The concept of interactivity is interwoven with the concept of modern technological development. Children’s museums can be seen as institutionalized sanctuaries of interactivity.
In spite of their well known openness to new forms of engagement, children’s museums are often accused of not sufficiently keeping up with the latest technological development, thus with the up-to-date transformation of the concept of interactivity.
According to critical views the children’s museum, one of the most innovative institutions of the 1970’s just got stuck with the former tools and forms of interaction and they seem to be incapable of adapting to the requirements of the 21. century.1
The central concept of children’s museums has always been „hands on” which can easily be adapted into any context but according to criticisms it is not the case. On the contrary, „hands on” is only used as a counterpoint to media applications, real „hands on” activities would mean involving actual physical interaction with artifacts.2 The voice of criticism is loud, but the question emerges to which extent are they valid? It seems that this antagonism between hands on (interpreted as exclusively tactile manipulation of objects) and the usage of media applications is artificial. Overall, this way of posing the question is simply not correct. In the following section we would like to argue that these are two different methods (devices) and concepts but they complement each other and they both are or at least should be present in children’s museums.
In this paper we will try to give an overview of the aforementioned debate of the profession so we can hopefully get a clearer glimpse of this topic.
The use of interactive media in museums
Interactive media applications nowadays help the cultural mediation in cultural institutions such as museums in numerous forms. By the use of these technologies two major trends can be observed, which are designed to support the learning experience. The first widespread type, the application, intended to focus on the transmission of information and its form. In the other case, the attention is less on the specific content rather on the role of the visitor and on the culturally creative process which takes place during the visit. 3
According to this categorization we can distinguish a more passive, documentative or recipient role and a more active role. By the first type, the visitor receives already existing, complex content through the device or the application. In the second case the works are put in a new context, are interpreted as elements of a story, or a game and so the visitor becomes the creator, reorganizer, actor of the given exhibit. In the latter case, through more intense personal interaction a deeper attachment to the exhibit will be developed. Furthermore the museum gets a stronger function of community development than usual through the creation, re-creation, through the more intensive and personal participative role. 4
Beside the mere observing of the museum objects the mobile media applications enable a more active reception that broadens and enriches the possibilities of child interaction within the museum. One of the greatest advantages of mobile applications is that unlike previous digital applications that could provide information to museum visitors just before or after the show, with the help of this new form of technology information is given
1 Heumann Gurian, Elaine: The Molting of childrens Museums? In: Heumann Gurian, Elaine: Civilizing the museum.
Routledge, 2005. p. 19-32.
2 Simon, Nina: New Models for Children’s Museums: Wired classrooms? http://museumtwo.blogspot.hu/2008/02/new-models-for-childrens-museums-wired.html(28. 07. 2013.)
3 Avouris - Yiannoutsou: From Information Consuming to Participating: Game-Design Supporting Learning Experiences in Museums. Patras. 2012. p. 1.
4 Avouris - Yiannoutsou: From Information Consuming to Participating: Game-Design Supporting Learning Experiences in Museums. Patras. 2012. p. 2.
during the visit, exploring the contents is helped with electronic support, and thus the physical flexibility and presence will be more intense than it would be by a traditional computer application.
The museum-visit supported and mediated by mobile technology stimulates the imagination and the experienced profundity of participation and so it motivates the visitor. Mobile technology can also be suitable for the re-organization, contextualization, or constructively re-interpretation of the given historical, cultural and technical knowledge.
Interactive mobile media applications can be divided into three main categories.
In the first category we classify applications whose primary aim is the transfer of information. These multimedia applications contextualize the content to facilitate learning. The purpose of the applications of the second type is to create contact, interaction between the visitors and the exhibition itself. Applications of the third category are role plays with particular pedagogical purposes, in which visitors - in first place children, mainly between 5 and 15 years but they are increasingly popular with adults – are placed in a role and have to fulfill several tasks. 5
The key element of museum learning is learning through play. Many people underestimate the importance of the game, although in fact it plays a central role in the life and development of children, furthermore it is the most effective way to develop skills.
One of the most dominant characteristics and one of the biggest charms of media applications used in museums is that with the help of these applications museum items can not be just watched through the glass walls as in the classical museum visits but they enable – only in a virtual form, of course- touching them, holding them in our hands and to be viewed from a new perspective. Through this experience a completely different level of the exhibit will be revealed to the public.
