Designing PDA Mediated Educational Activities for a Museum Visit

Nikolaos Tselios*#

Ioanna Papadimitriou*, Vassilis Komis*, Nikolaos Avouris#

*ICTE Group, ECEDU Department, #HCI Group, ECE Department,

University of Patras

Introduction

Spread of PDAs in the field of education used in different contexts, serving a variety of

learning tasks considered as a motivation trigger for the

pupils, augmenting their attention and allowing them to engage in learning activities meaningful to them

As information appliances for acquiring, storing, transmitting, editing and visualizing data and information

As communication appliances and they can be used in the frame of formal or informal forms of education

2/17

Educational Usage of PDAs in Museums (1/2)

Mobile technologies can find in museums an important area of implementation learning in a museum context integration, of personal,

sociocultural, and physical contexts over time museum visits are structured around motion, it is crucial that technology will support visitors during and not just

after or before the visit

New possibilities Interaction with the exhibit: reading of information and ‘static’

observation of the exhibit is transformed to a dialectic relationship where the user is interacting with the exhibit through the pda.

active construction of interpretation, information processing and organization, reflection Collaboration and communication

‘Learning on the move’3/17

Educational Usage of PDAs in Museums (2/2)

As electronic guides (Sotto Voce, ImogI, Marble Museum, PEACH project) applications in a form of an electronic guide. These applications provide information on

the exhibits, predetermined guided tours based on certain thematic criteria The children have in their disposal a PDA equipped with location technology capable of

extracting information from the exhibits Different location technologies are used (infrared beacons, RFID, Bayesian

triangulation , see also Raptis, Tselios and Avouris,2005)

As supporting tools (Exploratorium Science museum, San Francisco) the visitor has the possibility to manipulate and experiment with the exhibits, although

the tour and recognition of each exhibit is not an easy task Allows visitors to record their visit path and re-experience it through museum’s website

using specific educational scenarios (MUSEX, Scavenger Hunt Game) A scenario is given to the children and are invited to complete a series of predefined

tasks Typically drill and practice educational system: the children are challenged to answer

correctly a number of multiple choice questions4/17

Activity Design for museums

A novel approach for designing educational activities using PDAs in museums based in social-constructive theories

Influenced by three basic factors: the characteristics of the museum context where the activity is to take place the affordances of the mobile technology to be used the goals of the educational approach to be followed 5/17

PedagogicalGoals Learners

Available content, pedagogical goals, learning theories

Type of exhibits, museum goals, physical layout, appropriate technology

Learner’s characteristics and needs, model of interaction, interaction affordances’ recognizability and understandability

Museum context

Museum context

Historical Museum The majority of the exhibits are paintings and personal

objects of historical Greek persons of the 19th century Direct interaction not available Available content consisted of texts with information

about the exhibits

Specific goals supported by the imposed technology: Highlight the inherent historical interrelation between

various exhibits Provide a way of deeper interaction with the exhibits Design a narrative to integrate the required historical

information into a meaningful story6/17

Technology :proper infrastructure and interaction model

Model of interaction heavily influences the activity’s pedagogical design

positioning and context awareness methods and models to present useful information to the user with respect to the information communicated to him/her by the environment RFID tags to identify the exhibits, using an RFID reader in the pdas to ‘scan’

them When an exhibit is scanned, the PDA sends a request for information to a

server through Wi-Fi infrastructure

models to invert the flow of information The server delivers appropriate content, for the desired exhibit, presented

in the form requested by the user according to her needs (e.g. age, specific interests, etc)

information provided in HTML without requiring text entry7/17

Interacting with the exhibits

Exhibit observation through technology Actions imposed by technology

Actions are associated to physical/virtual space Actions in physical space are influenced and enhanced by technology Actions in virtual space exist only through technology 8/17

Pedagogical Goals

Goal: to engage the students into meaningful problem solving and exploratory learning activities

