ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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The Zydeco project at the University of Michigan has developed an app to engage students in science inquiry in museums. The program allows people to investigate a driving question or challenge while they are in the museum, and to collect and annotate audio, video, and photos during their experience that they can later access and explore online. The idea behind the program is that visitors are able to build understanding across exhibits of their own choosing, creating a conceptually cohesive experience driven by exploration of a compelling question.
For example, one of our most recent trials was at the Detroit Science Center. We used "How could you harness energy from the exhibits to make electricity?" as the driving challenge. This allowed students to look at how energy was transferred and transformed in different exhibits, and also to explore exhibits to better understand how electricity is generated. The students were free to choose whichever exhibits were most compelling to them, so the data they collected was meaningful and interesting to them.
Although the program was developed to support students to do inquiry between the classroom and the museum settings, it could easily be adapted by museums for use with visitors in general. Essentially, the museum would just need to develop a compelling driving question or challenge (or a few driving questions or challenges) that visitors could explore in different ways across exhibits. More support can be provided by including subquestions that can help visitors organize their information, and by creating preset tags to help with annotating data. Alternately, visitors could contribute and explore their own driving questions and challenges.
An iPad app has also been developed to help build arguments and explanations using the information gathered from the experience, creating opportunities for visitors to extend and share their museum experience.
To address some of the concerns raised in this discussion....
With Sherri Hsi's research in mind, we were concerned about the impact of mobile design on social interaction. Thus, the design is streamlined so visitors use the app to collect their data, and can annotate it with a voice note, preset tags, or new tags of their own choosing. Our research suggests that the driving question, the tagging process, and data collection process tend to encourage social interaction about the exhibits and content.
We were also concerned about whether having mobile devices would keep visitors from interacting with exhibits. Analyses of student behavior during trials at both the science center and at a natural history museum suggests that students were very engaged with the hands-on exhibits and display objects, often interacting with the exhibit first, and collecting their data after their initial interactions. We had the kids wear the devices (iPod touches) around their necks on a lanyard so they would have both hands free to operate exhibits.
Let us know if you are interested in some of the papers or research on this app, or in using it with visitors at your museum.
Take care,
Clara
Clara Cahill
Doctoral Candidate, Science Education, University of Michigan
Research Associate, Museum of Science, Boston
phone: 734-476-5419
email: [log in to unmask]
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