Virtual Museums: Avatar-guided and Game-based Experiences for Learning and Engagement

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The development and analysis of interactive methods for facilitating engagement and learning in virtual museum visitors is a potent area to explore. We focus on the unique potential of the digital medium in developing interactive and engaging learning experiences. We examine and evaluate three modes of virtual education through museums - a free roam self-paced experience, a guided experience led by an instructor, and a puzzle-based experience, all to assess the users' engagement, motivation, and knowledge retention in the virtual experience.

To explore these three modalities, we partnered with the Liberation War Museum of Bangladesh and created a web-based virtual museum for them. The self-guided experience facilitates the visualization of virtual exhibitions in the form of 3D galleries and lets the virtual visitor walk around at their own pace and explore the artifacts. The avatar-guided experience is created by developing a virtual museum guide that uses narrations to explain the 3D virtual artifacts.

The game-based experience utilizes the gamification technique for making the artifacts interactive and part of a puzzle game/scavenger hunt for conveying a story. We use learning, engagement, and usability as metrics for evaluating and comparing the three methods by conducting a user study.

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