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CosmoCaixa is a centre for popularizing science. Its participative and educational methodology is based on interactive experimentation; from a series of exhibition models that the visitor can manipulate and follow according to guidelines, scientific principles can be concluded.

The exhibitions, courses, meetings, film showings, and teaching performances are some of the activities that make the museum a dynamic and lively social centre of scientific knowledge.

All exhibitions, activities, and spaces that this interactive museum offers to its public follow the scientific method and direct experimentation. In many cases the experimentation must be virtualised through the use of technology, such as video, radio, digital systems, and computer programs.

The museum is open to everyone. We can find proof of this in the inexpensive offerings of the institution as well as the great variety of activities designed from different pedagogical perspectives to attract the greatest possible number of people with different intellectual levels.

The diversity of programmed activities covers a wide range of ages, cultural levels, and personal interests. So, in the same space, we can find many possibilities for self-directed journeys through the museum as well as guided tours for families, schools, private groups, etc.

The pedagogic concept of CosmoCaixa is based on working with the largest, most varied public possible. For this, the museum gives visitors the opportunity for different complementary activities in order to optimize the fulfilling of the centre’s objectives to popularize, sensitize, and raise awareness on science. In this sense, the intergenerational opportunities to learn lie in the family activities and on the laboratories.

Our suggestion for improving the intergenerational learning dimension of CosmoCaixa is to create a concrete methodology that will link all the existing ICT resources with the existing physical spaces, either re-conceptualising the exhibition approach, taking into account the intergenerational aspects, the virtual dimension and the physical spaces. One opportunity for the near future would be to redesign the “Science Square”, a perfect example of embodying La Piazza concept into a reality.

 
 

The world-wide Computer Clubhouse Network, established by MIT back in 1993, and supported by Intel, seeks to provide young people with the opportunity to work in a collaborative, supportive community to use technological tools to express and explore their own ideas and perspectives.

CC Viborg is a member of international Computer Clubhouse network, but also has some specifically Danish characteristics. It is not sponsored by Intel, but by local Commune. It is oriented towards all young people in the commune, not only socially underserved. It also provides environment and equipment for school-based week-long group projects.

Mentors are from different backgrounds, varying from people with multimedia and programming skills, to those with pedagogical skills - so the model of working is more exchanging of experiences between youth and mentors, that classical mentoring.

  CC Viborg is well-established environment where people come and do something meaningful with technology - by themselves, or by coaching others. It has several years of experience in working with young people dealing with technology in their free-time, learning, developing themselves and mentoring others. Covers areas like computer graphics and animation, movie-making, stop-motion animation, creating music...  CCViborg is not research, but practice-oriented organization, that could be excellent test-bed and observation station for any e-learning research - for example, for testing different informal learning approaches with technology on children, young man and mentors, or relations between physical and virtual spaces where the activities happen.
 
 

Te Space Signpost  is a combination of sculpture and multimedia that helps people to inhabit the solar system (without leaving the surface of the earth). A signpost in a street, a park or some other public place points directly at objects in space, tracking them as they move across the sky, displaying their name and their exact distance from the sign’s location (which changes constantly) with an electronic display. Close to the signpost is a kiosk with a touchscreen from which passers-by can select objects for the sign to point to. Users’ relationships with the cosmos are transformed through interaction with the installation. It was devised by Adam  Nieman in collaboration with Futurelab.

Any object in the solar system can be selected, including spacecraft. The whole system is modelled in the computer. As the sign slews round to its target, the computer takes the user through space to a detailed three-dimensional representation of the object, illuminated by a virtual sun. The user then has the option of navigating through the model or calling up information about what the object would be like to visit. Users can also change the rate at which time passes in the model (for instance to observe the orbits of the moons of Jupiter or how day and night passes on Earth).

 
 
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