presentation about mobile museums, opportunities for new interactions

1. Mobile and Connected
Exploring new interactions for learning Dan Sutch dan.sutch@futurelab.org.uk

2. Questions…
• Why are you interested in mobile
learning?
• What activities/interactions are you
trying to foster?

3. Possibilities and practicalities
digital divide  mobility  personalisation  ownership  portable
 location sensitive  embedded technologies  linking home
and school experiences  mobile learning  widening access
to resources  empowering learners  augmented realities 
context sensitive  authentic audiences  collaborative tools 
communication tools  hard to reach learners  self
organisation  5m under 16s own a mobile phone 
conversational learning  supportive technologies  one to one
access  social skills  distributed access to experts  sensor
technologies  situated learning  engagement and motivation
 linking formal and informal  change to student-teacher
relationships  mobile technologies  authentic purpose 
developing students’ confidence  enabling new learning
networks  90% of young people own a mobile phone 
incidental learning  conversation in context  ubiquitous
learning  25% primary children own a mobile phone 
multimedia capabilities  autonomous learners  community
learning  multiple communication channels  opportunistic
learning  enabling tool  accessing family learning 

4. ‘Pulsating Networks of Learning’
• Pulsating
– Mobility = ‘coming together and dispersing’ (Engestrom)
• Networks
– People (facilitated through technology) from variety of
backgrounds, varied/various communities of practice
• Learning
– Not just networks of learners, but locative/location
sensitive technologies can enable the environment to
provide relevant, appropriate feedback

5. Key descriptors of a “changing
educational paradigm”:
• Personalisation
• Learner Voice
• Use of new technologies
• New school infrastructure
• Linking to informal learning
• Extended schools
• Family Learning
• Lifelong learning

6. Key descriptors of a changing educational paradigm
• Personalisation
• “We believe that personalising learning and teaching must play a central role in transforming England’s
education service [...] between now and 2020.” Gilbert Review, 2007
Key policy documents: Children’s Plan (2007); Every Child Matters (2004); Extended Schools (2007); Gilbert Review
(2007).
• Learner Voice
• “Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those
views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance
with the age and maturity of the child.” Article 12, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989
Key policy documents: Children’s Plan (2007); Every Child Matters (2004); United Nations Convention on the Rights of
the Child (1989); Young People: Leading Change (2008).
• Use of new technologies
• “We aim to put learners, young people – and their parents – in the driving seat, shaping the opportunities
open to all learners to fit around their particular needs and preferences. In achieving these goals the
effective use of interactive technologies is absolutely crucial.” Harnessing Technology Strategy, 2005
Key policy documents: Children’s Plan (2007); Gilbert Review (2007); Harnessing Technology Strategy (2005);
Harnessing Technology Strategy: Next generation learning (2008); Leitch Review of Skills (2006).
• New school infrastructure
• “spaces will need to use technology – both within and outside classrooms – to enhance learning.” Gilbert
Review, 2007
Key policy documents: 14-19 education and skills (2005); Children’s plan (2007); Extended schools (2007); Gilbert
review (2007); BSF website http://www.partnershipsforschools.org.uk/

7. Key descriptors of a changing educational paradigm
• Links to informal learning
• “We believe that every young person should experience the world beyond the classroom as an essential
part of learning and personal development, whatever their age, ability or circumstances.” Learning Outside
the Classroom Manifesto, 2006
Key policy documents: Extended Schools (2007); Learning Outside the Classroom Manifesto (2006); Shaping the Way
Ahead (2008); Youth Matters (2006).
• Extending schools
• “We have increasingly strong evidence showing the positive impact of extended services on children’s
motivation, behaviour and engagement with learning. This is beginning to yield real improvements in
attainment, particularly for the most disadvantaged pupils. And families and local communities are
benefiting too, through access to a wider range of opportunities which, in turn, raise aspirations.” Extended
Schools: Building on Experience, 2007
Key policy documents: Aiming High for Young People (2007); Children’s Plan (2007); Every Child Matters (2004);
Extended Schools (2007); Youth Matters (2006).
• Family Learning
• “[The new department] will now focus on the significant challenges that remain – raising standards so that
more children and young people reach expected levels, lifting more children out of poverty and re-engaging
disaffected young people. The new structure will also allow us to respond to new challenges that will affect
children and families: demographic and socio-economic change; developing technology; and increasing
global competition.” DCSF website, 2007
• Lifelong Learning
• “Despite recent progress, the UK has serious social disparities with high levels of child poverty, poor
employment rates for the disadvantaged, regional disparities and relatively high income inequality.
Improving our skill levels can address all of these problems.” Leitch Review of Skills, 2006
• Key policy documents: Aiming High for Young People (2007); Children’s Plan (2007); Leitch Review of Skills (2006).

