Abstract:

With the Covid-19 pandemic, museums around the world have kept communication alive with their visitors, increased their national and international accessibility, and have had the opportunity to carry out their educational functions, which are their primary responsibilities towards society, by using different tools. The pandemic has also revealed that technology offers important opportunities for museums in terms of accessibility and that technology can be used as a tool to increase visitor development potential. It is vital for museums to respond to the interests and needs of the changing society and the generation called "Generation Z". In this context, it is necessary and important for museums to take action against the changes taking place and to be structured as institutions of the future, not just the past and present. In addition, the widespread use of technologies that are interactive and can support learning by doing, such as augmented reality, virtual reality and Metaverse, in the processes related to museology practices, is of great importance in terms of museums being able to fulfil the educational functions they have acquired with the contemporary understanding of museology. These technologies are frequently preferred by museums because they are compatible with the contemporary understanding of museology, improve the visitor-museum relationship, support learning, provide new and different experiences, are cultural accelerators, increase the accessibility of people from different continents to the museum, and especially serve the interests and needs of new generations. In this study, researchers emphasizes the necessity and importance of the use of technology in museum especially new age concepts of augmented reality, virtual reality and Metaverse and their contributions and reflections on educational phase. Researching the contributions and reflections of these technologies on museum education is one of the most significant purposes of this research. In this context the use of these technologies in the educational activities of Turkish museums and world museums is examined through prominent examples. AR Toy box of Ankara Toy Museum is a research project which is supported by Ankara University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Office. In this context, in this study, which is based on the Ankara Toy Museum collection, the Toy Box AR application was applied to the students' pre-museum, museum and post-museum learning motivation within the framework of AR-supported museum education activities developed for the "Culture and Heritage" unit in line with the 4th Grade Social Studies course curriculum taught in Turkey. The technical background of mobile application "AR Toy box of Ankara Toy Museum" is also argued with its effects. The effects on museum education were determined and shared with descriptions.

Keywords:

Toy museum, museum education, augmented reality, virtual reality, metaverse.