The Wireless Workshop
Titus Bicknell, Antenna Audio, United Kingdom
Nancy Proctor, Antenna Audio, United Kingdom
http://www.antennaaudio.com

Workshop: Wireless

This half-day workshop provides a practical introduction to wireless technologies for both visitor and administrative services in museums. It is intended for curators, educators, access officers, technical staff, and business development and marketing personnel.

Through hands-on activities and planning sessions, participants have the chance to undertake in experimental form the main technical, creative, and business aspects of building a successful and sustainable wireless solution for a museum. Participants then get to hone and apply their newly acquired wireless skills in "? where they can brainstorm their own particular needs and plans with industry experts and their peers.

The workshop is planned to cover approximately 3.5 hours, and is broken down as follows:

1. The workshop begins with an overview of seminal research and development projects using wireless installations in museums to date, and an assessment of the "state of the art" for the deployment of wireless technologies in museums for both visitor and staff use. Participants will be asked to contribute their experiences, aspirations and concerns regarding this new technology in museums. (30 minutes)
2. Participants are next invited to join smaller project groups to devise a wireless solution for an imaginary museum that includes outdoor and indoor exhibitions, and provides both an interactive tour for visitors and back-office services for museum staff. Led by experts in each field, the project groups will tackle each of the main aspects of the wireless solution, so participants can focus on the aspect of the full solution that is of greatest interest to them (1 hour):
   • Education & Interpretation: content and user experience design, access and educational programs, integration with other educational and interpretive resources at the museum and on the web
   • Technical: software and applications, network design (indoors and outdoors), security, integration with other museum IT services
   • Business and Marketing: funding, sponsorship, internal and external marketing, generating revenues and other benefits from the wireless installation
3. After a short break, the smaller groups then come back together to present their collective vision for the full wireless solution. (40 min + 20 min break)
4. The final hour is reserved for "clinics", in which participants can get expert technical advice and brainstorm solutions for their museums' particular needs with others in the field. The aim of the clinics is for participants to leave confident in what their next steps will be what resources they will need and where they will find these, in order to realise their own wireless solutions. (1 hour)