Expanding Interaction Geography in Museum Studies with Dr. Ben Rydal Shapiro (Georgia State University)

On Friday, February 18, 2022, the Learning Informatics Lab and Science Museum of Minnesota hosted GSU professor Dr. Ben Rydal Shapiro. This talk demonstrates new methods to transcribe and dynamically visualize people’s interaction as they move over space and time that comprise an approach called interaction geography, focusing on the value of interaction geography for museum studies. Specifically, Shapiro traces his collaborative development of interaction geography with one museum and reviews recent efforts to scale open-source tools from this work to support collaborative research and design in other museums, as well as other settings, such as schools. The talk concludes by highlighting how this work raises new questions about learning and the ethical use of data that span multiple fields including museum studies, learning sciences, and learning analytics.