Learning, Access, and Mobility (LAMB) for Cultural Heritage Education

The present paper discusses the results of an R&D project (fi PULU) in south western Finland to develop a general purpose mobile application framework for elementary and grammar schools with a special emphasis on distributed content creation and a usage model anchored in the convergence of pedagogics and location-based cultural heritage information. Since the beginning of 2001, the LAMB project and its predecessors have studied, developed and evaluated several different technological and content design approaches starting from stand-alone applications on palmtop computers, tablet PCs, and smart phones to modern small light-weight portable tablet computers. The technological focus of the effort has been to develop a simple and robust position-aware multiplatform software application based on a simple general purpose data model based on locations. The Java application designed for the LAMB project can be run on diverse portable computers and used by a group of pupils together. Interactions with the application are recorded on the device and the teacher can afterwards evaluate pupil input and device use data. The software is based on freely available and Open Source components. An important aspect of the system is that it can be updated and maintained on site by the local staff without extensive technical knowledge.