This presentation will contribute to the discussion about the role of social and mobile technologies in museum learning. It draws on a research project, which explores the use of social and mobile technologies in school trips to museums. It is concerned with meanings made during a history class’ (29 students, 13-14 years old) visit to the Museum of London and how these are communicated both face-to-face and online. The focus of the presentation is on data collected from a group of students; content generated online (i.e. photos and comments posted on Twitter), video data and interview data are presented with an aim to provide descriptions and interpretations of things experienced during the visit. It was found that, no matter how well structured a visit design is, a visit entails ‘unpredictability’. We will argue that this effect was ‘enhanced’ in this particular visit partly due to the nature of the visit (i.e. self-regulated and use of technologies) and partly due to online posts on Twitter, with implications on how participants’ meaning-making trajectories were developed. Analysis highlights the value of recognising and valuing the “situated and improvisatory nature” (Kerawalla et al. 2012, p. 10) of a museum visit and therefore, an argument put forward is that there is a scope to celebrate ‘serendipity’ when designing and organising school visits to a museum.

1. 1
CALRG 2013
12 June 2013
Of serendipity, improvisation and mobile technologies
in museums
Koula Charitonos
k.charitonos@open.ac.uk

2. 2

3. 3Lindsay, G. Engineering Serendipity. New York Times Published April 5, 2013
Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/opinion/sunday/engineering-serendipity.html?_r=0

4. 4
Silverman, R. E., Office Trends from SXSW: Serendipity is the new Synergy. Wall Street Journal. Published March 13, 2013
Available: http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2013/03/13/sxsw-austin-workplace-trends-serendipity-is-the-new-synergy/

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• fortunate accidental discovery
• a ‘happy accident’
• pleasant surprise
• the importance of unexpected connections
Serendipity

6. 9
Study:’Fight and Protest for your rights’
• Museum of London
• Year 9 History class (n=29)
• KS3 Scheme of Work ‘Equality and Beliefs’ (‘Civil Rights’)
• Pre- and Post-visit Classroom activities
© Museum of London

7. 7
Research Question
How does the use of social and mobile technologies by young
people before, during and after a school visit to a museum
contribute to a student’s learning trajectory and facilitate meaning
making processes?

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Design: Trajectory of class activities
ACTIVITY
SETTING
CLASSROOM/
ICT SUITE
MUSEUM
E-LEARNING
STUDIO/MUS
EUM
BUS
CLASSROOM
/
ICT SUITE
INTERVIEW
ROOM
OBJECT
Communication within,
between and beyond
institutions (face-to-
face and online)
Communication
within the
institution
(face-to-face and
online)
upload pictures
start presentation
Create a
short clip to
reflect on
the
experience
Communication within
the institution (face-to-
face and online)
Reflect on the
activities and the
overall experience
TOOLS/R
ESOURC
ES
pen/paper
PCs
online platforms
iPhones
MoL website
textbooks
images
exhibits
labels
Twitter/tweets
iPhones/camera
pen/pencil
recorder
booklet
museum map
iPhones
PCs
images
online platforms
(Twitter/Vuvox)
flip camera
online platforms
(Twitter/Vuvox)
images (from museum)
tweets
paper
post-its
iPhones
pen/paper
recorder
Twitter-stream
pen/paper
meaning maps
PEOPLE individual/
in groups
in groups in groups individual
individual/
in groups
individual
time
(diagram adopted by Steier & Pierroux, 2011)

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Visit: Museum of London
• Visit Logistics
–8 groups in threes/fours
–worksheet
–recorder with a microphone
–iPhones (3G/3GS)
–Twitter/TweetDeck and specific
hashtags
• Learning Objectives:
–Investigate an inquiry
–Select and interpret objects
–Communicate knowledge and understanding to an audience

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Data collected
Pre - visit Visit Post - visit
pre-test questionnaire
entry meaning map
online posts on Twitter
observation (notes,
video)
pictures/video by
participants
group audio files
worksheets
post-test questionnaire
exit meaning map
individual videos (bus)
online posts on Twitter
classroom observation
video collages on Vuvox
online posts on Twitter
observation (notes,
pictures, video)
interviews

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Analysis of video data
• Focus is to document and track the meanings made
across events and the role of technologies in mediating
this
• Three levels of analysis:
– Flow Charts
– Significant Events
– Dialogic Analysis
• Ash, D. (2007): Using Video Data to capture Discontinuous Science Meaning Making in
Nonschool settings three levels analysis In. Goldman, R., Pea, R., Barron, B., and Derry,
J. S. (eds) Video Research in the Learning Sciences LEA: Mahwah, NJ

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• a camera/bluetooth following the group
• one iPhone
• Visit’s agenda: 1. People’s City Gallery 2. Expanding City
Gallery - World City Gallery
• Inquiry: ‘Which methods do people use to remove
inequalities in society?’
Kevin
Adele
Heather

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Episode 1: Unpredictability
• Exhibit: two glass floor displays
– They didn’t put it on the floor for nothing, would they?
– They would have had barriers around it, would they?
– Does it feel it’s gonna break?
– Who would cross it?
– Initially small steps on it to check, then all crossed it twice.

