We are always excited to learn how cultural venues adapt our tools in new ways to satisfy their needs and the needs of their audiences. You can read their unvarnished stories here:
D-Day Museum
The D-Day have been a partner venue right from the beginning. Their main objective has been to use OOKL to attract secondary schools into the venue.
Her Majesty The Queen paid a visit to the D-Day and met members of a local youth group taking part in a Discovering D-Day project using OOKL.
Read their ‘Report on OOKL’
The University of Birmingham also completed a year long study into the impact of OOKL. The lead author of the review, Professor Mike Sharples, praised OOKL stating “it is the best mobile learning service I have worked with.” Thanks Mike – that is high praise!
Read Mike and his team’s conclusions here.
Museums Sheffield
In partnership with Sheffield City Learning Centre, Museums Sheffield ran a year-long project to ‘increase levels of literacy by providing a purpose for writing and speaking through the use of ICT’ using the Millenium Galleries and OOKL as the context for achieving these objectives.
The CLCs conclusions are presented here.
Stoke Museums
Four museums in Stoke-on-Trent are running a joint project with Haywood City Learning Centre to bring mobile learning to the area. The project will start with Etruria Museum and we look forward to seeing the results in due course.
National Maritime Museum
The NMM use OOKL’s dedicated handsets to support Key Stage 3 & 4 schools groups as part of transatlanic slavery study in the Atlantic Worlds Gallery. Pupils are given a single question to focus on (e.g. How did acts of resistance contribute to the abolition of transatlantic slavery?).
According to Anna Salaman, Head of Formal Learning at the National Maritime Museum – London, OOKL has been a “resounding success”.
Read Anna’s conclusions published in a recent edition of GEM, the Group for Education in Museums.
Kew Gardens
The aim of Kew’s activity with OOKL is to enable visitors to create personalised learning trails. Sessions are offered to secondary schools focusing on the theme of plant adaption and to upper primary on the theme of Henry Moore. According to Kevin Walker, of London Knowledge Lab, who led a review “If learning in context is to be taken seriously visitors need to be able to make notes and personalise their learning as they are going about their visit as well as edit them and change them afterwards.”
Read Kevin’s paper published at Museums and the Web 2007.
Dr. Sue Johnson, of the Institute of Education, also conducted a review of the service at Kew. Read her findings.
Hartlepool Museum
Hartlepool took part in a trial of OOKL supporting key stage 2 students from one school and a pupil referral unit. According to Shona Carroll, Education Officer, “students responded positively to the whole project, not only the technology but also given the freedom and opportunity to learn independently”.
Dr. Johnson’s preliminary findings can been read here.
