Post on 06-May-2015
transcript
An Evaluation of MyArtSpace: a Mobile Learning Service for School
Museum TripsMike Sharples
LSRI, University of NottinghamPeter Lonsdale
LSRI, University of NottinghamJulia Meek
LifecyclePaul Rudman
Department of Computing, Oxford Brookes UniversityGiasemi Vavoula
Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester
School Museum Visits
• Should guide students towards development and contrasting of their own ideas (Guisasola et al., 2005) – But how to guide students while allowing them to engage
with authentic artefacts and discover their own responses to the exhibits?
• Should connect with learning in the classroom (Guisasola et al., 2005) – But how to recall and continue the rich experience of the
museum visit back in the classroom?
MyArtSpace• Service on mobile phones for
enquiry-led museum learning• Learning through structured
enquiry, exploration, connection• Students create their own
interpretation of a museum visit which they explore back in the classroom
MyArtSpace
• Combines – physical space (museum, classroom)– virtual space (online store and gallery) – personal space (mobile phones)
• Museum test sites – Urbis (Manchester)– The D-Day Museum (Portsmouth)– The Study Gallery of Modern Art (Poole)
• About 3000 children during 2006
How it works• In class before the visit, the teacher sets an inquiry topic• At the museum, children are loaned multimedia phones• Exhibits in the museum have 2-letter codes printed by them• Children can use the phone to
– Type the code to ‘collect’ an object and see a presentation about it– Record sounds– Take photos– Make notes– See who else has ‘collected’ the object
• All the information collected or created is sent automatically to a personal website showing a list of the items
• The website provides a record of the child’s interpretation of the visit
• In class after the visit, the children share the collected and recorded items and make them into presentations
Lifecycle evaluation
• Micro level: Usability issues – technology usability– individual and group activities
• Meso level: Educational Issues– learning experience as a whole– classroom-museum-home continuity – critical incidents: learning breakthroughs and
breakdowns • Macro level: Organisational Issues
– effect on the educational practice for school museum visits
– emergence of new practices – take-up and sustainability
EvaluationAt each level
• Step 1 – what was supposed to happen – pre-interviews with stakeholders (teachers, students,
museum educators), – documents provided to support the visits
• Step 2 – what actually happened– observer logs– post-focus groups– analysis of video diaries
• Step 3 – differences between 1 & 2– reflective interviews with stakeholders – critical incident analysis
Summary of results• The technology worked
– Photos, information on exhibits, notes, automatic sending to website
• Minor usability problems• Students liked the ‘cool’ technology • Students enjoyed the experience more than
their previous museum visit• The students indicated that the phones made
the visit more interactive• Teachers were pleased that students
engaged with the inquiry learning task
Usability Issues+ Appropriate form factor
+ Device is a mobile phone, not a typical handheld museum guide
+ Collecting and creating items was an easy and natural process
– Mobile phone connection– Text annotations– Integration of website with commercial software,
e.g. PowerPoint
Educational Issues+ Supports curriculum topics in literacy and media studies + Encourages meaningful and enjoyable pre- and post-visit
lessons + Encourages children to make active choices in what is
normally a passive experience– Teacher preparation
– Need for teacher to understand the experience and run an appropriate pre-visit lesson
– Where to impose constraints– Structure and restrict the collecting activity, or learn from
organising the material back in the classroom – Support for collaborative learning
– “X has also collected” wasn’t successful
Organistional issues+ Museum appeal
+ attracting secondary schools to the museum
+ Student engagement+ Students spent longer on a MAS visit (90 mins compared to 20
mins)
+ Museum accessibility+ Ability to engage with museum content after the visit
– Problems of museum staff engagement– Burden on museum staff
– Business model– Maintenance of phones– Data charges– Competition with other museum media
Future• Multimedia
company The SEA has developed a commercial service, OOKL
• Deployed at Kew Gardens, London
Partners
• Department of Culture, Media and Sport
• The SEA – software development
• University of Birmingham
• University of Nottingham
• Urbis,Manchester
• Study Gallery, Poole
• D-Day Museum, Portsmouth