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Episode 2:
Significant Event: ‘Heather’s found new love’
Significant Event: ‘Heather’s found new love’

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Episode 2: Significant Event
Significant Event: Second tweet Segment 2
H. Take a picture of me, I’m in
love with him!
A. OK
(Heather poses. Adele takes a
picture, Kevin observes)
K. There you go!
H.Tweet that!
(Heather laughs)
K. Oh, Heather’s found new
love!
H. Yeah...
K. (laughs)
A: (laughs)

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Adele
Heather’s

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Episode 3
Significant Event: “Heather should know, I don’t know’
Significant Event: “Heather should know, I don’t know’

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Episode 3:
Significant Event: ‘Heather should know, I don’t know’
Significant Event: ‘Heather should know, I don’t know’
Significant Event: Photo Album
K. This is like, like…Wait, what’s this?
A. We are supposed to touch this?
K. Yeah …..
(both of them turn the pages of the album)
Is this like the…Black…Civil rights
or something?
(Heather & Rebecca join – all look at the
display in front of them)
H. This is about Black people (…?)
K. Like you…
(Heather looks at him)
I mean into our country.
H. Black people like meeee, you know! A
couple from knowing you…
(H. & R. look at the album, K. moves in the
back)
K. oh, ok, alright! So this is when…their rights
started coming in, like muslims?
(A and K. head into the Changing London)
K. Heather should know this. I, I don’t know…

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Episode 4
Significant Event: ‘Mayor’s Carriage
Significant Event: ‘Mayor’s Carriage

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• Q. “Looking back at the tweets, do you see any value having
them?
• “Yeah, you see a lot of people what they thought about
different things and some bits are just comments on
what other people have put, but a lot of (name of a
student) were very detailed as well, and it really, I think
that helped me to go and find the places [...] I think at
one point the people were just saying, like, especially
with the carriage, they didn’t really READ [emphasizes]
the information that was on the [part of it, label?] they
were just putting “Oh, look there’s a carriage”.But I think,
like, other people were like “Oh, no, no, no, actually if
you read it it says this and then “Oh, then I’ll go and look
at that again [...]” 22
Interview Data

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Interview Data
“I remember we split into groups of three and we were going around
and we were looking at different artefacts in the museum...and
putting on twitter about what we thought and where it would be for
other people to (comment and come and look), what we thought it
would be interesting and emmm...what we thought other people
would be interested in”
[Interview, Kevin asked to recall the visit ]

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• Q. ‘Has the use of technologies made you feel any differently or
strongly about looking at objects?’
• “Yes, it’s made me a look at something a lot differently. I think it
made me read more of the [labels] that go with it and more of
what was around [...] You see something else in the corner of your
eye and it will make you go ‘Oh, I could see something good out
there and I could put it on twitter and then it will (out of sudden)
make you read more around the museum...”
Interview Data

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Interview Data
• Do you think you behaved differently during this visit than you
normally behave in school visits?
• “I think we did, because we were trying to think of things we could
put up on Twitter [...] we were trying to think of what we could put
on and we couldn’t think of what we wanted to say [...]”

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Findings
• No stops to objects related to women’s movement or black civil
rights (apart from one) = interrupted trajectory
• BUT
• positive experience
• showed commitment in exploring the galleries
• popular activity: Posing by exhibits and taking pictures
• selections: personal interests; prior-knowledge; serendipitous
browsing; the social environment; distributing content
• Interpretation of their environment through the use of tools and
resources, through their dialogue with others, through their
comments, gestures and by improvising
• informal experience, open to what the museum had to offer =
Floating Visit
26

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• Perceived aim of visit: finding objects that are interesting and
appealing to other students - attentive in observing and
discovering exciting objects and evaluating information -
acknowledge of an audience
• Use tweets and pictures to resource and communicate their
meaning making in this trip - ‘Improvisatory
performance?’(Kerawalla et al. 2012)
• Kerawalla, L., et al., Doing Geography: A multimodal analysis of students' situated improvisational interpretation
during fieldtrips, Learning, Culture and Social Interaction (2012), doi:10.1016/j.lcsi.2012.05.001
27
Findings

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Thoughts
• Established practices associated to use of new media have
shaped this visit and transformed expectations
• Students used a range of resources and dialogue to resource
meaning making.
• Recognise the ‘unpredictable’ and value the “situated and
improvisatory nature” (Kerawalla et al. 2012) of a museum visit
• Scope to celebrate ‘serendipity’ when designing and organising
school visits to a museum.
• Yet, this group’s serendipitous browsing resulted in interrupted
trajectory. How we shape serendipity for learning and
continuous meaning making? 28

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Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
koula.charitonos@open.ac.uk
@ch_koula

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PhD Comics. Available at: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive_list.php

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Why ?
• most popular micro-blogging service
• research has shown that it can be used as an educational
tool (Elavsky et al. 2011, Junco et al. 2010)
• synchronous and asynchronous attributes
• simple interface (web and iPhone application)
• updates in users’ status in UK can be carried out using
SMS
• not a ‘distractive’ technology (?)
• popular among museums