Museum launches app for self-guided tours, teachers

The Mind Museum in Bonifacio Global City has launched a new app to help museum-goers in their self-guided tours as well as connect the teachers in the provinces to the museum exhibits.

The Mind Museum hopes that the app will encourage more schoolchildren and teachers to explore the world of science. The museum has five main galleries occupying a 4,900-square meter exhibit area and spanning two floors. Each gallery carries its own theme: atom, life, earth, universe and technology.

It is considered the first educational museum app in the country and offers a rich multimedia experience for all the users.

“With the new Mind Museum app, we can truly say that science is everywhere,” said Maria Isabel Garcia, the museum’s curator. “While being in the museum completes the fun learning experience, having the app brings the guests closer, like no other technology can, to what animates the museum inside and out.”

The app’s features include, among others, an Exhibit Guide, which walks users through the 250 hands-on and “minds-on” exhibits; QR Code Reader gives guests access to more information on a particular exhibit they are interested in; Learning Footpath is for guests who have limited time and they could pick one exhibit that interests them and just follow the map that highlights and leads them to the exhibit.

For teachers in the provinces, the K-12 Topics could help them find information that’s ranked with level-specific questions. This will be most helpful in nurturing schoolchildren’s love for Science or could be a way to make them like the subject.

Aside from the app, Mind Museum and Globe also launched the Science Wonder Workshop for teachers starting this month. Public schools that qualified for the Global Filipino Schools program of Globe will take part in workshops where they will be coached on how to use the different app features and use it in their teaching.

Using a mobile device, teachers can still bring their students or pupils on a virtual tour using the Exhibit Guide. This feature provides a map highlighting the exhibits in each gallery and information about them. The app also gives questions that teachers can use during class.

The app also has a collection of do-it-yourself science experiments and demonstrations similar to those performed at the museum’s Science Demo Area and step-by-step visual guides, which can be done in the school or at home using available materials.

The Mind Museum App is free for download at Google Play for Android and App Store for iOS. RC