Education Week March 2014The other is me - Telematic Treasure Hunt at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem

March 2014 The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, together with the Directorate of Computers in Educational Administration, in the Jerusalem Municipality and the Department of Information Technology in the Ministry of Education launched a challenging treasure hunt where elementary school students from 12 schools from around Jerusalem sought out their ‘treasure’ in an exciting game that took place throughout the Museum campus.

The treasure hunt took place simultaneously in the school and in the Museum with the class-based students directing their representatives in the Museum to the eight treasures located in the galleries by using the Google Art Project.

As the students received their first clue that appeared on their specially built digital platform, (LINOIT), they dispatched their representatives in the Museum – between 3-5 students accompanied by an adult – to the specific location in the gallery.

The Museum team’s role was to take a photo of the object using their Android tablet and send it in by email to be uploaded into the game’s dedicated Google+ gallery as ‘proof’ of their discovery.

Meanwhile, the classroom-located students had to answer specific questions about the artwork and upload their answers into the system.

Only after the class replied correctly to the first set of questions and the successful upload of the Museum’s team’s ‘proof’ of finding the art in the gallery did the system release the next of the eight challenges. (The “system” being the dedicated Municipality staff who managed the game from the operation center in the Museum New Media Center).

At this point in the game, the Museum-based students came back to a central point in the Museum to receive an envelope with the first printed word of the full sentence they would need in order to complete the game.

The telematic challenge took place during Education Week and was inspired by the message “The other is me”. As the game moved forward, and as each team found the correct solutions and posted the correct photo, further words were added to eventually come together to make up the sentence "Sometimes I am similar, other times I am different but at all times I am equal”.

The game took place in both Hebrew and Arabic according to school’s requirements, but all the students seemed to be competent enough in English to be able to use the maps and explanations in GAP to send their friends scrambling around the galleries and Art Garden.

After many hours of intrepid excitement the winning team received their prize from Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat in the presence of Moshe Tur-Paz, Director, Jerusalem Education Administration (MANHI) and National ICT Supervisor in the Ministry of Education, Ronit Nehemiah. The ceremony was webcast to the schools in real-time so that all of the students could ‘take part’ in the celebration.

See the photos

Dr. Susan Hazan, Curator of New Media, Lihi Sapir, Curator of the Resnick Art Education Training Center Neta Cohen, Head of Productions and Events Department, The Israel Museum, JerusalemNeomi Schey, Director, Viki Agami and Etty Rosen Directorate of Computers in Educational Administration, the Jerusalem Municipality