Virtual Heritage: new technologies for edutainment

Cultural heritage represents an enormous amount of information and knowledge. Accessing this treasure chest allows not only to discover the legacy of physical and intangible attributes of the past but also to provide a better understanding of the present. Museums and cultural institutions have to face the problem of providing access to and communicating these cultural contents to a wide and assorted audience, meeting the expectations and interests of the reference end-users and relying on the most appropriate tools available. Given the large amount of existing tangible and intangible heritage, artistic, historical and cultural contents, what can be done to preserve and properly disseminate their heritage significance? How can these items be disseminated in the proper way to the public, taking into account their enormous heterogeneity? Answering this question requires to deal as well with another aspect of the problem: the evolution of culture, literacy and society during the last decades of 20th century. To reflect such transformations, this period witnessed a shift in the museum’s focus from the aesthetic value of museum artifacts to the historical and artistic information they encompass, and a change into the museums’ role from a mere "container" of cultural objects to a "narrative space" able to explain, describe, and revive the historical material in order to attract and entertain visitors. These developments require creating novel exhibits, able to tell stories about the objects and enabling visitors to construct semantic meanings around them. The objective that museums presently pursue is reflected by the concept of Edutainment, Education + Entertainment. Nowadays, visitors are not satisfied with ‘learning something’, but would rather engage in an ‘experience of learning’, or ‘learning for fun’, being active actors and players in their own cultural experience. As a result, institutions are faced with several new problems, like the need to communicate with people from different age groups and different cultural backgrounds, the change in people attitude due to the massive and unexpected diffusion of technology into everyday life, the need to design the visit by a personal point of view, leading to a high level of customization that allows visitors to shape their path according to their characteristics and interests. In order to cope with these issues, I investigated several approaches. In particular, I focused on Virtual Learning Environments (VLE): real-time interactive virtual environments where visitors can experience a journey through time and space, being immersed into the original historical, cultural and artistic context of the work of arts on display. VLE can strongly help archivists and exhibit designers, allowing to create new interesting and captivating ways to present cultural materials. In this dissertation I will tackle many of the different dimensions related to the creation of a cultural virtual experience. During my research project, the entire pipeline involved into the development and deployment of VLE has been investigated. The approach followed was to analyze in details the main sub-problems to face, in order to better focus on specific issues. Therefore, I first analyzed different approaches to an effective recreation of the historical and cultural context of heritage contents, which is ultimately aimed at an effective transfer of knowledge to the end-users. In particular, I identified the enhancement of the users’ sense of presence in VLE as one of the main tools to reach this objective. Presence is generally expressed as the perception of 'being there', i.e. the subjective belief of users that they are in a certain place, even if they know that the experience is mediated by the computer. Presence is related to the number of senses involved by the VLE and to the quality of the sensorial stimuli. But in a cultural scenario, this is not sufficient as the cultural presence plays a relevant role. Cultural presence is not just a feeling of 'being there' but of being - not only physically, but also socially, culturally - 'there and then'. In other words, the VLE must be able to transfer not only the appearance, but also all the significance and characteristics of the context that makes it a place and both the environment and the context become tools capable of transferring the cultural significance of a historic place. The attention that users pay to the mediated environment is another aspect that contributes to presence. Attention is related to users’ focalization and concentration and to their interests. Thus, in order to improve the involvement and capture the attention of users, I investigated in my work the adoption of narratives and storytelling experiences, which can help people making sense of history and culture, and of gamification approaches, which explore the use of game thinking and game mechanics in cultural contexts, thus engaging users while disseminating cultural contents and, why not?, letting them have fun during this process. Another dimension related to the effectiveness of any VLE is also the quality of the user experience (UX). User interaction, with both the virtual environment and its digital contents, is one of the main elements affecting UX. With respect to this I focused on one of the most recent and promising approaches: the natural interaction, which is based on the idea that persons need to interact with technology in the same way they are used to interact with the real world in everyday life. Then, I focused on the problem of presenting, displaying and communicating contents. VLE represent an ideal presentation layer, being multiplatform hypermedia applications where users are free to interact with the virtual reconstructions by choosing their own visiting path. Cultural items, embedded into the environment, can be accessed by users according to their own curiosity and interests, with the support of narrative structures, which can guide them through the exploration of the virtual spaces, and conceptual maps, which help building meaningful connections between cultural items. Thus, VLE environments can even be seen as visual interfaces to DBs of cultural contents. Users can navigate the VE as if they were browsing the DB contents, exploiting both text-based queries and visual-based queries, provided by the re-contextualization of the objects into their original spaces, whose virtual exploration can provide new insights on specific elements and improve the awareness of relationships between objects in the database. Finally, I have explored the mobile dimension, which became absolutely relevant in the last period. Nowadays, off-the-shelf consumer devices as smartphones and tablets guarantees amazing computing capabilities, support for rich multimedia contents, geo-localization and high network bandwidth. Thus, mobile devices can support users in mobility and detect the user context, thus allowing to develop a plethora of location-based services, from way-finding to the contextualized communication of cultural contents, aimed at providing a meaningful exploration of exhibits and cultural or tourist sites according to visitors’ personal interest and curiosity

Analysing activities in the Portuguese secondary schools’ Science Learning Studios

