm going to have a lot more than the 20-40 pages that our guidelines suggest, but that's okay. I'll get through it one page at a time.
Now that the writing process has started I feel a little more relaxed than I did before I started, when it was looming over my head. And now that I worked out the issues I had with getting logged back in to this blog, I may finally be able to get some sleep tonight.
Next step is to finally get the thesis advisory board meeting to actually happen..... but that's another story for another blog post.

Spring Semester Begins

I can't believe we're already approaching week 3! With school back in full swing, I've been doing a lot of research on the preservation of the Scottish Gaelic language and trying to uncover case studies in which cultural institutions in Scotland contribute to the language's preservation and revitalization. As I've mentioned, I decided to focus on Scottish Gaelic for my research, rather than doing all three (Scottish Gaelic, Irish, and Welsh). The reasoning behind this is to focus my research and delve in deep without overwhelming myself, especially given the thesis deadlines and how fast the semester will go by. I spent my winter break gathering preliminary sources on Scottish Gaelic, and now I'm working on reading through them and refining my searches.

As I look ahead, I believe my challenge will be trying to define success in order to propose suggestions for how museums can preserve and revitalize endangered languages. Because this seems to be a relatively new area of study (the intersection of cultural institutions and endangered languages), the possibilities are exciting, but it also makes it difficult to evaluate shortcomings and successes. For example, there are language policies that have been enacted within the past couple years. But, if success were to be hypothetically based on number of speakers, you'd have to wait for the next generation to grow up to see if they're passing on the language to their children and compare that to the number of speakers before the language policies were put in place. Or, I could base success on something more in the moment, like visitor engagement in cultural institutions with bilingual signage, for example.

I'm keeping all of this in the back of my mind as I research. I'm hoping that the more I read and find case studies the clearer this will become. I am also considering reaching out to museums to inquire about more information on Scottish Gaelic from their viewpoints of actually interacting with the public in Scotland.

Back at it again...

Having a break from classes and being able to focus on my thesis and self-care exclusively was refreshing! And, thankfully, I was able to be productive!

Peter Laurin, the app developer I’m collaborating with, was able to finish the main interface for the app over break which is very exciting! I also was able to revise my literature review, flesh out my content outline, and take some time for myself to just relax before I dive back in. I’m excited to get back to work in earnest and get started on the next stage of writing my thesis.

In the next week or so, I would like to create a more in-depth outline and plan out the specifics of each section of my thesis, nail down dates for user testing, and create my user testing evaluation form. With the motivation of various deadlines, I’m sure I’ll be able to get everything done. At this point, I’m feeling very confident with the direction my thesis is taking. The project aspect is nearly complete and I feel like I have a good plan of attack for writing the thesis. It’s pretty freeing when I think about it. I also haven’t started writing in earnest yet… but we are are going to keep out heads up! As I always say: I’m smart, I’m confident, and I can do this!!

I can’t wait to see how my thesis, and my classmates theses, develop over the semester. Good luck!