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Designing Mobile Learning Activities in Museums and

Sites of Culture

Nikolaos Avouris[Univ. Patras, GR]

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Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, photo Wikimedia.org

Thessaloniki, the castles (photo www.thepixel.gr)

museums

sites of culture

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Sites of informal learning

- How is learning supported in such settings?

- How cultural institutions may support their mission with use of technology?

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Existing practices for digital learning in museums

N.Nikonanou and A. Bounia, Digital Applications in Museums: An analysis from a Museum Education Perspective (2014)

In a survey of major educational programs in Greek museums, it was found that …

most digital applications seem to reinforce the model of passive reception, where museum provides cultural content and the user is expected to accept and internalize the knowledge.

Multiple interpretations, individual meaning making, encouragement of alternative ideas, social interaction are not encouraged or supported.

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Learning in Museums

- Learning does not take place through words in the “shadow of objects” (like in schools) but through objects (experiential approach)

- Active participation in meaning making, knowledge needs to be constructed by the learner (constructivist approach)

- Learning as Social experience (learning from each other)

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Games in Museums

• Games are effective ways to learn in an informal way both for young visitors and for adults

• Proliferation of game culture in modern societies (ludic society)

[ D. Norman, The Future of Education: Lessons Learned from Video Games and Museum Exhibits, www.jnd.org, 2001 ]

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The audience: living in a ludic century

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

E. Zimmerman: Manifesto for a Ludic 21st Century

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Bridge between “High” and “popular” culture

• Young generations are attracted by “popular” cultures, like the game culture

• However there is a distance of young generations from “high culture”, e.g. the official cultural institutions, monuments, heritage *

• This gap may be bridged by mobile games with learning potential

* EC. Access of Young People to Culture, Final Report EACEA/2008/01

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Games as interactive exhibits

Images: http://www.jnd.org/images/LondonSciMuseum-2for-web.jpghttp://dananderica2010.blogspot.com/

A quiz discussion table at the London Science Museum

D. Norman, The Future of Education: Lessons Learned from Video Games and Museum Exhibits, www.jnd.org, 2001

Play the orchestra conductor at Mozart’s house in Viennahttp://dananderica2010.blogspot.com

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Location-based mobile games

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Location-based mobile games: moving about in the site

• Multiplayer games that take place in an extensive space. The action is affected by the players’ location. The game involves embedding location specific and contextual information in physical spaces, so to create an interlinked physical and digital space . This is achieved through the use of mobile devices, wireless and sensing technologies.

• Alternative terms used are hybrid reality games (emphasis in the interlinking of physical and digital realities), augmented reality games, or pervasive games (emphasis on the extension of game in temporal, spatial and social dimensions).

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Hybrid game spaces

Physical space

Game space

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Hybrid game spaces

Physical space

Game space

Virtual (Digital) space

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• QR codes/ NFC scanning

• Image recognition

• Gestures

• Location-based instructions encoding

Intra-spaces connections

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Intra-spaces connections

NFC (Near Field Communication)

Source: Google Goggles at the Getty Museum (Youtube)

http://amt-lab.org/

QR codes

Image recognition

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Scan an image

Invaders Zone using Vuforiaframework

Gesture-based interaction

Source: Rexplorer (Youtube)

Intra-spaces connections

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Location-based instructions encoding for progressing narration

http://www.whaiwhai.com/en

Ruyi from whaiwhai

Intra-spaces connections

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Primitive player actions

The players - through a mobile device -perform actions (selection of an item, reply to a quiz, etc.) that affect the state of the game.

The context of actions in game & physical space, and the player identity, give meaning to the actions. e.g. proximity of two players may allow some possible interactions between them, based on the fact that they belong to the same or competing teams.

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Examples of actions meaning

• Collecting a piece of information

• Unlocking next part of a story

• Receiving further instructions

• Replying to a question (part of a puzzle )

• Linking objects (action as part of a sequence)

• Transporting “virtual objects” between positions (action as part of a sequence)

• Modifying the state of an object, i.e. locking or unlocking it

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Location-based mobile gamesexamples

MuseumScrabble

BenakiMS

CityScrabble

Invisible City

Invaders Zone

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MuseumScrabble

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MuseumScrabble link exhibits to themes/concepts

http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/museumscrabble/

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MuseumScrabble

Hints

Links

(exhibit description)

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MuseumScrabbleDesign rationale

MuseumScrabble is based on the idea of thepopular Scrabble word game. In Scrabble, the aim is to arrange tiles (letters) in meaningful sequences (words).

In MuseumScrabble, the letters have been replaced by exhibits to by arranged in topics. They can be linked using hints.

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From a board game to location-based game

• A topic is a concept or field of knowledge or category, related to parts of the museum collection or the themes of the museum. Examples are geography, feminism, religion, art etc.