8. Mobile and Connected
Learners within this new context

9. Centre of a web
Enabling learners:
• To be at the centre of a web of resources,
people and information
• To control a personal, familiar, multimedia
device, whether in the classroom or at the
bus stop
Learners being:
•More active in choosing appropriate tools
to organise and manage social and learning
opportunities.
Consider: content delivery, information retrieval; where resources are kept
and how/where accessed.

10. Augmenting spaces
Enabling learners (through location
sensitive technology):
• To augment real spaces with virtual
worlds
Learners:
•Experiencing hidden worlds of
geography or history
•Interacting with real environments whilst
investigating creative or abstract
information
Consider: how tech can change a physical space, without altering the
physicality

11. Mobile presence
Enabling learners:
•To represent themselves in multiple
ways
Learners:
•Taking on different roles within
social and virtual contexts
•Showing their own intentions,
interests and requirements –
beginning new learning conversations
Consider: new ways of organising groups, new learning conversations, role of
social software.

12. Capture, MANIPULATE and share
Enabling learners:
•To capture, manipulate and then
publish rich multimedia data
Learners:
•Capturing experiences in a wide
variety of ways
•Creatively engaging with data –
making it appropriate and personal
•Publishing to a wide variety of
audiences

13. Mobile and Connected
Resources and Examples

14. • Literature Reviews
– Mobile technologies and Learning
– Learning with digital technologies in museums,
science centres and galleries
• Further Literature
– Networked Learning
– Social software
– http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources
• Projects
– http://www.futurelab.org.uk/projects

15. futurelab.org.uk/projects
Fizzees
Savannah Mudlarking in Deptford
Mobi Missions
Pleasurable Cities New Toons
Space Signpost
Smart learners, smart places

16. Enquiring Minds
www.enquiringminds.org.uk

17. Mudlarking in Deptford
Rethink the formula of a guided tour to
develop:
A participatory involving and evolving guided
tour
• Development of a toolkit to allow participants
to add to the tour whilst on the tour
• Providing information that is location specific
• Prompting conversations between learners
• Promoting further investigation of the local
area

18. Pleasurable Cities
Using mobile phones to enable young people to become engaged in
local decision making
• Creating link between young people and decision makers through
personally-owned technologies
• Stickers to leave real-world visual marker of thoughts/views
• Real-world hyper tags
• QR codes/text messages

19. Savannah
Strategy-based adventure mobile game
• Virtual Savannah overlays a real
space (school field)
• Children ‘play’ at being lions, navigating
environments with mobile handheld
devices
• Link between play space (field) and
reflective space (classroom)
• Immersed in activity

21. www.createascape.org.uk

22. Space Signpost
Public understanding of Science
• Mixture of a kinetic sculpture and
multimedia allows learner exploration
of contextualised information
• Uses learner space as primary
reference point to information
• Incidental learning
• Free resource in a public space:
Millennium Square, Bristol

23. Smart Learners, Smart Places
Enhancing museum experiences
• Creating a ‘live information space’
• Supporting the learner in engaging with
exhibits
• Enabling personal ‘curating’ of artefacts
• Providing link between pre, post and visit
activities
• Providing hidden information about exhibits
• Speckled computers embedded in environment

24. The BCH programme is aiming to build a
challenging and long term vision for
education in the context of socio-
technological change 2025 and beyond
Long term futures programme intended to
• Enhance the ‘futures thinking’ capacity of the UK education system
• Inform current strategy, decision making and planning
Futurelab running the programme in partnership with DCSF
www.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk

25. www.visionmapper.org.uk

26. Dan Sutch
dan.sutch@futurelab.org.uk A chance for questions and reflection