Cybernetic museum learning

We’ve had quite a bit of press lately about the DBCDE–CSIRO–NMA collaboration to pilot a system for mobile telepresence at the Museum. (Also see here and here.) So what is it all about? And what makes it unique and special?

A live educator will facilitate mobile telepresence tours via a camera-equipped robot

Various projects around the world use cameras and other forms of remote control to draw in remote visitors to an on-site experience. One that seems to closely resemble the CSIRO–NMA system is this remote-controlled robot museum guide in South Korea. In Belgium, a museum is using a lighter-touch technology for a much briefer experience, offering a camera-equipped human museum guide for remote visitors (called a ‘phygital tour’). No robots or cyborgs here, but the just-launched Dutch project, YoMu (for ‘your museum’), is a different way of providing an immersive, personal experience – using mobile data storytelling to transform the city into a museum. And beyond the museum sector, a car racing example: at the Indianapolis 500, you can choose your view of the race via ‘cyborg cameras’ – the cars and their drivers.

The beauty of our museum project is that it combines the best of technology and pedagogy. Technology-wise, it opens a channel to the Museum’s exhibitions for visitors who might otherwise not visit. We will endeavour to create an experience for these remote visitors that is in some ways superior to an in-person visit. So of course we will provide some digital augmentation of the video-streamed gallery view, whether it’s large-format images, interactive 3D models or short videos.

Key to the success of this project will be skilful facilitation by museum educators. We are working on a couple of new programs that will make best use of the technology. Like all our on-site school programs they will be student-centred and based on the principles and practices of inquiry learning. It’s too early in the project to talk about content, but we can tell you there will be various moments in the program for students to have a say, through text messaging, by answering poll questions, and – if we can pull it off – by annotating content and saving it to a kind of group digital scrapbook. Needless to say, Pottermore is another useful reference point :)