Heather Marie Wells

Crystal Bridges knows that the majority of our guests come to the Museum with some kind of mobile device, and we are working hard to offer experiences to those that would like to use their own devices at the Museum. Although cell service has always been tricky in the building—remember while you are at the museum, you are in a ravine with three-foot-thick concrete walls—we continue to work with the major cell carriers to strengthen our signals, and have achieved some great improvements. However, depending on the carrier, some guests may still experience low signal strength. We would like to remind you that since opening, we have offered a free Wi-Fi network for our guests called “CBMAA Guest,” and there’s no password needed to join. Six things to consider when using your mobile device: 1. The new mobile version of our website can help you find directions to the Museum and plan your visit. There are even menus to help you decide what you want at Eleven for lunch or ...

Recently, Crystal Bridges received the Gold MUSE award for Audio Tours and Podcasts from the American Alliance of Museums’ Media & Technology committee for the audio/music tour of the temporary exhibition This Land: Picturing a Changing America in the 1930s and 1940s .  This is the highest award that a museum can receive for an audio tour.  MUSE awards honor outstanding achievement for digital media that enhances the experience and engages audiences. They celebrate scholarship, community, innovation, creativity, education, and inclusiveness.  Judges consider each project’s accessibility in terms of ADA, the overall production quality, the inventiveness, and the impact that the project makes to the museum field. The goal of Crystal Bridges’ winning audio tour was to illuminate guests’ exploration of the exhibition in a unique way. Thus we partnered with the Fayetteville Roots Festival to curate a collection of music to accompany  This Land . Each o...

The reason I was drawn to the use of technology in museums is that it has the power to make the museum more accessible.  Unfortunately a museum can’t be open 24 hours a day 7 days week, but through technology the art and museum programs can be. My duties at Crystal Bridges include managing the mobile app and producing all the audio tours that have been published through the app.  But I also managed the Museum’s presence in iTunes U . In case you are not familiar with iTunes U ,  it is the section of the iTunes store that is dedicated to educational content.  All the content providers in that area are educational non-profits and all the content provided must be free.  Providers include such organizations as Harvard, Yale, the Smithsonian Institution, and The Museum of Modern Art, as well as other Arkansas providers – Arkansas Department of Education, University of Arkansas, and the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History. On iTunes U the ...

I recently got to go to the Educators' Technology Conference . It was actually organized by teachers for teachers so some people wonder why I went. Well in my opinion it is important for museum professionals who are planning on using technology in their museum to know what technology is being used in schools so you know if what you are creating is compatible. It was very enlightening. It was fabulous, but not surprising, to learn that teachers are looking for educational content online for use in the classroom. Their looking for audio, video, worksheets, presentations, in short anything to aid them in teaching their students. The disappointing revaluation is that they often don't know where to look or they are blocked from going to the sites they know about. There was much discussion about the websites teachertube.com and schooltube.com , two fabulous sites dedicated to offering a place to find safe content for educational purposes. I was shocked to find out that many ...

One of the things I love the most about my job is the unexpected things I need to do for my job. Tomorrow my parents are coming to visit me because it's my birthday. While they are here I need to get my dad to teach me how to square dance and call so I can then teach our education staff for the camps that we are having this summer. How many people get to say, "yeah, I need to learn to square dance for my job"?