Mobile technologies facilitate three types of interaction during the museum visit: the exhibit--visitors, a visitor to the exhibi and visitor-visitor relationship.6
In the classical museum visit the visitor-exhibition interaction consist of reading the information, listening to a guide and observing the exhibits. This process can be described as a one-dimensional flow of information from the exhibit to the visitor. A mobile application can make this process two-dimensional. In addition, the use of mobile technology enables the entry of other players, other visitors in the process.7 The visualization of the interaction between visitor and exhibition also helps the communication between the different visitors and so they will be able to create new contents and new interpretations together.
To sum up, the major advantage of the utilization of mobile technologies in museum education is the possibility of a deeper, more interactive, and multi-dimensional transfer of information and prioritizing of the community-developing role of the museum.
Interactive media in children’s museums
The process described above is even more important and productive in the case of children’s museums, first, because the collections of children’s museums are very diverse and enable a colourful variety of interactions and second, because children are much more open to interaction and to direct, intensive contact with museum items and contents as they are not used to distanced contemplation that the usual museums offer, and third, because of the community-development that is supported by media applications that play a central role in children’s museums.
In a broader sense „hands on” means any type of tactile interaction with any artifacts, or participation in a specific activity (“learning by doing”). But it is true that the manipulation of actual 3D objects requires different skills and competences than using a computer program to e.g. build something. One of the baselines of the debate whether children’s museums should be more mediatized is this: We should provide more opportunity for children to use these technologies because our epoch and society is built upon them; or precisely because our
6 Avouris – Yiannoutsou: Mobile Games in Museums: from Learning Through Game Play to Learning Through Game Design.
Human Computer Interaction Group, Patras. University of Patras. 2012. p.88.
7 Avouris – Yiannoutsou: Mobile Games in Museums: from Learning Through Game Play to Learning Through Game Design.
Human Computer Interaction Group, Patras. University of Patras. 2012. p.88.
world is already “over-mediatized”, cultural spaces like (children’s) museums should display “ordinary” games and artifacts that would require extended use of fantasy and spatial reasoning as these become more and more rare in the present. etc. Evidently, as we have already put it, these two methods do not contradict or exclude each other.
Spatio-temporal manipulation of objects facilitate the domain-general functions of the cognitive apparatus so it is vital at an early age to come in contact with objects and learn to manipulate them in real space (and time).
The structure and the development of the brain proceeds along evolutionary mechanisms so it needs adequate stimuli to “upgrade” itself8. According to psychological studies 9 tactile stimulation and performing movements with the body improve general cognitive skills and intelligence. This means it would be preferable to expose children to this kind of stimulation at certain (early) periods of their development (5-12 years).
Digital and media devices don’t facilitate the spatial cognitive thinking the way real-object manipulation does.
However they do improve special skills that are helpful and even necessary in everyday life. These can be apostrophied as domain-specific functions that can be built on more general competences. Furthermore, more complex, multi-phased tasks require a longer attention-span and motivation which are also characteristics of late childhood.
Therefore it is vital to take into consideration the different needs and expectations of different age groups in the planning of institutions designed for cultural mediation as well. This is in fact what most of the children’s museums are doing, such as the Zoom Kindermuseum.
The Zoom Kindermuseum in Vienna has four rooms which are all designed for different target audiences, for different age groups. The aim is to design exhibitions, tasks, games and programs which can fulfill the expectation and the needs of the given target group.
The Viennese children’s museum has an animated film studio, where 8 to 14 years old children can learn the process of filmmaking. At first the children create the characters of the planned movie out of different materials in small teams, they create a plot, then with the help of a digital set-up they record the scenes. After they recorded the scenes they start editing the film and do the synchronizing, and finally the whole movie will be played in a cinema or will be uploaded to the homepage of the museum where they can watch it and show it to others.
Through this museum activity the children can learn the process of filmmaking and acquire several techniques, which are associated with the grown-up world but which don’t seem to be as complicated and unreachable anymore.
During the program children have to cooperate with all group members and there is an opportunity to discover the fields in which he or she is skillful. Facilitating individual development is one of the main purposes of children’s museums.
The most important difference between the use of interactive media in children’s museums compared to their use in classical museums like city museums for example, is that in children’s museum’s the method itself is stood at the center of the museum’s activity. Thus for example the aim of using interactive media in a historical museum is to get a more direct connection with the content, with history, with the former function of an object, but in children’s museums the aim is to get the technique itself known, to help understanding processes which were unknown before, like the use of a camera, or the function of a QR code.
Museums in the 21. century - in general - have to adapt to changing circumstances and surroundings. This is especially right in the case of children’s museums because they are meant to present the whole (adult) world to the children so it is important to be up- to- date. The aim of these institutions is not only presenting the world but also helping children to build a connection to what they are learning, and help them learn to learn and
8 Cosmides, L., Tooby, J., 1994 Origins of domain specificity: The evolution of functional organization In: L. Hirschfeld and S.