• Each topic contains several hints. A hint is a short sentence that can be applied to exhibits in the museum related to the topic.

• The challenge to the players is to link an exhibit to a relevant topic by discovering which exhibit fits the particular topic-hint pair in a meaningful way.

Evaluation of MuseumScrabble: [Sintoris et al. 2010]

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Playing MuseumScrabble: findings

• The game was designed with a top-down strategy in mind, where the players pursue their goal by selecting a topic, searching for objects of interest, creating links and so on.

• However, some of the players switched to bottom-up strategies, first scanning an object and then flipping through the topics searching for a hint that can be used in a meaningful link.

Based on Sintoris et al. 2012, evaluation of MuseumScrabble

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MuseumScrabble: factual information- disconnected objects

Exhibits as cut out letters

(Yiannoutsou et al, 2012)

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Visual vs cognitive hints: preference to visual hints that were consumed faster in the first part of the game

Preference for visual keys

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Invisible City:Rebels vs Spies

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Invisible City: Rebels vs Spies (RvS)

www.invisiblecity.gr

Inspired by: Mafia game, aka Night in Palermo, Werewolves...

a social game of trust, deception, observation and performance http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/images/Papers/j62_sintoris_et_al_2013.pdf

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tasks and game activity are spread in the city

Expanding the concept

Invisible City: Rebels vs Spies (RvS)

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A leader is selected, then the leader assigns missions to the players and becomes a normal player.Some missions are critical, some are not. If a critical mission fails, the round goes to the spies

Invisible City: Rebels vs Spies (RvS)

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Spatial expansionFrom the room →To the cityLocations are spread outPlayers cannot observe each otherBackstory for the action (rebels, spies)

Situated play and contextual knowledgeIncorporate historical (factual) informationEngagement through physical involvementIntegrate a coherent narrative

Expanding the concept

Invisible City

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[ Extract 1 ]R. Did you learn something about the city that you didn’t know before playing the game?A: We didn’t know any of it…. it was all new.S: Yes, everything was new ….M: …. we walk every day by these sites but we had no idea of all these things about them

Invisible city findings:

Familiar places seen through a new perspective

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[ Extract 2 ]R: So, what would you say that you learned? S. That the church of Pantocratoras was an ancient temple before.M: I was impressed with the information about the Mayor (information about an ex Mayor during the period 1949-1967)

Invisible city findings:

The historic layer

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[ Extract 3 ]R: Do you think that the game would be useful for a visitor who doesn’t know the city?A: The game is not about “getting to know” the city, it is about “discovering the city”. The game is not designed for a visitor who wants to learn the main sites of this city are. The questions are about discovering the invisible city- things that were hidden and not obvious when you look at the buildings for example.

Invisible city findings:

Visitors vs locals learning

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Invisible city findings:

Selective attention

[ Extract 4 ]

R: Did you have the chance to look around when you were playing?

K: I knew the surroundings more or less. ….

Engaged in the game activity, they missed the no-game related activity

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Invisible city findings:

Fragmented experience

• More interesting were the meeting points where all players gathered than executing the tasks when learning about the city takes place.

• Tasks interrupted by city events

• Tiring experience

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Taggling

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Mobile Learning in a Museum:

at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA)

Hands on experience

This afternoon at 7:00 pm

Taggling

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Taggling

Players are given sets of tags that need to untangle by placing them to the corresponding artwork

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Taggling

Action: tags attached and moved between exhibits

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Taggling

Guided group discussion on the tags- exhibits relations

Exploring these relations, rediscovering art

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On designing mobile games

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Designing for-with culture sites

• Design in respect to the organization. Technology embedded smoothly to the ecology

• Design for engaging the users, or viewing the exhibits vs “playing with them”

• Design for unobtrusive presence. Not to isolate the visitors.

• Design for enriching interaction between the museum end the user

• Design for collaboration between users

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Viewing vs Playing : situating exhibits in the context of a game

The difference between viewing and playing with the exhibits would be something like learning geometry for knowing it or learning geometry because you need it to construct something (Papert 1993).Yiannoutsou et al. “Playing with” vs “Viewing” museum exhibits: designing educational game-like activities mediated by mobile technology (2009)

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Design decisions

• Types and strength of links physical-to-digital

i.e. One to many, Paths: A is linked to B, then to C etc, Thematic lists: linking concepts to objects

• Content: selection themes and objects

– Selecting the places of the site that will become part of the game – analyzing them according to the structure of the game and the site narrative

• Rules: how you win points, what to do next, when do you win (score)

• Events (surprise elements, dangerous zones etc)

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Design guidelines

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Collaborative study of U.Patras and U.Bari 2010-2011 (network TwinTide)

• Followed a ‘case study methodology’ of analysis of published papers of 3 mobile games

• Identified game design issues (317 issues)

• Through focus group analysis the issues were reduced to 94 related to design of location-based games and learning

• Card sorting techniques for grouping the issues in 5 design dimensions

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Design Dimensions (Ardito et al. 2011)

• Game General Design, which refers to issues related to the overall game design process;

• Control/Flexibility, which is a basic dimension of system usability, that with respect to the games considered in this paper, also refers to helping players to be aware of the effects of their choices on the game execution;

• Engagement, which informs on how to provide an experience that captivates the players, by providing hints on how to structure the game, which tools to adopt, etc.;

• Educational Aspects, which informs on interweaving of learning content into the game context, so that the game can have a valid learning influence on the players;

• Social Aspects, which concerns the interaction among the players, role allocation etc. (the underlying assumption is that social activity, e.g. competition, can act as a motivational factor).

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4.1 Design guidelines /

educational aspects

Consider to include a pre-game

activity to prepare players (e.g.

some lessons in classroom

explaining the historical context

in which the game is set)

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4.2

Game should emphasize either

vertical or horizontal exploration

of a place/topic, i.e., deeply

exploring a limited space (or few

objects or a specific topic) vs. more

superficially exploring a broad

space (or many objects or several

topics)

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Balance between competition

and knowledge acquisition.

Too much competition may have

a negative impact on knowledge

acquisition

4.4

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Include a debriefing phase after

the game to allow players to reflect

on the game experience.

Design it as an individual/

collaborative game/activity that

supports players to clarify and

consolidate the game experience

4.5

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Open Design Patterns

An open repository of design knowledge for location-based games

Similar to: Pervasive Games Design PatternsDavidsson, Peitz, & Björk, 2004, Björk &Peitz, 2007

Game Ontology Project (Hochhalter, Lichti, & Zagal, 2005)

hci.ece.upatras.gr/pompeiigame/

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Pompeii Game Design Workshop

• The task is to design a game for the archaeological site of Pompeii, given design material and a design framework

• Objective is to observe design activity of different design groups and deduce common design patterns for this class of games

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The Pompeii Design Workshop

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Pompeii Design Workshop: the Worksheet

The objectiveWhat is the aim of the game? What will you explain to the players that they have to do? How will the player know about success?

The rulesWhat are the basic rules? How are they guide the game to the end? Are there roles? Is there a narrative?

Use of tools & technology How will the mobile will be used? As information screens, communication, barcode scanners, GPS, maps, radar, compass, flashlight...?

Mechanisms How are the rules enforced? How is the game paced? Is there immersion in the atmosphere of the game? What about player communication? Awareness of the actions of the other players? Competion? Cooperation? Deception?

Location and real-world objects How are they involved in the game? How are the players interacting with them?

Behaviors and aesthetic result How do you expect the game to evolve over time? How will the players feel playing it?

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32 game designs were produced in 6 workshops in 4 different countries

Zakynthos, GR :

Summer School on Technologies for Cultural Heritage

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Design workshops

Pecs, HU,

Erasmus IP on cultural heritage management

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Using design patterns

• Using it as a checklist

• Getting new ideas

• Refining an initial idea

• Checking old solutions to new problems

• Relating structure of the game to game elements

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Participatory design

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Players as Designers

• Contributing content

• Modifying game elements

• Using existing design patterns

– Previous design knowledge is re-used in new design problems

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Learning through participation in design

• Active –constructive learning (users: co-creators of new ideas, knowledge and products, public meta-artifacts)

• Rich learning opportunities: analysis and synthesis around the city space and the spatial content that is going to be integrated in the game

• Ownership of information

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Support for participation in game design

Sintoris, et al. 2014

(e.g. a school teacher can design a specific version of the game for a school visit)

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TaggingCreaditor: a tool to edit content for location-based games

Physical space

Virtual space

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Name: Retort house (D6) Information: Black coal was carried here by stokers in order to be overheated and generate gas. The procedure lasted approximately 5 hours and the black coal was heated in a temperature of about 1000 °C. Radius: 10m.

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Reflection

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Location based Games mostly focus on factual information →games as vehicles for transferring new information to the players.

Yet searching for this information in an intriguing, engaging and pleasant activity.

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In the context of this type of games exhibits or buildings are often treated as a bunch of disconnected and de-contextualized things

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Game vs Fun: Players observed that the needed attention on the place and on factual information is “the price they had to pay” in order for the fun to continue

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However information is all there is to learn about a site?

e.g.Embodied experienceLocation narrative

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thank you

hci.edu.grDesigning Mobile Learning Activities in Museums and Sites of Culture [N. Avouris]