Playful Learning Culture in the Museum: MicroCulture and Guided Tour Practice

Museum learning culture is going through a paradigmatic change. Two main positions are dominant: the modernist, emphasizing the need for assessment and uniform learning outcomes, and the postmodern, encouraging dialogue and multiple learning outcomes. A critical factor is the potential contribution of digital technologies, which, despite many studies that have been conducted, remains unclear. Based on these premises, a design-oriented study has been conducted investigating how digital technologies could contribute to historical discourse and guided tours, a typical practice in museums which has not undergone much investigation. This study was conducted in cooperation with two historical museums, these being the Transport Museum in Coventry, England and The Viking Museum in Ribe, Denmark. A new learning platform called MicroCulture has been created, aimed at eliciting a sociocultural understanding of history in young visitors. This study indicates that museum learning culture could be enriched by the introduction of mediated play as a resource for conceptual thinking and social interaction.