Course Objectives
One
problem continues to confound postmodernism and the zoo and aquarium industry. Animals, no matter how much conscious
consideration is given to them, cannot add their voice to the
conversation. They are truly mute,
defined by humans on every level.
Museums share a link to animal parks as cultural institutions, but have
been able in the postmodern era to add multiple voices to their
presentation. Now, in considering the placement
of Inuit exhibits in the
My purpose in proposing a new course to be added to the AZA Schools is to increase the technological savvy of zoo and aquarium staffers, to build confidence, and to demonstrate that conservation-minded people can also think and act in the interest of the visitor. These practical benefits will hopefully be outshined by the long-term changes in the attendees—creating a postmodern employee who is able to function on multiple levels and read from many perspectives. This is what underlies the coursework—forcing students out of their “norm.” This varies, dependent on which zoo area they currently work in, but in general, all staffers seek to “outthink” the visitor without truly putting themselves in the position of a tourist/visitor. It is critical that despite many zookeepers’ hesitations regarding technology and the internet, they jump in and begin to understand how the accumulation of fast-moving TV, video and computer media impact the visitor. Once they understand that a visitor is not just a local person with an afternoon to fill, they can begin to understand the digital visitor. These tech-savvy visitors have seen photographs and text from any number of regional or national/international institutions. Therefore competition for “live” visitors is not limited to the neighborhood or region, but is virtually global (pardon the pun).
Digital readers are often hyper-readers, scanning quickly through numerous resources, and linking from place to place instead of systematically absorbing information. Few zoos can afford to have permanent full-time webmasters on staff (though this is changing), and in order to put a cork in the dam, institutions uploaded forms and articles already in existence. However, according to James Sosnoski, this practice is doomed to dissatisfy a hyper-reader, who “[wants] to invent and /or map relations among bits of information to suit their own needs” (Sosnoski 163). The same applies to on-site graphics. While exhibit signs and descriptions have a higher degree of color, white space, and images, they remain constructed in traditional paragraphs. One group of zoo visitors has always been “hyper”: parents. Children’s attention span is so short that parents must skim and select small bites of information to relay to their pre-reading age children, and cannot possibly hope to learn anything themselves in a zoo setting because their children are off to the next exhibit in 10 seconds or less. This is one of many problems in presentation of information the class will be asked to address.
The class begins by explaining the idea of a visitor/tourist with some theoretical readings from the tourism field. These readings are practical and grounded text, which will be accessible to attendees who are not advanced in digital literacy. However, by the second day (Day 3 on syllabus) students will be jumping onto the web and searching for their home institution. Most staffers assume that because they know the zoo mission, and the exhibits, they also know what the zoo’s public image entails. I want to use the home institution first to highlight the conflict between “known” and “imagined” in web sites. Each zoo employee is an expert on their home institution, but will find that what they know of their zoo is not necessarily how the public is supposed to imagine it. Specifically, most exhibits are promoted with images of active animals in lush habitats; these images often don’t originate in the zoo but are stock images of the species represented. This will be shocking to many front-line staffers, and puts them in the position of a visitor—equally shocked to see that what is delivered is not all that was imagined. Through this surprise, staffers will be pushed into a position of wondering—what else? What else is different? What are visitors seeing on the web, thus expecting in our parks, that we aren’t delivering? Once we position the student here they are able to achieve two course objectives: first, critically examining the current state of an exhibit, publication, or web site; and second, moving out of their comfort zone and experiencing the space from a naïve, non-expert approach.
Students will be asked to re-approach their home institution’s web page from a critical stance, thinking from the position of the 21st century visitor. Using their new information about hyper-readers and digital literacy, they will consider the questions above and think about what exists, and what an institution could do to improve. We will ask them to work from a grid of questions: What’s here? What’s not here? What should be here? These inquiries intersect with: Why? What is the institution’s motivation for including or excluding this piece of information? What is the institution’s goal in talking about exhibits in this way? One of the tenets of any animal routine practice is that you don’t know it if you can’t translate it or train someone else to do it. Following this logic, the class will do small group discussion first, comparing their home pages with others and sharing ideas. So that they continue to connect “familiar” literacies with what they are learning, students will choose between embedding comments in a copied web page, or writing a traditional summary. Students will get practice in maneuvering around the web, a skill that is necessary both in life and at work. We hope they will also gain an appreciation of critique; the ability to dig into a set of ‘facts’ and consider what the truths are and what truths might be hidden, and why. While most zoos have a public face they must maintain to garner public support, a critical stance opens the door, especially for animal staff, to appreciate why the zoo makes the choices it does, and thereby make productive recommendations for change.
Day Four puts the idea of the embodied visitor to the test, as students prepare for a field trip to the National Zoo. Working from the assumption that the class will not be filled with National Zoo staff, we can use the opportunity to send our students into a zoo they have no experience with to further re-position them in the role of visitor. In the morning, students will be assigned to view one area of National’s web page, specifically an area they have never worked in. Mammal staff will look at Birds or Education; administrative staff will read about the Asia Trail exhibit. They will write up their expectations of the Zoo, from the basics of hours and admission fees to specific animal and exhibit information. This models the process by which a visitor might create expectations of their visit from the web site. Students will write up a brief set of notes on their forecast visit, then head to National Zoo. Once the class arrives on grounds, each person will go to their assigned area and “visit” it, testing their assumptions against the reality. Our goal here is to force them to read graphics, look at animals, and reveal expectations just as a naïve visitor does.
