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Gene,

I’ve been following this discussion with great interest.

We are storytellers, so hopefully we are given a good story to make into a great story.

Selecting the influential exhibit is difficult when our box of tools keeps expanding.  We know the V&A got some thing right in the mid nineteenth century, and probably a lot of things... not so right. 

OK, yes I am constantly trying to steal ideas, but since I believe, exhibits are influenced by the time and place in which they are created, I’m not sure if I could answer your student’s original question. What is important is that we do not rely on the old tools with which we are comfortable, or are overly fascinated by the shiny new ones.

So Gene, if you are wondering... Ohio Rocks, over twenty years latter,  would now be developed movement recognition and the visitor would dance to the music.

Dave Watkins
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On Jan 13, 2011, at 8:45 PM, Chuck Howarth wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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> 
> Seems to me that there is an apples and oranges problem here.  The exhibits Marjorie Schwarzer lists — the MSI coal mine, Holocaust Museum, etc. — are complex assemblages of may components.  So for example the Holocaust Museum itself includes advanced technologies as one tool for telling the story.  There is no way to compare that type of exhibit to a single component such as computers or video projectors.  Those are sub-components that allow us all to be better story tellers, but they are not exhibits by themselves.  So maybe that is the answer to your student's question:  the term "technology-based exhibit" has no real meaning.  The great majority of exhibits today incorporate technology as a tool.  
> 
>> During the discussion afterward, one student asked if there were any technology-based exhibits that were also considered influential.  I thought of Science on a Sphere, which is popping up in several science centers, and the AMNH biodiversity hall which has a computerized ID system that has received a lot of attention.  But for the most part, no, and I came up with three reasons:
>> 
> 
> Chuck Howarth, Vice President
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