Korean government (especially, Ministry of culture, sports, and Tourism), according to a recently growing concerns and needs to the social role and impact of museums, becomes a leading force to bring out the paradigmatic shift in the purpose and role of museum and also in working practices.
Technology-enabled museum learning is one of the new challenges and tasks of museums in accordance with the government policies. The best known technological devices are mobile devices such as cellular (mobile ) phones, tablet computers, and smart pads (e.g., iPAD). Such devices have been described and promoted as a key component to practice innovative learning approach called ‘Smart learning’ which is a term similar to or exchangeable with mobile learning.
The smart learning in museum, in short, ‘smart museum’, has been practiced in Korea under governmental sponsorship called “ Museum: Humanities on road” since 2013. Nation-widely spread 10 museums in 2013 and 25 museums in 2014 were the participants of the Smart learning project with various depth and breadth in using smart technologies and understanding smart museum education.
This study, in this context, aimed to examine what types of smart museum learning has been practiced and what characteristics of learning were noticed among the smart museums, hence eventually generating a framework of smart museum learning. For the purpose, this study conducted interviews with educators and the participant students of the smart museums, while analyzing their smart learning programs by participant observation as well.
The results of this study showed a wide range of practices based upon diverse understanding and approaches to smart museum education, which can be summarized as four categories ofthe smart museum learning: ① development of museum’s own app, ② device-centered hands-on practices,③ use of smart museum learning solution, and ④ a convergent model of smart technologies and pedagogical approaches.