This research explores how to support collaborative learning practices when science museum visitors employ their own personal mobile devices as Opportunistic User Interfaces (O-UIs) to manipulate a simulation-based museum exhibit. The sophisticated graphical capabilities of modern mobile devices have the potential to distract visitors, a phenomenon known as the heads-down effect. To study the impact of O-UI design on collaboration, a highly-dynamic "complex" O-UI was contrasted against more simplistic, "remote-control" OUI design, in the context of a cancer-treatment simulation. As expected
Through an iterative design process involving museum educators, learning scientists and technologists, and drawing upon our previous experiences in handheld game design and a growing body of knowledge on learning through gaming, we designed an interactive mystery game called Mystery at the Museum (the High Tech Whodunnit), which was designed for synchronous play of groups of parents and children over a two to three hour period. The primary design goals were to engage visitors more deeply in the museum, engage visitors more broadly across museum exhibits, and encourage collaboration between
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Eric KlopferJudy PerryKurt SquireMing-Fong JanConstance Steinkuehler
Studies of interactive systems in museums have raised important design considerations, but so far have failed to address sufficiently the particularities of family interaction and co-operation. This paper introduces qualitative video-based observations of Japanese families using an interactive portable guide system in a museum. Results suggest that interaction with the system is socially structured through family relationships, leading to unexpected usage. The paper highlights the necessity to more fully consider familial relationships in HCI.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Tom HopeYoshiyuki NakamuraToru TakahashiAtsushi NobayashiShota FukuokaMasahiro HamasakiTakuichi Nishimura
The availability of mobile and stationary devices opens up new challenges to support users in several contexts. Here we present a multi-device environment to support cooperation among museum visitors through games. In particular, we present a design and the associated implementation for using a combination of PDAs and public displays to enhance the learning experience in a museum setting by using game playing interactions. The basic assumption is to use the mobile devices for individual game play, and the situated displays for synchronized public views of shared game play; the individual game
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Riccardo DiniFabio PaternoCarmen Santoro
There is a growing commitment within science centres and museums to deploy computer-based exhibits to enhance participation and engage visitors with socio-scientific issues. As yet however, we have little understanding of the interaction and communication that arises with and around these forms of exhibits, and the extent to which they do indeed facilitate engagement. In this paper, we examine the use of novel computer-based exhibits to explore how people, both alone and with others, interact with and around installations. The data are drawn from video-based field studies of the conduct and
At the Maryland Science Center, a new permanent exhibition with a companion mobile game is focused on electricity. Multimedia Research, an independent evaluation firm, implemented a summative evaluation to assess how using the PowerUp! game in the exhibition influences engagement and knowledge acquisition. The evaluation collected timing and tracking observations and pre- and post-interview data from 18 ten-year-olds who used the game within the Power Up! exhibition area and 16 ten-year-olds who did not use the game. Game players experienced the Power Up! exhibition area differently from non
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Maryland Science CenterBarbara FlaggIlona Holland
The drawing of 'outlines' can be shown to be dependent upon the bounding edge aspect of visual cognition, which is a principal means of discerning 'identity' from other features of experience in the visual field. Visual 'signatures' can be noticed when using techniques for the scientific visualization of data. Using examples from an ongoing art-science project between the Faculty of Arts and Architecture (Brighton) and the Meteorology Dept at the University of Reading, the paper will explore the boundary between the 'rational' and the subjective, and between the representation of knowledge and
Sage is a robot that has been installed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History as a full-time autonomous member of the staff. Its goal is to provide educational content to museum visitors in order to augment their museum experience. This paper discusses all aspects of the related research and development. The functional obstacle avoidance system, which departs from the conventional occupancy grid-based approaches, is described. Sage's topological navigation system, using only color vision and odometric information, is also described. Long-term statistics provide a quantitative measure of
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Illah NourbakhshJudith BobenageSebastien GrangeRon LutzRoland MeyerAlvaro Soto
This article describes the software architecture of an autonomous, interactive tour-guide robot. It presents a modular and distributed software architecture, which integrates localization, mapping, collision avoidance, planning, and various modules concerned with user interaction and Web-based telepresence. At its heart, the software approach relies on probabilistic computation, on-line learning, and any-time algorithms. It enables robots to operate safely, reliably, and at high speeds in highly dynamic environments, and does not require any modifications of the environment to aid the robot's
The Situating Hybrid Assemblies in Public Environments (SHAPE) project within the European Disappearing Computer initiative has explored how emerging ubiquitous technologies can support museum visiting experiences. SHAPE has designed hybrid artifacts that support visitors manipulating phisical and digital material in a visible and interesting manner.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Liam BannonSteve BenfordJohn BowersChristian Heath
The authors describe a study of programs to deepen families' scientific inquiry practices in a science museum setting. The programs incorporated research-based learning principles from formal and informal educational environments. In a randomized experimental design, two versions of the programs, called inquiry games, were compared to two control conditions. Inquiry behaviors were videotaped and compared at pretest and posttest exhibits. Family members were also interviewed about their perceptions and use of the inquiry games. Results indicated that visitors who learned the inquiry games
3D interactive virtual reality museum exhibits should be easy to use, entertaining, and informative. If the interface is intuitive, it will allow the user more time to learn the educational content of the exhibit. This research deals with interface issues concerning activating audio descriptions of images in such exhibits while the user is navigating. Five methods for activating audio descriptions were implemented and evaluated to find the most effective. These range roughly on a passive- active continuum. With the more passive methods, an audio explanation was triggered by simple proximity to
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Briana SullivanColin WareMatthew Plumlee