#learn differently #it is fun to learn #reusing public collections #digital museum pedagogy # reusing public collections # digital museum pedagogy # interactive ducation #digital education packages

Qulto Education that belongs to our Qulto portfolio, is a software component supporting the creation and usage of interactive education packages. This software primarily provides assistance to teachers and lecturers working in the public education sector and public collection institutions, though it is effectively applicable in other fields, as well. The module gives the opportunity of learning in a fun way within the framework of school, library, and museum activities. Consequently, lecturers can use the recently popular electronic devices preferred by their students to raise interest in a given subject through combining online and offline education materials.

In the first development phase the software’s beta version was born. Further improvements are going on based on the feedbacks of participants of formal and informal education.We aim at creating a digital education tool which, besides mediating interactive knowledge and culture, inspires the youth to visit and discover public collections. It is also designed to connect public collection items and cultural services to further services, especially to public education.

The software is easy to use: teachers and lecturers working with Qulto Education can create products within education packages. Such products can be built up from public collection data, internal and external sources, texts and media contents. These products – quiz, timeline, word search, puzzle –  by involving students in interactive tasks enable covering a certain topic or subject – let it be the history of a castle, the ballads of János Arany or some questions related to natural sciences.

Steps of creating digital education materials:

1, collecting sources and digital content (digital contents of public collections, external web sources, own images)

2, creating your personal education package (products of an education package: quiz, timeline, word search, puzzle)

3, the education packages can be presented within the system, or can be exported to several formats, which makes it easy to add further content, and edit them with other software

Lecturers can put together the education packages either themselves or in cooperation with their colleagues, and the completed materials can be made available in the institution’s open access catalogues. The presentations, exercise sheets can be integrated into the course schedule both in online and offline mode, assisting to cover a given topic with the help of public collection contents and other materials.

Planned functionalities and further development ideas of Qulto Education:

– Linking products: linking the already existing products to each other in a specific order so that they function as a linear guidance, and which can be presented/played without interruption
– Adding further products: already existing products would be extended with elements such as storytelling, mindmap, and some other playful presentation tools
– External sources: extending the range of supported external sources
– Supporting group work: authority management and defining certain roles would assist group work, which would include either working on education packages simultaneously or exercises that require students’ active involvment