Museums are incorporating technology into their many modes of public engagement like never before. Here is further proof: The University of Leicester’s School of Museum Studies has partnered with The British Museum to create an interactive touchscreen app for students:

The new app, used as part of an ethics module of the course, was drawn up in partnership with staff at the British Museum, who were filmed with their collections. The app provides an insight into how the staff came to decisions. What are the ethical considerations that go into a display of human remains, for example? How should disabled people be represented and who should make that decision? How are we to respond to the legacy of colonialism?

To help answer these and many other questions, students visit the museum with computer tablets preloaded with information, assignments and videos of curators in their galleries, explaining the background to the exhibits.

This app isn’t entirely the first of its kind, as many art museums have already provided free apps to enhance museumgoers’ experiences of art history. Evidently the future of technology is a new key tool to understanding the past.