Abstract:

Museums represent an inexhaustible educational resource, to be used systematically in teaching, not only as an aid to visual communication, but for the values they carry, the authenticity and concreteness of the documents presented, the completeness of the collections, and the multidimensionality of the exhibition languages. Museums today are unique cultural institutions, as they are easily accessible and present unique exhibits for study and entertainment as well. It’s a great space to visit and study, as through its multifunctionality it can provide the services of a site for events and a leisure space and can work as a center for conducting research and promoting education.

The purpose of this paper is to present the intellectual outputs of the Erasmus+ project "MONA: Museopedagogy and Augmented reality: Recognizing museums as educational spaces", which aims to bring culture closer to the younger audience and, especially, the school audience through the creation of an integrated educational program provided in four museums in Europe using modern technology with emphasis on augmented reality. The consortium of the project consists of four museums ("NEMO" Science Museum, Research Center of Music-Museum "Vassilis Tsitsanis", Centre of Contemporary Art “Palazzo Lucarini” and Art Mile Krems), two schools (Music School of Trikala and "Federico Frezzi - Beata Angela" High School), two universities (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems) and two technical organizations (Developmental Centre of Thessaly and EGInA Srl) from four European countries (Greece, Italy, Austria and the Netherlands). The coordinator of the project is the Research Center of Music-Museum "Vassilis Tsitsanis" (Greece).

The first intellectual output is a "guide to museum education with the use of modern technologies", which serves as a complete information source on the subject of the project and as a pedagogical guide for the implementation of activities for school students in museums that will be addressed either by museum educators and museum staff or by teachers, trainers and educators in primary and secondary schools. The guide focuses on pedagogical theories and learning strategies, as well as the use of Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) in museum education.

The second intellectual output is a “virtual guided tour platform”, which enables the online visit of the four partner museums. It is designed to be easy to use and enjoyable for students, highlighting the potential of technology as a means of promoting the four partner museums and European culture in general.
The third intellectual output is an interactive game, which focuses on the development of a common scenario that is the main axis for the development of integrated educational activity among the project consortium. The game becomes a link between the different cultures and arts displayed in the project's partner museums. Its dynamics can be combined with activities within the museum during school visits.

MONA project aims to turn the school visit to the museum into a stunning, charming and enjoyable learning process through experiential practice and play. The target audience is the whole school community, but mainly students and teachers in the partner countries.

Keywords:

Museum education, museopedagogy, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, Erasmus+, school education, virtual tour, interactive game.