Crossing over settings, practices and experiences: connecting learning in museums and classrooms

This chapter considers the potential of social and mobile technologies—and particularly of a microblogging technology—to support connections between formal and informal learning experiences. It particularly looks at the crossover between experiences in the classroom and the museum with a purpose to understand the relationship between a particular technology and how it elicits new forms of interactions that may support learning across settings. The chapter offers an empirical investigation that examines the use of a microblogging technology (Twitter) by a Year 9 History class (13-14s) from a secondary school in Milton Keynes during a trip to the Museum of London (http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/). It draws the concept of 'mobile pedagogy' (Kukulska-Hulme et al., 2015) to examine designs and pedagogies in the classroom with a purpose to address one specific challenge, namely the need to understand and promote learning across school and out-of-school contexts. Addressing this challenge is important for researchers and practitioners who are interested in connecting classroom learning and out of classroom learning spaces in order to create rich and holistic learning experiences for the students