Knowledge‐based mobile learning framework for museums

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this study is to propose a knowledge-based mobile learning framework that integrates various types of museum-wide content, and supports ubiquitous, context-aware, personalized learning for museums. Design/methodology/approach -A unified knowledge base with multi-layer reusable content structures serves as the kernel component to integrate content from exhibitions for education and collection in a museum. The How-Net approach is adopted to build a unified natural and cultural ontology. The ontology functions as a common and sharable knowledge concept that denotes each knowledge element in the unified knowledge base, and associates each learner's learning context and usage with a content and usage profile respectively. Data mining algorithms, e.g. association mining and clustering, are applied to discover useful patterns for ubiquitous personalization from these content and usage profiles. Findings -A pilot project based on the proposed framework has been successfully implemented in the Life Science Hall of the National Museum of Natural Science (NMNS), Taiwan, demonstrating the feasibility of this framework. Originality/value -This study proposes a mobile learning framework that can be replicated in many museums. This framework improves learners' learning experiences with rich related content, and with ubiquitous, proactive and adaptive services. Museums can also benefit from implementing this framework through outreach services for educational, promoting and usability needs from combining mobile and Internet communication technologies and learning services.

Museums as avenues of learning for children: a decade of research

“…In many science museums and centres, the rapid evolution of information and communication technologies have replaced the role of humans in facilitating children's learning (Cheng et al 2011;Murriello and Knobel 2008;Hsu et al 2006). As a result, multiple and overlapping interactivity types are occurring with child-technology (see Fig.…”

“…1). For example, Hsu et al (2006) demonstrated that a child-technology-environment interaction occurred when mobile phones were employed to help to improve elementaryschool children's learning in a science museum. In this study, the pre-visit learning stage included creation of a learning plan by specifying the student's subjects of interest, visit date and duration of stay.…”

Reliability and Validity Study of the Mobile Learning Adoption Scale Developed Based on the Diffusion of Innovations Theory

“…The use of mobile technologies in education helps learners acquire the right content, at the right time and at the right place (Wagner, 2005;Waycott, Jones, & Scanlon, 2005). In addition, the use of mobile devices encourages and supports learning opportunities (Hsu et al, 2006) through relevant forms of access to information (Smordal & Gregory, 2003) and assessment tools for students (Kneebone et al, 2003).…”

Context-aware recommender for mobile learners

“…These vary from simple systems relying solely on device content adaptation [42], to complex infrastructures for generating context aware mobile learning applications [43]. Yarandi et al [44] have developed a mobile learning system with four modules to enable courseware management, course content adaptation, test evaluation and course recommendation mediation.…”

“…Unlike the systems described above, Mobilearn [43] is a complete infrastructure developed by a consortium of European universities in collaboration with MIT and Stanford to build mobile learning applications. Mobilearn is based on the Open Mobile-access Abstract Framework (OMAF).…”