museumsandtheweb.com - learning

Beyond Cool: Making Mobile Augmented Reality Work for Museum Education

smannion — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 02:43:30 +0000

MW2012

Shelley Mannion, Samsung Digital Discovery Centre at The British Museum, United Kingdom

http://www.britishmuseum.org/samsungcentre

Abstract

In fall 2010, the British Museum’s education team embarked on a multi-year plan to explore the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) in our galleries. We have since run four AR projects for young people, each of which focused on a different aspect of the technology. Our first project focused on revealing content on markers; the second on creating alternative views on the collection; the third on location-based AR for navigation; and the fourth on exhibiting virtual art in the galleries. These projects have both challenged and surprised us. Technical problems like the instability of compasses for positioning and poor 3G reception have challenged us to find workable solutions. Working with different age groups in formal and informal education settings led to discoveries about AR’s ability to delight and engage young learners and to teach fine motor skills. Shoestring budgets forced us to be creative and resourceful in our approach to mobile app development. Here, we share our experiences and lessons learned in integrating AR into museum and gallery learning programs.

Program Item Reference:

Beyond Cool: Making Mobile Augmented Reality Work for Museum Education

Levelling Up: Towards Best Practice in Evaluating Museum Games

dannybirchall — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 21:41:49 +0000

MW2012

Danny Birchall and Martha Henson Wellcome Trust; Alexandra Burch and Daniel Evans, Science Museum, UK; Kate Haley Goldman, National Center for Interactive Learning at the Space Science Center, USA

Abstract

Museums make games because games can provide compelling educational engagement with museum themes and content, and the market for games is enormous. Truly understanding whether games are achieving your goals requires evaluation. In this paper, we identify the kind of games that museums make and use case studies of our own casual games to look at the benefits and means of evaluation. Beginning by identifying different kinds of evaluation within the broad framework of formative and summative practices, we suggest ways to plan an evaluation strategy and set objectives for your game. We then look in detail at evaluation methods: paper and wireframe testing, play-testing, soft launching, Google Analytics, surveys, and analysing responses “in the wild.” While we draw on our own experience for examples of best practice, we recognize that this is an area in which everyone has a lot to learn, and we conclude by suggesting some tactics for sharing knowledge across the museums’ sector.

Program Item Reference:

Levelling up: Towards best practice in evaluating museum games

Rules of Play: Design Elements of Addictive Online Learning Games

davidschaller — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:16:45 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

learning

Keywords:

design

Keywords:

interactivity

Keywords:

interpretation

Abstract:

Over the past decade, games have grown as both a commercial industry, as a field for scholarly research, and as a practical medium for teaching and learning. Inspired by a broad array of research emphasizing the effectiveness of problem-based, anchored instruction, developers have been creating games about subjects ranging from childhood obesity to electoral politics to personal finance. Even former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has embraced games as a way to teach civics to schoolchildren. Games have definitely come of age as tools for teaching and learning.

But we still need to understand how to make learning games fun. For that, we must learn about game design. Given the breadth and depth of this topic, this workshop focuses on a handful of game mechanics that help us move from the kinds of "game-like" interactives commonly found on museum Web sites into the realm of true games. With a firm understanding of these mechanics, we can design online games that incorporate our content and create compelling, even addicting learning experiences for our audiences.

This workshop focuses on a handful of game mechanics that help us move from the kinds of "game-like" interactives commonly found on museum Web sites into the realm of true games. With a firm understanding of these mechanics, we can design online games that incorporate our content and create compelling, even addicting learning experiences for our audiences.

Please note that this workshop will use paper prototyping methods to explore game elements and mechanics. Understanding these elements is essential to design an effective and engaging online games, so our focus will be on design principles, not on production aspects of online games.

Type:

Workshop - full or half day

Rules of Play: Design Elements of Addictive Online Learning Games

Site:

http://www.eduweb.com

Authors:

Dave Schaller

CANCELLED Blogging the past: Recreating history and creating community with Bound for South Australia 1836

dpeacock — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:57:30 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

Blogging the Past: Recreating History and Creating Community with Bound for South Australia

Keywords:

blog

Keywords:

history

Keywords:

learning

Keywords:

schools

Keywords:

curriculum

Keywords:

Wordpress

Abstract:

THIS SESSION HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND THE AUTHORS' CONTROL, BUT YOU CAN STILL READ THE PAPER.

Bound for South Australia 1836 (www.boundforsouthaustralia.net.au) is a digital reenactment of the sea voyages made 175 years ago to establish the British Province of South Australia. Using captains’ logs, passenger diaries, letters and other original source material, the Bound for South Australia blog retraces -through weekly real time updates- the journeys made by nine vessels from England to Australia between February and December 1836. Over ten months in 2011, website visitors, email subscribers and social media followers were able to re-live and engage with the unfolding story of the first 500 settlers as they made their way to an unknown land across the globe. The blog platform and associated social web technologies enabled active user participation and promoted the development of diverse communities of interest which in turn inspired an associated exhibition, schools program and public events. In 2012, a supporting video conference-based program will enable schools to participate remotely as part of their use of this resource.

