Interactivity 2009: Declare Your Impact!

Post by Valerie Oguss, Education Director at Kidspace Children's Museum

On April 27-30, I had the distinct pleasure of attending the Association of Children’s Museum’s (ACM) Interactivity Conference for 2009 in Philadelphia with my esteemed colleague, MaryAnn Earp (Kidspace's director of business operations.) This year’s Interactivity theme was “Declare Your Impact!” For three information-packed days, we attended sessions on strengthening museum/school relationships, workshops on developing unique membership incentives and lively seminars on the value of play.

On behalf of Kidspace, I had the opportunity to represent Kidspace at the Promising Practice Award Showcase which celebrated the 2008 recipients of the MetLife Foundation and ACM’s Promising Practice Award. Kidspace Children’s Museum was among the proud recipients of the coveted award last year for our promotion of outdoor play. I presented a PowerPoint highlighting our accomplishments to a crowd of enthusiastic museum professionals.

MaryAnn and I also made sure we took some time out to play. After all, we are in the business of playing! We attended a fabulous party hosted at the newly re-opened Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall. The new children’s museum offers 38,000 square feet of brand-new exhibits and a restored century-old Woodside Park Dentzel Carousel. MaryAnn and I also had the opportunity to visit the Franklin Museum as well as the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And in the midst of attending conference sessions and taking in the local sites, we managed to indulge in the delicious eats that Philadelphia has to offer including the famous Pat’s King of Steaks. Come to think of it…I’m craving a “whizwit” right now!

Learn more about the impact of children's museums in America.