Giasemi N. Vavoula

University of Leicester | LE · School of Museum Studies

We present an exploratory case study of the nature and role of Intermediary Design Deliverables (IDDs) in digital exhibition design. Specifically, how they mediate boundary crossing across museum-designer teams; and facilitate the evolution of a shared exhibition-idea by mediating future and embodying past processes of consent. We bring together li...

This paper presents the development and evaluation of a mobile app for families visiting a science museum in Thailand. The app was designed to help adults in family groups to support children's learning during the visit while learning about new science concepts and ideas themselves. The design of the app was based on a family learning needs analysi...

The paper explores the use of digital storytelling in the classroom to frame inquiry-based learning with digital museum collections. It presents the final in a series of three interventions that were part of doctoral research that tested the DiStoMusInq framework. The intervention involved a class of 15-16-years-old students at an international sch...

This is the author’s final draft of the paper published as International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 2007, 2 (4), pp. 393-419. The final published version is available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/1556-1607 , Doi: 10.1007/s11412-007-9026-0. We describe the future technology workshop (FTW), a method whereby people...

Most adults and adolescents in developed countries now own mobile phones and media devices, and for many people in developing countries a mobile phone can offer the only means of sending long distance messages. In a parallel development to the spread of personal technology, since the early 1980s schools, colleges and universities have experimented...

Remote and virtual engagements during the pandemic changed how visitors interact with the science centre. In its aftermath, we are left with new digital tools at our disposal to shape experiences that blend digital and physical interactions and deepen visitor engagement. How well equipped are science centre staff to take advantage of these possibil...

Digital technology is increasingly used in museums for collaboration and exchange of ideas among organizations. This paper explores how co-creating digital biographies of displaced objects can unpack the multilayered meanings and values that were imparted on these objects by the sociocultural contexts they encountered. Previous research has shown t...

When young people go to a science centre as part of a school visit, they can be very engaged with the interactive exhibits. They are called to ‘find out for themselves’ through playing with exhibits. While turning a dial, lifting a lever, or rolling a wheel increase the interactivity of the science centre experience, and thereby increase enjoyment,...

Human-Centred Design approaches in museums give rise to a new, digital cultural heritage design practice by refocusing design from the (digital) technology on to the (digitally-enhanced) visitor experience and requiring involvement in design from both designers and non-designers. This practice is foregrounded as central within a wider landscape of...

We report findings from the survey “School Visits Post-Lockdown” by the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. We surveyed museum educators and other museum professionals who are involved in the planning and/or delivery of school visits. The survey aimed to understand the new contexts in which schools and museums are called to continue...

This paper presents an investigation into the impact of integrating Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons in mobile guide applications in heritage sites. We present findings from the evaluation of a BLE beacon app, with visitors at a historic building in the UK midlands. Our development and evaluation framework focused on the visitor experience, particularl...

Full text of this item is not currently available on the LRA. The final published version is available from http://www.uk.sagepub.com.

Leicester Castle Tells its Story was conceived as a potential technological solution to a heritage interpretation challenge in a Grade I listed building without permanent staff and where opening hours and budgets were limited. This scenario is replicated in hundreds of heritage buildings across the country and so the project was developed as a cost...

This paper presents work-in-progress on the design and integration of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon-based mobile interpretation in historic buildings, and the ways in which it can impact the visitor experience. The session will discuss generic interpretation requirements as they emerged from visitor research, literature reviews, and consultatio...

A report summarising the findings of the TEL programme in the wider context of technology-enhanced learning and offering recommendations for future strategy in the area was launched on 13th June at the House of Lords to a group of policymakers, technologists and practitioners chaired by Lord Knight. The report is available at http://tel.ioe.ac.uk...

Full text of this item is not currently available on the LRA. The final published version is available at http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/Article.aspx?TitleId=2755, Doi: 10.4018/jmbl.2009010102. This article was also published as Kukulska-Hulme, A., Sharples, M., Milrad, M., Arnedillo-Sanchez, I., and Vavoula, G. (2008). Innovizione nel mobile...

In the past two decades, European researchers have conducted many significant mobile learning projects. The chapter explores how these projects have arisen and what each one has contributed, so as to show the driving forces and outcomes of European innovation in mobile learning. The authors identify context as a central construct in European resear...

We propose six challenges in evaluating mobile learning: capturing and analysing learning in context and across contexts, measuring mobile learning processes and outcomes, respecting learner/participant privacy, assessing mobile technology utility and usability, considering the wider organisational and socio-cultural context of learning, and assess...

This paper presents a description and evaluation of Myartspace, a service on mobile phones for inquiry-led learning that allows students to gather information during a school field trip which is automatically sent to a website where they can view, share and present it, back in the classroom or at home.The evaluation focused on three levels: a micro...

Full text of this item is not currently available on the LRA. The final published version is available at http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/Article.aspx?TitleId=4058, Doi: 10.4018/jmbl.2009040104. We propose six challenges in evaluating mobile learning: capturing and analyzing learning in context and across contexts, measuring mobile learning pro...

Full text of this item is not currently available on the LRA. The final published version is available from http://www.peterlang.com.

Full text of this item is not currently available on the LRA. The final published version is available from http://www.klidarithmos.gr/index.php?target=products&product_id=31831.

Over the past 10 years mobile learning has grown from a minor research interest to a set of significant projects in schools, workplaces, museums, cities and rural areas around the world. Each project has shown how mobile technology can offer new opportunities for learning that extend within and beyond the traditional teacher-led classroom. Yet, the...

Learning with mobile technologies is an emerging field with a developing research agenda and many questions surrounding the suitability of traditional research methods to investigate and evaluate the new learning experiences associated with mobility and support for increasingly informal learning. This book sets out the issues and requirements for m...