The project has been very successful in bringing new life and new people to traditionally inaccessible historical material. Much of this material has not been published before or made accessible online. One of the goals of the project has been to demonstrate how social web technologies can bring new life and opportunities for engagement with traditional historical source materials. The multiple perspectives of the various passengers (recast here as posthumous bloggers) create a multi-faceted narrative of life on board and of the hopes and motivations of these first settlers, as they endure the travails of a months-long sea voyage, visit exotic ports of call and finally make landfall. Once ashore, these accounts provide unique insights into early encounters with Indigenous inhabitants and the challenges of establishing a European-style settlement in unfamiliar lands. The serialised delivery of these stories in a blogging format enables a narrative approach that is more contingent, open ended – and dramatic- than traditional discursive presentations of historical events.

Bound for South Australia is also explicitly addressed to both schools-based and general users, with parallel blog posts each week. The website has been selected as the first online resource in the area of history for the new national Australian curriculum. The granular structuring of content, the use of rich media and embedded curriculum links support many forms of flexible re-use within different digital learning environments.

The website is a highly customised implementation of the Wordpress blogging platform integrating a unique set of widgets to support complex semantic linking of source material to create an enduring resource for scholars and school students alike.

This presentation explores how this project demonstrates the possibilities of history to actively engage and connect communities using contemporary web technologies. It considers blogging as a narrative form and how the retelling of historical events can create and sustain communities of interest and identity. It also examines the dynamics of online communities around historical source material. The project and the presentation point to future models of digital historical narrative and interpretive practice that are open, social and interactive.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations I

Site:

http://www.boundforsouthaustralia.net.au

Authors:

Darren Peacock

Margaret Anderson

Allison Russell

Understanding the Distributed Museum: Mapping the Spaces of Museology in Contemporary Culture

ssbautista — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 18:58:41 +0000

MW2011

Susana Bautista and Anne Balsamo, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Abstract

Where is the museum for the digital generation? We use the term ìthe distributed museumî to describe the form that the museum takes as it is part of the creation and movement among new spaces that comprise contemporary networked learning environments. No longer located in a particular physical space, the museum extends its presence through all sorts of virtual spaces on the Web as well as in the transient spaces created through the diverse practices and technologies of mobility. This paper offers an analytical framework to describe and map the museology of the distributed museum as it unfolds across conceptual divides between physical and the virtual, the fixed and the mobile, and closed and open.

Keywords: museum, distributed, digital age, participatory, learning

Program Item Reference:

Understanding the Distributed Museum: A Creative Visualization of Contemporary Digital Practices

A Ubiquitous Mobile Edutainment Application for Learning Science through Play

Isabelle Astic — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 17:26:49 +0000

MW2011

Isabelle Astic and Coline Aunis, Cnam/Musée des arts et métiers; Areti Damala and Eric Gressier-Soudan, Cnam/CEDRIC, France

Abstract

This paper advances the state of the art in games design of serious pervasive games. We analyze the game design of the two serious pervasive games built during the "PLUG, Play Ubiquitous Games and play more" project. We compare their desired objectives to the really completed ones. We then conclude with a section on what serious pervasive game design should be.

Keywords: pervasive games, serious games, game design, magic circle, flow theory, edutainment, learning

Program Item Reference:

An ubiquitous mobile edutainment application for learning science through play

Caboodle by Culture24: How to engage children with your collection online in a new way (and how they can engage you in theirs!)

biblio — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 22:34:40 +0000

Finnis, J., & Kennedy A. (2010). Caboodle by Culture24: How to engage children with your collection online in a new way (and how they can engage you in theirs!). (Trant, Jennifer, David Bearman, Ed.).Museums and the Web 2010. Proceedings.

From Knowledge to Narrative – to Systems? At the junction of game design and museum education

davidschaller — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:43:57 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

From Knowledge to Narrative – to Systems? Games, Rules and Meaning-making

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

education

Keywords:

education

Keywords:

design

Keywords:

learning

Keywords:

constructivism

Keywords:

narrative

Abstract:

Laura Robert's landmark book "From Knowledge to Narrative" (Roberts, 1997) analyzed a paradigm shift in museum exhibition in the late 20th century as educators moved museums from traditional methods of knowledge transmission to constructivist interpretive methods such as narrative. Today, museum educators wishing to adopt game-based learning methods face a similar challenge: to move from now-familiar narrative methods to a systems-based approach. Games are, at heart, a set of rules that define player choices and subsequent consequences. Applying a strong narrative to a game usually results in neither a good story nor a good game. Instead, we must learn to think like game and system designers, finding the rules intrinsic to our content.

In some ways, this shift from narrative to systems is less formidable than was the shift from knowledge transmission, since both narrative and systems are rooted in constructivism, the notion that learning is, as Hein (1998) says, “is not a simple addition of items into some sort of mental data bank but a transformation of schemas in which the learner plays an active role and which involves making sense out of a range of phenomena.” Games, one could argue, are even more constructivist than narratives, since the player's role is by definition active, evaluating various phenomena to inform successful tactics to win the game.

Nevertheless, this shift from narrative to systems is often difficult for museum educators, particularly art and history educators schooled in the humanities rather than science. Exhibits and education materials generally explore the idiosyncrancies of a given topic, whether they be the expressive and interpretive aspects of an artwork or the narrative arc of an historical event. The meaning to be made from this approach is powerful, often pulling us back in even when we struggle toward a systems approach. For example, inspired by game designer Sid Meier's fabled definition of a good game as "a series of interesting choices," we might use a "choose your own adventure" branching story design. This approach appears to serve both the idiosyncratic arc of an historical narrative while providing the meaningful choices so central to a game. In practice, though, this approach serves both the history and the gameplay poorly, as it forces players into increasingly less-meaningful choices simply to keep the number of story branches manageable.

Instead, we must adopt a true rules-based design, digging into our content to find even a few rules inherent in the subject matter that can then define the gameplay. This paper will explore this challenge, drawing on both game design theory (core dynamics, rules, actions, skills, chance) and published commercial and non-profit games to show how the heterogeneous realworld content of museums can indeed be turned into exciting and meaningful learning games.

References:

Hein, G. (1998). Learning in the Museum. London: Routledge.
Roberts, L. (1997). From Knowledge to Narrative. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Games

Authors:

Dave Schaller

Understanding the Distributed Museum: A Creative Visualization of Contemporary Digital Practices

ssbautista — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:47:49 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

Understanding the Distributed Museum: Mapping the Spaces of Museology in Contemporary Culture

Keywords:

museums

Keywords:

digital technology

Keywords:

learning

Keywords:

network

Keywords:

distributed

Keywords:

model

Abstract:

Where is the museum for the digital generation? Our presentation will suggest a way of visualizing the practices that make up the identity of the distributed museum. We will report on research that examined the ways in which public museums and libraries in the United States offer informal-learning opportunities to the born-digital generation, often as part of a creative network ecology that includes formal learning programs and institutions. Rather than present a list of “best practices,” we will outline an analytical framework that examines a range of new practices that transcend a number of binaries used to define contemporary digital culture: i.e., the virtual versus the physical, fixed versus mobile, open versus closed systems of creative offerings.

We use the term “the distributed museum” to describe the form that the museum takes as it is part of the creation and movement among new spaces that comprise contemporary networked learning environments. We know that museums and libraries are important nodes within these networked learning ecologies. We also know that the museum is no longer considered to be located only in a particular physical space, but due to the development of new practices and services it now extends its presence through all sorts of virtual spaces on the WWW as well as in the transient spaces created through the diverse practices and technologies of mobility.

The distributed museum exists “over” the conceptual divides between physical and the virtual, the fixed and the mobile. Moreover we consider a third axis of museum offerings that are situated on the continuum of “making practices” and engagements with DIY (do-it-yourself) culture. Here we map a range of practices that include closed-ended, guided, making activities (interactives), as well as more open-ended exploratory ones (tinkering). The presentation will take the form of a digital visualization of the creative inventory of practices that comprise the distributed museum.

Reactions are invited.

Type:

Professional Forum - discuss an issue

Professional Forum on the Distributed Museum

Authors:

Susana Bautista

Anne Balsamo

Rules of Play: Design Elements of Addictive Online Learning Games

davidschaller — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 22:29:40 +0000

MW2011

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

learning

Keywords:

play

Keywords:

design

Keywords:

workshop

Abstract:

Please note that this workshop will use paper prototyping methods to explore game elements and mechanics. Understanding these elements is essential to design an effective and engaging online games, but our focus will be on design principles, not on production aspects of online games.

Syllabus

1. Introduction: Why all games are learning games

Discuss the cognitive theory behind games. Compare commercial and learning games, discuss the value of game genres.

2. What makes games fun?

Discuss the pleasures that games provide (fantasy, anticipation, possibility, challenge, discovery, surprise, etc.).

3. Game mechanics

Discuss six game mechanics: space, rules, objects, actions, skills, and chance.

Examine how rules create emergent gameplay. Compare real skills and virtual skills. Explore the ways that randomness makes players feel powerful instead of helpless. Compare these game mechanics with those in typical game-like museum interactives.

4. Design Exercise

Breaking into groups of 3-4, explore game mechanics by modifying a simple paper-based learning game. Regrouping, discuss the impact of simple changes and how they affect gameplay.

5. Meaningful choices

Explore techniques to provide meaningful choices and consequences without creating cumbersome branching storylines.

6. Design Exercise

Breaking into small groups, redesign a familiar game to make the choices more meaningful.

7. Beyond the game

Discuss ways to leverage gameplay experience to consolidate learning beyond the game (online forums, onsite connections, etc.)

Open forum for additional questions and discussion.

Type:

Workshop - full or half day

Designing Games

Authors:

Dave Schaller

The Extended Museum Visit: Documenting and Exhibiting Post-Visit Experiences

jtrant — Wed, 02 May 2007 00:57:39 +0000

Taxén, G., & Frécon E. (2005). The Extended Museum Visit: Documenting and Exhibiting Post-Visit Experiences. (Trant, Jennifer, David Bearman, Ed.).Museums and the Web 2005: Proceedings.