Hidden Histories: a Towards Pervasive Media feasibility study
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Hidden Histories: To the Castle! A riotous happening, orchestrated by Claire Taylor, Elizabeth FitzGerald & Mike Craven with People’s Histreh
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This is the presentation of a Towards Pervasive Media feasibility study, carried out between colleagues at the University of Nottingham and a community history group, People's Histreh. Towards Pervasive Media was funded by EPSRC as a new initiative to foster collaborations between the Arts, Humanities, Science and Engineering at Nottingham. The broad topic of Pervasive Media, refers to new media forms in which the public contributes as well as consumes content, is available anytime and anywhere, and is ever more deeply interwoven into our daily lives.
Transcript of Hidden Histories: a Towards Pervasive Media feasibility study
Hidden Histories:To the Castle!
A riotous happening, orchestrated by Claire Taylor, Elizabeth FitzGerald & Mike Craven
with People’s Histreh
Developed existing interest between local community history group and academics in School of History
TPM enabled multidisciplinary approach and for other colleagues to be brought into the mix
Investigated how located audio can be used to provide opportunities for historical learning in public history
Case study of the 1831 Reform Riot in Nottingham, content initiated by the community group
Conducted 2 types of guided walk:People-ledTechnology-led
Overview of the project
Virtual Reality/Augmented RealityAugurscope (Equator, Notts), 2003
– group history tour around to Nottingham Castle using laptop/GPS unit on wheels
- Superposition of past scenes and narration.
Mobile experiencesRiot! 1831 (Bristol, Mobile Bristol),
2004 History Unwired (MIT/Dept.
Architecture, Venice), 2005- Both location aware neighbourhood
audio tours using the voices of historical citizens
Examples of related work
Can mobile technology be used to convey historical empathy and learning of contested perspectives from different historical sources, in an history walk format?
Main questions to the participants in the walk:Who were the rioters?What motivated them to engage in their direct
action?
Academic research questionsHistorical focusEducational focusUser experience
What are we trying to find out?
1. Historical literacy concerning the Reform Riots in Nottingham, asking: What happened in the period of the riots?
2. Historical empathy with the people involved: What were this period and these events like for different people?
3. Historical interpretation: how were these events and their causes viewed from differing and/or conflicting perspectives?
Historical research areas
Experiencing ‘empathy’ with historical subjects
Responding to & evaluating
accounts from a variety of
perspectives
Attaining historical literacy
Learning in location What differences arise from learning in
location compared to elsewhere (e.g. indoors; round a table etc)?
Factors affecting learner preferences Do you like learning in location? Why – or
why not?Group versus individual tour guides How did the audio guide technology affect
group dynamics?
Educational research areas
Preferences for location based audio guides
What did you or didn't you like about using the audio guide to learn about the Reform Riot?
Experience of using smart phone technology What were your experiences (good, bad or neither) in using a handheld (mobile) device to help your learning?
Comparing people-led and technology-led modalities What were the important differences between the two types of guided walk? How did they affect the user experience?
User experience research areas
Planning meeting [Sept/Oct 2010]
People-led guided walk [Oct 2010]Recording of audio files [Jan
2011]Technology-led guided walk [Feb
2011]
Stages in the project
Route, narrative, source materials and handouts were organised by members of People’s Histreh
Emphasis on experiences and aspirations of ‘ordinary people’ of Nottingham as starting point for understanding the riots
Self-directed ‘active learning’ – carried out intuitively
‘Learning by doing’Use the walk as a way of disseminating what
they have learned
Stage 1 – Planning meeting
Stage 2 – To the Castle! ‘people-led’ walk
Photos courtesy of Alan Lodge, Nottingham Indymedia
New audio files recorded by People’s HistrehWhat software/platform to use for playback of
geolocated audio?User requirementsPotential tech solutions
TrailsCymru / Peoples Collection WalesOOKLLayar or WikitudeWildMapsBroadcastr7scenes
Failsafe – use mp3 files stored on the handheld device with paper map
Stage 3 – Audio: recording and playback
Stage 4 – To the Castle! ‘technology-led’ walk
7scenes – tracing the walk
Difficult to draw comparisons between the two walks – too many variables that could not be predicted or controlled
Still analysing data from user questionnaires
Historical aspects: historical literacy (facts), empathy, interpretation
Educational aspects: informal learning; learning in location
User experience aspects: visibility vs invisibility of tech; group vs individual; affordances of each walk
Main findings
Not without problems
Detailed questionnaire analysisAcademic publicationsExplore tensions between
amateur/professional and authoring/presentation of media
Issues of trust and authenticity in relation to the source material and how it is presented
Feedback to People’s Histreh – potential for future walks
Future research into different variables relating to pervasive media, particularly in relation to user-generated content
Where next…?
Claire Taylor, School of [email protected]
Elizabeth FitzGerald, Learning Sciences Research [email protected]
Mike Craven, MATCH, Faculty of [email protected]
People’s Histrehhttp://peopleshistreh.wordpress.com
A massive thanks to all those who participated in the walks and who gave us valuable feedback on this project, also to Faye Taylor and Robert Jones who assisted in the research.
Thanks for listening…