Gelman (eds.) Mapping the Mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture. New York: Cambridge University Press p. 84-111.
9 Miller, P. (2013): A Show of Hands: Relations between Young Children’s Gesturing and Executive Function. In: Developmental Psychology
understand new contents in a global, interdisciplinary way. This playful holistic learning is intended to support school learning and supplement it with contents which do not fit into the framework of school classes.
It is well known that we all learn much more effectively if we enjoy the act of learning, if we feel comfortable in the learning situations. The more deeply we know or like the surrounding environment, the more comfortable we feel in it, the more information we are able to absorb..
Summary
To sum up we can say that the conflict or contradiction between “hands on” and the interactive media technology in children museums is not relevant at all because interactive media technology can be interpreted in this case as a supportive element of the “hands on” concept that (necessarily adapted to the changing circumstances) helps children to get to know the new technologies and be able to learn and develop their competences.
So in a time when most schools are making efforts to use computer technologies to make the school learning process more effective children’s museums have to support these efforts and have to help prepare the young visitors for school learning with mediatized instruments by helping children to get used to several forms of the uses of digital techniques. In the center of the debate about the necessity of the presence of media applications in children’s museums the question is posed as to whether children encounter an excessive application of tools of digital technology, - wouldn’t it be more beneficial to show an alternative way of learning? It is true that nowadays even the children’s world is full of digital techniques and of media devices but exactly that is why it is important to teach them a more conscious, a more colorful and a more effective use of media technique that is learner-friendly and develops skills. We can’t avoid it - and why should we? - that children are confronted with forms of media technologies so the best we can do is to show them the positive, productive use of them, to broaden their horizons and to teach them how it could be a tool for learning, how it could mediate cultural contents. So museums should not be one of the few places which are free from computers, mobile phones and other media devices, instead they should be places where these devices serve a more valuable and precious function.
Sources
Avouris, Nikolaos: Introduction to Interactive Technologies for Culture. University of Patras. ERASMUS IPCultural Management Policies and Practices for the Creative Use of Cultural Heritage. Pecs, HU, April 15-27 2013.
Avouris - Yiannoutsou: Interactive Technologies Design Workshop. University of Patras. ERASMUS IPCultural Management Policies and Practices for the Creative Use of Cultural Heritage. Pecs, HU, April 15-27. 20. 05. 2013.
Avouris - Yiannoutsou: A Review of Mobile Location-based Games for Learningacross Physical and Virtual Spaces. Patras. Journal of Universal Computer Science, vol. 18, no. 15. 2012.
Avouris - Yiannoutsou: From Information Consuming to Participating: Game-Design Supporting Learning Experiences in Museums.
Patras. 2012.
Avouris – Yiannoutsou: Mobile Games in Museums: from Learning Through Game Play to Learning Through Game Design. Human Computer Interaction Group, Patras. University of Patras. 2012.
Cosmides, L., Tooby, J.:Origins of Domain Specificity: The Evolution of Functional Organization In: L. Hirschfeld and S. Gelman (eds.) Mapping the Mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1994. p. 84-111.
Haas, Claudia: Families and Children challenging Museums. In: The Manual of Museum Learning. In: Barry Lord (eds.). AltaMira Press.
Plymouth. 2007. p. 53-61.
Heumann Gurian, Elaine: The Molting of childrens Museums? In: Heumann Gurian, Elaine: Civilizing the museum. Routledge, 2005.
p. 19-32.
Miller, P.: A Show of Hands: Relations between Young Children’s Gesturing and Executive Function. In: Developmental Psychology.
2013.
Simon, Nina: Children’s Museums and Web 2.0. http://museumtwo.blogspot.hu/search?q=children's+museum (28. 07. 2013.) Simon, Nina: New Models for Children’s Museums: Wired classrooms?
http://museumtwo.blogspot.hu/2008/02/new-models-for-childrens-museums-wired.html (28. 07. 2013.)
Yiannoutsou, Papadimitriou, Komis, Avouris: “Playing with” Museum Exhibits: Designing Educational Games Mediated by Mobile Technology. Department of ESECE, ICTE Group. University of Patras. 2009.
Creative Use of Cultural Heritage. Pecs, HU, April 15-27. 20. 05. 2013.
Zacharias, Wolfgang: Initiative Kindermuseum: Ein neuer Kulturort im Trend der Zeit? In: Nel Worm(eds.): HANDS ON!: Kinder – und Jugendmuseum. Kulturort mit Zukunft.Unna. Bundesverband der Jugendkunstschulen und Kulturpädagogischen Einrichtungen e. V. 1993.