News from OOKL, a new way of looking

We have been scurrying away in the lab over summer and are pleased to announce that you can now export OOKL presentations to powerpoint. This means that students can now take photos, collect venue objects and record sounds on the mobile and press one button to download all their memories to a single powerpoint file that they can then adapt to support future course work. We think that’s pretty cool. I’ve attached a sample powerpoint presentation which you can compare with the online version. More power(point) to the people!

OOKL is teaming up with the education team at Whipsnade Zoo, part of the Zoological Society of London, to help young people engage with the animal world and have fun too. Did you know that european bears can run thirty miles an hour and climb trees too…

OOKL has introduced a new feature that helps venues to create digital content for their collections. How? Log onto an OOKL mobile phone with your curator password. Take a picture of an object. Describe it. Save. Repeat for more objects

Now log onto the website and look in ‘my store’. For each object press copy to ‘venue store’ and finish editing. Save. OOKL will automatically assign each one a code that you can attach to the object.

Job well done – have a cup of tea.

OOKL will be used by the North East Museums Hub to support learning at Laing Art Gallery, Hartlepool Museum and the Beamish Museum.

In the Guardian, Richard Needham, chair-elect of the Association for Science Education, discusses how the challenge of furthering the use of ICT in science teaching lies not in improving teachers’ technology skills but in changing their attitudes.

“The bigger challenge is to pass on the control of technology to the pupils, giving them responsibility for the pace and direction of their learning,” he says, citing OOKL as an ‘exciting’ example of how this is taking place in schools.

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8 June 2009 : London

Museums etc is organising a seminar on how mobile technology is being used in practice in museums.

The day will consist of two related parts. The morning session will introduce participants to a range of current learning options using mobile technology, and provide in-depth, research-based feedback about its effectiveness in the learning process within museums, galleries and heritage organisations.

The afternoon session will be held at the National Maritime Museum where participants will hear and see first-hand how OOKL is being successfully used; the Museum will also be sharing the results of recently commissioned research; and, finally, participants will themselves be able to use the technology in a museum context.

For more details about the seminar click here

Heaton primary school in bradford have developed a simple three stage tool to help teachers get the most from OOKL.

The first step gets the teachers to activate their class. Start by getting them to question or investigate their surroundings. Find five things that show life in the victorian era, ask others what they like about the forest, how would you advertise your school, create a sound map of the wood, tell others about what you did in the local village, record the making of a shelter…

The next step is to help students to collect observations and evidence as they go. Learning by doing is a natural way of enjoying the tasks that you’ve been set. Write 3 sentences about what you see, record comments beginning with ‘I can see…”, photograph details from a painting that inspire or confuse you, discover a trail through the woods by collecting objects and following clues…

Back at school, use the things that you and your classmates have created to make something that you can present to others. Make a report, create a collage of images, publish a podcast of your sounds, develop a multimedia web presentation.

Download their guide stages_of_ookl

The Museum of Nottingham are using OOKL to help visitors to explore the city’s social history over the last 300 years. As visitors tour the venue they’ll discover everything from toy dalek’s from Doctor Who to Dolly tubs which people used to wash their clothes before washing machines were invented.

The Horniman Museum will be using OOKL to support their educational programme both within the building and in their adjacent gardens.

OOKL is being used in Wrexham to help young people discover the Industrial Heritage of the region. Bersham Heritage Centre is on the site of an important 18th Century industrial complex.