Engaging visitors of archaeological sites through ‘emotive’ storytelling experiences: a pilot at the Ancient Agora of Athens

The use of interactive storytelling by museums and heritage sites lends to the creation of experiences that support visitors in engaging emotionally with the objects on display. Finding ways to connect to the cultural content is even more important for visitors of archaeological sites due to the often fragmentary nature of the exhibits, which can leave them wondering what was once there and how it relates to them. In this paper, we describe the creation of a prototype mobile storytelling experience that attempts to explore a more emotive kind of storytelling in cultural contexts. The prototype was evaluated in a preliminary study that took place at the archaeological site of the Ancient Agora of Athens. The observations provide insights for the design of future iterations of such emotive storytelling experiences

Interactivity and learning: Examining primary school children's activity within virtual environments

The two essential properties of a virtual reality (VR) experience, especially in entertainment and in formal learning applications, are immersion and interactivity---each of which is advertised widely to attract and motivate participants. In particular, it is commonly considered that a learning environment is more effective if it is interactive. However, little systematic research has been available to substantiate this assumption and no clear evidence has existed that interactive virtual environments (VEs) can bring "added value" to learning, especially in children. This research investigates user interaction in virtual reality learning environments, focusing on the role and the effect of interactivity on learning and change in conceptual understanding. The goal has been to examine whether children learn by interacting in an immersive VE, i.e. exploring, reacting to, and acting upon events. In this research, empirical studies were carried out with 60 primary school students (ages 8 -12), in a number of different studies. An exploratory study was carried out to test the methodology and prepare for the main study. The main study, a large scale experiment, was conducted with a VE designed to simu late a 'virtual playground', which focused on a presentation of problems in mathematical fractions (such as ordering fractions). Three conditions---an interactive VR, a passive (or guided) VR, and a non-VR condition using LEGO bricks---each with different levels of activity and interactivity, were designed to evaluate how children accomplish the various conceptual tasks. Pre-tests, post-tests, interviews, video, and computer activity logs were collected for each participant, and analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Qualitatively, the descriptive framework of Activity Theory was used to analyse user be haviour in the immersive VR environments and to identify conceptual contradictions, i.e. the occurrence of critical incidents, focus shifts or breaks in the elements of the learner's activity that led to indications of the learner's construction of meaning. The results indicate that activity based on the cues or feedback provided by the VE led participants to complete the tasks successfully in the interactive VR condition compared to the non-VR condition. Interactivity aided in promoting skill and problem solving and provided opportunities for contradictions to emerge. However, interactivity did not necessarily lead to resolution of these contradictions nor did it ensure that, if resolution was made, this was at the conceptual level. On the other hand, the passive VR form of experience, where the tasks were performed by a virtual robot observed throughout by the participant, showed the potential to support resolution of contradictions in a way that encouraged reflection of the underlying conceptual learning problems. This guided form of interaction, rather than the fully interactive condition, provided evidence of sustained conceptual change

Many-body state and dynamic behaviour of the pair-correlation function of a small Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a ring potential

We investigate the many-body state and the static and the dynamic behaviour of the pair-correlation function of a Bose-Einstein condensate with a finite atom number, which is confined in a quasi-one-dimensional toroidal/annular potential, both for repulsive, and for attractive interactions. We link the dynamic pair-correlation function that we evaluate with the problem of quantum time crystals. For weak repulsive interatomic interactions and a finite number of atoms the pair-correlation function shows a periodic temporal behaviour, which disappears in the limit of a large atom number, in agreement with general arguments. Finally we provide some insight into older results of attractive interactions, where the time-crystalline behaviour exists only in the limit of a large atom number.Comment: Revised version, accepted for publicatio

Hysteresis and metastability of Bose-Einstein condensed clouds of atoms confined in ring potentials

We consider a Bose-Einstein condensed cloud of atoms which rotate in a toroidal/annular potential. Assuming one-dimensional motion, we evaluate the critical frequencies associated with the effect of hysteresis and the critical coupling for stability of the persistent currents. We perform these calculations using both the mean-field approximation and the method of numerical diagonalization of the many-body Hamiltonian which includes corrections due to the finiteness of the atom number.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, section on experimental relevance added, final versio

Families and mobile devices in museums: designing for integrated experiences

This paper presents an observational study of eight families engaging with a bespoke tablet experience produced for a space science centre. It documents the various ways in which family members orientate themselves to the usage of technology in this environment, with a particular focus on the work done to manage the tablet and facilitate the engagement of younger children with the narrative of the experience. These findings are considered in the broader context of the need to design experiences that cater for engagement by families as a whole. We conclude by motivating the need for technologies that are robust in light of regular disengagement and by family members, and which provide functionality to directly support facilitation work