Multiple perspectives for collective sharing

In a ICHIM07 session entitled “In-Museum engagement” Liam Bannon and Palmyre Pierroux are presenting MUSTEL: Framing the Design of Technology-Enhanced Learning Activities for Museum Visitors. This is part of a kaleidoscope project about technology enhanced learning.

Liam is talking about the need for a multitude of perspectives: technology exploration; collaborative learning; exhibition design etc. But how to move this beyond a babble of groups talking past each other? Need for themes to integrate perspectives.

Historical perspectives on learning frame the design of museum technologies (after Vygotsky etc). Activity theoretical frame where activity is the context.

Two design approaches:

1. embedded hybrid technologies to augment museum learning.

– facilitate visitors shaping each others experience

– building on competencies, total experience (physical museum context)

– linking visitors to museum professional competencies.

eg Hunt Museum work on flexible of narrative, participation and collaborative enquiry by means of embedded technology.

2. mobile and social networking technologies (Palmyre)

Museum visits are not in isolation, are part of long term learning trajectory (Goodman 1984) . Exploring mobile phones to tag and share and social networking. The difficulty is creating the motivation to engage in such activities. They use a wiki with personal space for pre and post visit. Mobile phones are used during the visit for “collective sharing” of images and conversations with hosts, phones used to avoid “heads down” filling in paper.

Q: Structuring of context? Palmyre: it is embedded in the action itself, so is about meaning making through situational activity of whole experience. Liam: Artefact not in isolation -showing settings in which it makes sense combined with own motivations.