Mapping scenario (8th graders' postvisit to a science museum)

Summary

Students use the museum website to access the content (tags, video, comments) they collected with the museum's in-house mobile device during an earlier visit.

Who are the actors involved?

• Young Students ages 13-14 in a group of three.

• Teacher (to approve of students web content)

Where?

This scenario takes place in the classroom using a computer for additional research.  This includes the exhibits on CERN and the automobile collection in the museum.

What technologies are used?

Museum website contains login with username and password, where users can view itineraries of previously completed museum visits, and any video, audio or pictures they've made in the museum.

An interactive map and exhibit pages allow users to see what exhibits they have visited and what artifacts are favorited or tagged.

Museum website contains wiki pages which can be allotted to schools and classes.

Wiki space supports wiki style interaction and collaboration.  The museum is able to allot wiki space to schools and classrooms where they are free to edit their own pages, and add their own content and research.

Main Action

        The students meet in their classroom to research and compile the information they have gathered on their project on CERN.  They must complete their report of a wiki page.  They wish to start their work by reviewing the information from their previous trip to the CERN exhibit at their local science museum.  The students log on to the museum website through their web browser and see their itinerary in agenda view.  The agenda view marks which museum exhibits they have visited and when, as well as all the content they added during their visit.  Now they have a clear picture of the temporal order of events of their previous visit.  This allows them to recall a great deal about what they learnt in their visit.  They can see the exact times they tagged items and added videos or pictures they have created. 

        They recall looking at a particularly helpful museum artifact which explains the difference between protons and neutrons. They don't remember when they saw the artifact, but they remember where.  They switch the itinerary view from "agenda" to "floor plan and they see a lay out of the exhibition space with the artifacts and marks indicating where they recorded video and audio, and took pictures. On the map, they find an artifact they have favorited during their museum visit which explains the three different sub atomic particles: protons neutrons, and electrons.  They expand the details of this artifact on the map, and they can now see additional information added by the museum, including links to further articles on the subject and bibliographic entries for the exhibit.  The students explore the links on the electron and learn the historical anecdotes about its discovery.  This information was not relevant in the museum, but it is relevant for their project, and they are pleased that the museum's website has made it easy to find.

        They return back to the floor plan of the exhibit.  They see an artifact on the map which explains how the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.  They don't plan to address this subject in their presentation because they believe it is not very relevant to their assignment and they believe it would be more relevant to another group's work.  They want to be sure.  They add a comment to the LHC artifact on the floor plan map which says, "Are you going to talk about this or should we?" and then they add the other group's name as a tag to the comment.  Adding the group's name is simple because the system displays the list of other groups and other students in the class.  They select the group from the list.  The group will now be notified upon login that someone has shared an artifact with them.  This group will look at their own floor plan, and they will be able to see the other group's comment among their own content.

        The students decide it is time to add the information they have been researching to their wiki.  They add their text content and they now wish to upload a video of them talking about protons and neutrons that they made in the museum, because it would complement the content of the wiki very well.  When adding content, they are able to browse a list of all the media that they have uploaded.  The video files are grouped together and they easily select the right one because each video is tagged with the name of the artifact that is associated with it.

        After two hours of work, they have finished editing their wiki page and they submit it for approval.  Publishing on the WWW occurs when the students submit and the teacher approves of the material.  Their report is successfully published on the wiki and the students have completed their assignment for class.