The zoo visit will also push participants to look for hyper-reading on grounds. If the next generation of zoo visitors will scan for information, graphics and marketing staffers must understand what that means and how to address the needs of the 21st century zoo visitor. Looking at graphics from the perspective of reader, not designer, will expose places where changes can address visitor needs. This is the practical skill gained. But viewing the animals and signage as a visitor gives the participant experience thinking outside their traditional role, and a great deal of time to consider how what zoos present today meets the needs of a digital society. Zoos constantly require “team player” attitudes from staffers; being able to imagine oneself as a multitude of readers with differing needs and history will serve staffers for their entire career in the animal field.
The final full day of coursework merges all these new types of knowledge. We begin with assembling data and observations in an online environment, something that will be new for many institution employees. Students will practice manipulating their information and sharing it in a variety of electronic formats so they are able to “do” digital work even if there are IT specialists or webmasters in their home institution. These key skills will build something more important—confidence. Because the zoo community is behind the curve on technology, many employees are anxious about acquiring digital skills. By the same token, most staff members who have front-line contact with the public have little, or highly moderated, contact with high-level administrators. These newly obtained digital skills, combined with a new interest in multiple perspectives (including the administrators’) will enable staff to cross the current barriers held in place by access issues, creating a more equitable environment that can only improve the visitor experience down the road.
The final skill set based in practicality we cover is the ability to synthesize, present, discuss, and contribute to a larger collection of information. The anxiety connected to public presentation is nearly as high as fear of technology for most institution employees. Each participant will be required, as their final project, to give a presentation to the class, imagining themselves not as presenters to their peers but petitioning their supervisors, institution administrators, and Board of Directors. Students will organize this presentation, translating what they have learned in order to teach it to others by selecting, from among all types of literacies used during the week, those that work best for them. The only constraint on the work is that it must be a proposal for new approaches to the visitor experience at their institution. Students in the audience will practice active listening skills, selecting pieces of data they can use for their own situation and providing intelligent feedback to the presenter. While presentations will be assessed in traditional grade form in order to complete the course, the larger purpose is to conquer anxiety and open the floor for students to exchange ideas.
This communication-barrier breakdown is the final practical take-home outcome of the Technology & Tourism course. The animal field historically has embedded certain practices that limit access to technology, and as the world has become digital, communication within and among institutions has suffered. Many of these practices are in place by necessity (you cannot bleach and hose feces off a computer keyboard), but these accidentally classist structures can be overcome by informed and motivated staff members. In this overcoming is the one opportunity for zoos and aquariums to move ahead of the world curve on electronic communication. In Sosnoski’s list of hyper-reading activities or types, he lists “de-authorization”(170). Holly’s contribution to the MySpace blog about this speaks volumes:
Sosnoski says that "every link to another person's page is an implicit act of de-authorization. As hyper-readers read these linked pages, they cannot keep in their minds who authored which pages" (170)…Although it never occurred to me before, I do see how that can become a problem. But how do we get around it? If people provide a link to another website or give attribution for a particular fact or idea (and plenty don't do it), they're doing the best they can to give credit where credit is due. Is appears to me as though de-authorization is an unavoidable side-effect of reading online.(Holly Vargo, MySpace post 18 Mar 2007)
This de-authorization is a skill that can be emphasized by the open sharing of information, and the opening of communication channels within and between institutions. One thing most employees lack is excessive pride in their written work. This is predominantly because animal caretakers share a different trait: the ability to get behind the cause and sacrifice almost everything that stands in the way of making the animals’ lives better. So if it makes sense to share something to help another zoo’s okapi or chimpanzees, then the info will be shared. As staffers move to share information across digital channels, it will be very easy for them to keep lines open and not worry about who wrote what, when, for credit. The online universe of zoos and aquariums could become one of the most equitable spaces for authorship. Current use of listservs by animal keepers and zoo administrators backs this up, and offers a check-and-balance system that prevents false or abusive information from reaching the community. By leading students in the Technology and Tourism course through the process of creating and sharing data with minimal fanfare, we can avoid the pitfalls of envy that sometimes envelop other occupations.
As a parting thought, Selber’s explanations of technology, particularly technological determinism, came to mind as I constructed this course and objectives summary. In “Multiliteracies for a Digital Age,” Selber explains the computer-as-tool metaphor, but breaks it down and posits the idea that technology actually controls and orders human activity; we cannot move forward faster than technology would let us (40-1). Therefore, what technologies we have, and use, determine our abilities. This could easily apply, and should apply, to endangered species conservation. In a large-scale approach, animals and habitats cannot be saved faster than human action will allow. But more important, and specific to captive animal caretakers, is the idea that people will only learn a conservation ethic at the rate technology gives it to them. We must push our use of technology for conservation to countermand the use of technology for destruction of natural areas. People will learn at the rate we push them to; now is the time to shove…hard.