Musex supports children in learning and exploring collaboratively in a museum with PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant). Musex provides quizzes about exhibitions that are less interactive, such as explanatory panels and VTRs. Then, children pay their attention to these exhibitions natually. Through using Musex, children interact with exhibitions more actively and solve quizzes collaboratively. .

Fig 1. System Overview

Fig. 2 The screenshot of Musex

Fig 2 is the main screen of PDAs. The picture in the center of the screen is divided into 12 pieces. This picture is the key of the final quiz. Initially, the picture was covered with 12 white squares with numbers. If a user answers correctly, the white square where the number of the answered quiz is written is removed, and a part of the picture appears. If the user can not answer correctly, the white square will change to the gray one, and the user can't see this part of the picture. In order to finish the game, users have to answer the final quiz correctly by viewing the picture covered with the square. Therefore, users are motivated to answer correctly as many quizzes as possible.

Pairs' PDAs are linked to each other, and each pair shares each other's history of answering the quizzes. For example, if a user answers correctly, both users can see the part of the picture which the same number of the quiz is allocated. But, if one user answers wrongly, both users can't see the part of the picture. Such visualization, therefore, enhances awareness between a pair of children.

To talk with each other, two transceivers with headsets are given. Both groups can talk or discuss about quizzes through their transceivers anytime and anywhere.

Fig 3. The website for reviewing a user's visit

We also prepared a website shown in Fig 3 for children to review their performance. After finishing all the quizzes, children will be given their own cards. An ID number is written in each card. Therefore, children can revisit their explorations through a web browser after coming back to their home.

Fig. 4 Musex in use

We evaluated Musex in National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in 2002. In this experiment, we set up 13 exhibition-related quizzes. We discovered some interesting aspects of Musex like below.

• Interacting with exhibitions more: Through Musex, childrens interacted with less-interacitve exhibitions and tried to solve quizzes actively. They looked to explanations on the exhibitions and PDAs alternatively and tried to answer correctly. Moreover, they traced these explanations with their finger in order to explore or check their answers. These are characteristic features of Musex. After they answered quizzes and their answers were wrong, they reviewed their answers by seeing explanations on their PDAs and the exhibition in front of them. It also is an unique aspect of Musex.
• Sharing their assignment of the quizzes: Most teams split up to solve all the quizzes. Seeing the status of the picture and using their transceivers, they exchanged what they were doing now with each other.
• Asking for help: Some teams were made up by a child and his father or his mother. In this case, when the child confronted some troubles, for example, he couldn't read kanji in the exhibitions or the quizzes, he asked his parent to help himself solve the quizzes. They communicated through their transceivers for a while, but if they couldn't make much progress, the child asked the parent to come to him. Then, the parent went near the child, and solved the quizzes collaboratively.
• Knowing the partner's status from the PDA: When they saw the picture, they could confirm their answer activities, but they also could know what numbers of the quizzes the partner challenged. It is interesting that they could communicate through not only their transceivers but also their PDAs.
  

As mentioned above, we observed children's interesting interaction, communication and collaboration, and confirmed that Musex was enough effective for children and even for adults to support their learning activities in a museum.

You can find the papers related to this project here.