SunDial: embodied informal science education using GPS

Autor: Megan K. Halpern, Max Evjen, Dan Cosley, Michael Lin, Stephen Tseou, Erica Horowitz, Tejaswi Peesapati, Geri Gay
Jazyk: Danish<br />English
Rok vydání: 2010
Předmět:
Zdroj: MedieKultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research, Vol 27, Iss 50 (2010)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 0900-9671
1901-9726
Popis: Science centers serve a number of goals for visitors, ideally providing experiences that are educational, social, and meaningful. This paper describes SunDial, a handheld application developed for families to use at a science center. Inspired by the idea of geocaching, the high-tech treasure hunting game that utilizes GPS technologies, SunDial asks families to use a single handheld device to locate and participate in a series of learning modules around the museum. Observations of 10 families suggest that it supports rich informal science education experiences, provides insights about families’ interaction patterns around and with single handheld devices, and demonstrates the value of navigation as an educational experience. Further, using recently released guidelines for Informal Science Education (ISE) experiences to inform the design process proved valuable, tying features of the technology to educational and social goals, and giving evidence that explicit reference to these guidelines can improve ISE experiences and technologies.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals