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