Full text of this item is not currently available on the LRA. The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com, Doi: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9827-7. Over the past 10 years mobile learning has grown from a minor research interest to a set of significant projects in schools, workplaces, museums, cities and rural areas around the world. Each p...

The biggest trend in museum exhibit design today is the creative incorporation of technology. Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience: Handheld Guides and Other Media explores the potential of mobile technologies (cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, PDAs) for visitor interaction and learning in museums, drawing on established practice...

This paper was presented at the 6th Annual Conference on Mobile Learning, mLearn 2007, Melbourne, Australian, 16–19 October 2007 and is published in the conference proceedings. We report the main findings of the final evaluation study of the MyArtSpace project. MyArtSpace is a combined mobile phone and web-based service to support learning between...

Full text of this item is not currently available on the LRA. The final published version is available from http://www.altamirapress.com.

We describe the Future Technology Workshop (FTW), developed by the authors and colleagues at the University of Birmingham and the Open University, UK, in which people with knowledge or experience in an area of technology use, explore and design the interactions between current and future technology and activity. Through a series of structured works...

A project called MyArtSpace, funded by the UK Department for Culture Media and Sport, is today exploring how children can engage in similar enquiry-led learning supported by mobile technology and how this can link to school and home learning. Using MyArtSpace as an example, we discuss the possibilities for mobile technology to form bridges between...

This is the final publisher edited version of the paper published as Vavoula, G., & Sharples, M. (2009). Lifelong Learning Organisers: Requirements for tools for supporting episodic and semantic learning. Educational Technology & Society, 12 (3), 82–97. This version was first published at http://www.ifets.info/others/abstract.php?art_id=958. We pro...

This is the author’s final draft of the paper published as Educational Technology, 2007, XLVII (3), pp. 33-36. The final published version is available from http://asianvu.com/bookstoread/etp/. In 1963 the science fiction writer Brian Aldiss wrote a short story for a children’s science annual about a world, thirty years in the future, where childre...

MyArtSpace is a service on mobile phones for enquiry-led museum learning. It enables students to create their own interpretations of museum visits through descriptions of objects, images and sounds. These are automatically transmitted to a personal online gallery that they can use to reflect upon and share their experience. This paper describes the...

This is the author’s final draft of the paper published as International Journal of Learning Technology, 2006, 2 (2/3), pp. 138-158. The final published version is available at http://www.inderscience.com, Doi: 10.1504/IJLT.2006.010616. Our approach to understanding mobile learning begins by describing a dialectical approach to the development and...

Pre-print available by permission of the publisher on LSRI's website.

This paper reviews existing applications of mobile learning, and discusses some design issues for the development of mobile learning experiences.

There is a need to re-conceptualise learning for the mobile age, to recognise the essential role of mobility and communication in the process of learning, and also to indicate the importance of context in establishing meaning, and the transformative effect of digital networks in supporting virtual communities that transcend barriers of age and cult...

Public deliverable from the MOBILearn project (D.4.1)

This report combines: a literature review of work on mobile learning in informal science settings, a report on empirical work on mobile learning in each of the partners, and guidelines on context-awareness.

We review the research on mobile learning and theories of learning in order to produce a pedagogically sound set of guidelines for learners, teachers, and policy makers who are considering adopting m-learning technology. The guidelines are not primarily intended as requirements for systems design, but they will be of use to systems designers, in al...

We propose an educational metadata schema for use with mobile learning. The development of metadata schemas has been at the core of the learning technology standardisation process. These proposals have been aimed at conventional elearning on a desktop computer in a formal training and teaching environment. Our aim has been to specify a metadata sch...

Mobile learning as a concept has come about through the availability of mobile technologies. A number of questions about the phenomenon of mobile learning are raised: how does mobile learning integrate with other learning activities? When in the day does it happen and where? What does it relate to? What portion of everyday learning does it constitu...

Not available

"September 2003." Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Birmingham, 2003. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 236-242). Photocopy.

This is the final publisher edited version of the paper published as Naismith, L., Lonsdale, P., Vavoula, G., Sharples, M. ‘Mobile technologies and learning’ in Futurelab Literature Review Series, Report No 11, (© Futurelab 2004). This version was first published at http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/literature-revi...

The Future Technology Workshop is a method for the design of future socio-technical systems. It builds upon existing participatory design techniques and provides a way of exploring the interactions between technologies and activities, now and in the future. The method has been applied to the design of future imaging technologies for children. Proto...

KLeOS is a Knowledge and Learning Organisation System which reflects the hierarchical organisation of learning into activities, episodes and projects (Tough, 1971; Vavoula & Sharples, 2002), and allows the user to organize and manage their learning experiences and resources as a visual timeline, while at the same time visualising their episodic lea...

The design of a personal, mobile Knowledge and Learning Organisation System (KLeOS) is described. Studies of adult learning practice showed that learning activity is mobile between locations, time slots, and topic areas. Moreover, learning follows a hierarchical organisation at three operational levels: learning activities are discrete acts, which...

We propose a set of general requirements for the design of Lifelong Learning Organisers (LLOs), based on our studies of personal learning practices. The studies showed [1] that learning activity is mobile between locations, time slots, and topic areas. Moreover, learning follows a hierarchical organization at three operational levels: learning acti...

A method for the design of future socio-technical systems, the Future Technology Workshop, is described. The method builds upon existing participatory design techniques to propose a way of transcending the participants' bias and preconceived notions of existing technologies and encourage them to postulate future forms and uses of technology, by emp...

A phenomenological study of personal experiential learning was conducted. This informed a descriptive Framework of Lifelong Learning (FoLL) which describes four facets of lifelong learning: the learner, the organisation of learning, the process for carrying out learning projects, and the breakdowns that occur during, or because of, learning. The Fo...