▪ stimulate the pupils’ imagination▪ allowing them to engage with information extracted by the

exhibits▪ align them towards a synergistic approach to accomplish their

goals instead of just answering multiple choice questions

Problem solving -Collaborative Learning Active exploration of museum exhibits Harvest information of complementary nature compared to that

presented in the physical space and exchange of information Collaborate to extract meaning from the correlation of their

findings

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the ‘Inheritance activity’:scenario

An historian working for the museum hides his will in his favorite exhibit

Students were asked to help the people of the museum to find the will of the imaginary historian that worked for years in the museum

▪ Come in contact with the historical background of the exhibits

▪ Collect, exchange, manage data▪ Use problem solving strategies▪ Collaboratively examine and reflect upon the

information provided 10/17

the ‘Inheritance activity’: description

Initially, the children are introduced to the scenario and are prompted to exchange a certain amount of information the historian left in order to start their quest

Students are challenged to collect related information from a variety of exhibits through reading and storing of the clues in a notepad

The children try to locate the clues which can lead them to the will Each team has a PDA equipped with RFID tag readers Motivated to read information Collect and exchange data Manage information with criteria communicated by the clues

Towards accomplishment of their goal, the students had to collaborate and exchange data as the teams send clues to each other

Finally, they had to engage into a problem solving process to extract meaning from the correlation of their findings

11/17

Application

(a) (b) (c) (d)Offers a series of functions:a) Scan and read RFID Tagsb) Retrieve and display information from the serverc) Store and exchange data (by pointing to each

other’s pda)d) Examine collected cues and select the ‘favorite’

exhibit12/17

Case Study

In real conditions, inside the museum Observe learners’ behaviors in real setting, validate effective usage of mobile devices, PDA’s effectiveness as instructive tools and

in their repercussions in the learning process

17 children (6 male 11 female), aged 10

In 4 groups of 4 or 5 members each Data collection via

mp3 voice recorders, Video camera, pda screen capturing application essay describing their experience

13/17

Data analysis model-Activity Theory

Learning should be examined in relation to the symbolic tools used to facilitate it (Cobb, 2002)

Activity theory: a conceptual tool used to study human practices from the perspective of consciousness and personal development

We chose to adopt this model of analysis, since such a learning activity is comprised by multiple interacting elements and learners collaborating with each other

It takes into account both individual and collaborative activities, the asymmetrical relation between people and things, and the role of artifacts in everyday life

14/17

Results

Extensive collaboration during the procedure Some of the children were in the border of this process (reduce # of

members?)

Constant scaffolding from the researcher Children needed clarifications concerning the scenario

Adoption of different strategies The groups were united and use concurrently the 2 pda’s to observe

the clues and the information related to an exhibit in the same time

Children were highly motivated

the children had never used a PDA before they did not encountered serious problems during the activity some problems with the time required by the application to provide

feedback to the user’s actions, thus confusing them in some cases15/17

Conclusions

Activity theory as a conceptual tool to facilitate design and evaluation seems ideal in this context focus not only on the subject but also on the context and on the

tools involved

Appropriate support with technology could substantially enhance the learning opportunities This experience, which is in the border between learning and an

entertaining activity, seems ideal to be supported by PDAs Promotes imagination, engagement and alignment

Design decisions are affected and should take into account pedagogical, technological and contextual issues

16/17

Future Work

Proper adoption in different contexts instantiation of an activity is affected by issues

such as the scope of the museum and the type of the exhibits

More research in effective awareness mechanisms and communication issues

Realization of an abstract design and evaluation framework for learning activities in the context of a museum visit

17/17

Thank you for your attention!

Nikolaos Tselios*#

Ioanna Papadimitriou*, Vassilis Komis*, Nikolaos Avouris#

*ICTE Group, ECEDU Department, #HCI Group, ECE Department,University of Patras, Rio Patras, Greece

{iopapad,komis,avouris}@upatras.gr, nitse@ee.upatras.gr

www.ecedu.upatras.gr

Overview

Introduction Learning opportunities with PDA usage in

museums Design

influenced by pedagogical, technological and contextual issues

Case Study to evaluate the new design approach a typical example of our approach, the

‘inheritance activity’ was introduced to young students visiting a Cultural-Historical Museum

Conclusions19/18