Athens Augmented: Mobile learning for the

Parthenon sculptures

Shelley Mannion @smannion The British Museum

#mw2014April 4, 2014

18 months 2 projects 1 baby

Celebrating Athens

Porting a traditional worksheet

Gift for Athena

Game play

AR

Self-facilitated

Deliver on strategy

Pediment

Metopes

Frieze

Tested with more than 250 childrenInformalFrequentVaried techniques

Evaluation

What did we learn?

Analogue versus digital:Technology is exciting and motivating, but it comes with problems.

What is the character of your artworks?

Children didn’t like ‘broken’ sculptures.

Archaeological fragments in Destination Culture by Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

Where layers were noticed.

Wayfinding: Some clues are

more equal than others

Working together

Big screen does not mean more users

Friendship groups

Encourage turn-taking

Gift for Athena:Children liked linear

narrative, but wanted freedom in using game

elements.

Augmented Reality was ideal, but 3D recognition logistically tricky.

We get to see something in the sculptures that other people cannot see.

– Elsie (23 Oct 2014)

3D recognition complicated by height,

position, lighting, crowding.

Challenge of self-facilitation

Test to refine wayfinding

Separate instructions from content

Conceal text and offer drill down for verbal learners

Positive reinforcement from

game characters

Main findings

Informal testing

Contours of the content

Effective clues and cues for wayfinding

Collaborative working on tablets

Using AR in galleries

Designing for self-facilitation