Hi folks,
We've been developing mobile apps for learning here at the British Museum for about two years. We've developed two full-featured native apps in that time and several mini apps which run inside other platforms. All are Android apps and are used in our facilitated schools and families workshops.
Developing apps within an education department or team is fraught with challenges because it requires learning mangers (who are, for the most, focused on face-to-face teaching) to become IT project managers or at the very least informed clients of digital agencies. This requires a new skill set and the ability to engage confidently with geeks and designers.
Budgets for education projects or programmes are usually not large enough to support proper app development. For a native Android or iPhone app you can expect to pay £10,000-25,000 depending on its complexity. We've spent far less on the development of our apps, having reduced costs by using free software, internal staff and generous freelancers eager to work with a well-known museum.
In terms of design, the main issue we've encountered is that nearly all museum mobile app developers try to build us a replacement multimedia guide, which delivers passive content according to 'stops'. This is not our idea of a good learning app, which should have a variety of interactive tasks.
Our first app for a large-scale secondary history project asked students to find objects using Augmented Reality and then rate them according to a set of carefully selected criteria. You can see an example at:
http://vimeo.com/32660849
Our second native app just launched a few weeks ago is a RE activity trail through the Hajj exhibition. It uses features of the phones like the camera and gesture recognition to simulate the experience of going on pilgrimage to Mecca. We took inspiration from the Inception app (http://inceptiontheapp.com/) and RJDJ (http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/rjdj/id290626964?mt=8) for this.
There is great scope for building educational apps, but I think one of the biggest hurdles, for us certainly, will be making the leap from a facilitated experience where we can accommodate less than perfect app performance to teacher self-led activities which can run on students' own devices.
Hope that helps,
Shelley
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of JONES, Hilary
Sent: 29 March 2012 16:21
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: apps and education
Hello list (this is my first post, though I've been reading silently and lurking for about a year.)
My apologies if this is a post that has come up before. The education team I work in at EH are interested in the idea of developing educational apps, but at the moment, the 'idea of developing' is pretty much as far as we've got, thought-wise, and I thought asking the infinitely-better-placed list members would be the best next step!
So, are there any MCG-ers out there who have thoughts that they'd be willing to share on developing/using/evaluating apps - i.e. what makes good content, or does anyone have any approximate development costings? One of the things I'm most struggling with is calling it an 'educational' app. Surely most apps have educational aspects about them without being badged as 'educational'? [Also, I expect we'll struggle with the cost too, but that's way down the line at the moment...]
Alternatively, please can anyone point me in the direction of apps that you think are great - even if not necessarily education focussed?
I've seen the Museum of London StreetMuseum and Londinium apps (and also approximate costings for this from the HLF digital learning and particpation report: http://www.hlf.org.uk/aboutus/howwework/Pages/Digitalparticipationandlearning.aspx )- but are there more produced by museums/galleries/historic sites that any of you know about please?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts/help you can share/offer.
Hilary *crosses fingers that this posts successfully*
Hilary Jones
Education Resources Manager
English Heritage
The Engine House
Room 1/40
Firefly Avenue
Swindon
SN2 2EH
Tel: 01793 414919
Mob: 07785 393874
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Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam
Until 15 April 2012
www.britishmuseum.org/hajj
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