The plan for the modernisation of the Portuguese secondary schools’ buildings, started in 2007 by Parque Escolar E.P.E, the sixth of this size since the beginning of the XXth century, established a new school building model with a priority intervention in the spaces for Science and Technology. The new model of schools’ Science spaces aims to support a variety of teaching strategies, linking theory and practice, aligning itself with the principles of the reform of secondary education and Science curricula. Unlike the Anglo-American model of Science learning spaces, formalised in a single laboratory for all classes with daily activities of observation and experimentation, the previous Portuguese model included both regular classrooms for lectures and laboratories for practical work, especially for students in secondary education. This separation of spaces corresponded to a separation of teaching strategies, with the first devoted mainly to instruction and problem solving, and the later to practical work, near its origins in the university model of Science teaching in the nineteenth century. This bipartite model contrasts with the new design, in line with the Learning Studios and classrooms/environments for active learning, a hybrid space to support instruction, practical work and multiple learning programmes. Taking advantage of the opportunity offered by the modernisation plan, this project proposed to investigate the attitudes and expectations of teachers about the new model of Science learning Studio as well as inquire about the current situation of teaching and learning activities in these new space

Influence of technology on social interaction and play in autistic children

The social and communication differences associated with autism can make engaging in social play difficult for autistic children. However, it has been suggested that digital technologies could motivate or inspire autistic children to communicate with other people and engage in collaborative play. This conflicts with the increasing concerns from parents and practitioners around the impact of technologies on social interaction in children and young people, which could be exacerbated in autistic children due to the aforementioned difficulties in social interaction. This thesis includes five studies which aim to explore whether and how technology can provide opportunities for autistic children to engage in social play with peers. Chapter 1 outlines the context and rationale for exploring the influence of technology on social play and interaction in autistic children. In neurotypical children, technology is likely to have small or negligible effects on social development. A number of studies have shown that features of technology, such as the interface and the software design, can encourage social interaction. Autism is associated with social differences and difficulties in social interaction, and a number of technologies have been designed to teach or mediate social interaction in autistic children, with relative success. A further number of studies have suggested that autistic children are more likely to engage in social play and interaction when using digital technologies. Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of key issues in autism research and justifies some of the research methodologies chosen in the remainder of the thesis. Chapter 3 explored how educational practitioners used technology in classrooms with autistic students. In an online survey, practitioners said that they more frequently used technology to teach social skills to autistic students, rather than to facilitate peer interactions. Respondents also said that technologies such as smart boards, tablets, and computers were used more widely than more recently developed technologies, such as tangibles and robotics. These results were followed up by focus groups, where practitioners highlighted that different features of interfaces made children more aware of social partners and could sometimes encourage or inhibit interactions depending on children’s social interaction style and technological preferences. According to practitioners, children who were interested in technology would be more likely to socially benefit from it, than others who were less interested in technology. Chapters 4 and 5 reported on a design-based research study, in collaboration with educational practitioners, to explore the influence of different technologies and classroom environments on children’s social interactions and play. The main finding was that children interacted differently both with technologies and with other people, and that different apps and technological interfaces produced unique patterns of social interactions. Children engaged in more social play with peers while using the iPad and Code-A-Pillar technologies, and more social play with adults while using Osmo. Novelty appeared to have the strongest environmental influence on social interactions in digital environments, even more than creating collaborative spaces and having practitioners directing children’s social play. Chapters 6 and 7 compared social play and joint engagement in pairs of children while they played with digital and non-digital toys and explored the effect of enforced collaboration. The results showed that children engaged in more social play and joint engagement when using digital toys. Enforcing collaboration led to more interactive play and joint engagement in both digital and non-digital conditions. This suggests that technology itself can strongly mediate social interaction in autistic children, perhaps more than the children’s own interests and social interaction styles. Together, the studies within this thesis highlight that there are many ways in which autistic children engage with other people while using digital technologies, and many opportunities to foster these interactions in classroom settings. In conclusion, as summarised in chapter 8, technologies do influence social interaction in autistic children, but so do children’s social interaction styles and preferences, the wider classroom environment including adult roles, and so do particular technological interfaces and software. In terms of how technology mediates interaction, it can provide a socially inclusive space where children can jointly engage with others on devices and activities which interest them, provide an engaging environment where others can scaffold interaction (i.e. practitioners), or the technology itself can mediate child-led interactions through children’s interests

Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 4: Learning, Technology, Thinking

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 4 includes papers from Learning, Technology and Thinking tracks of the conference

Social activities with offline tangibles at an interactive painting exhibit in a children's cultural centre

This paper describes an empirical study of a tangible interactive painting installation at a children's cultural centre. The study focuses on how social interactions are related to features of the interactive installation. The findings concern awareness and communication within groups, mediation of control through physical objects, how groups used tangibles outside of their turn with the installation to plan, negotiate and build up anticipation of their engagement with the exhibit. Interactions within groups as well as between the active 'operator' at an exhibit and the rest of the group are presented providing insights as to how the exhibit relates to the social context. Finally, we discuss how the findings could be used for future design of group interactive exhibits that aim to (1) support social engagement such as planning, sharing experiences and discussions, (2) engage children with the exhibit topic outside of their interaction with the system and (3) foster children's anticipation of their interaction with the exhibit. Providing offline tangibles was found to extend engagement with the exhibit and support social interactions.</p

Social activities with offline tangibles at an interactive painting exhibit in a children's cultural centre

This paper describes an empirical study of a tangible interactive painting installation at a children's cultural centre. The study focuses on how social interactions are related to features of the interactive installation. The findings concern awareness and communication within groups, mediation of control through physical objects, how groups used tangibles outside of their turn with the installation to plan, negotiate and build up anticipation of their engagement with the exhibit. Interactions within groups as well as between the active 'operator' at an exhibit and the rest of the group are presented providing insights as to how the exhibit relates to the social context. Finally, we discuss how the findings could be used for future design of group interactive exhibits that aim to (1) support social engagement such as planning, sharing experiences and discussions, (2) engage children with the exhibit topic outside of their interaction with the system and (3) foster children's anticipation of their interaction with the exhibit. Providing offline tangibles was found to extend engagement with the exhibit and support social interactions

Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 2: Living, Making, Value

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 2 includes papers from Living, Making and Value tracks of the conference