Say It, Do It, Learn It! Digital Education at the Museum: A Theoretical Reflection Towards a Review of the Studies on the Application of Digital Technologies in Museum Education.

The museum has always been an educational space at the forefront of change. Since 2000, museums and galleries have gradually integrated the digital experience into the overall museum experience. Today's museums do not communicate in the digital space but do exist in it by experimenting with new forms of cultural inter-understanding, while still respecting the different expectations and skills of its public. How does the interaction between virtual and physical spaces help or hinder learning? Does the interaction between physical and virtual realities require the construction of physical learning spaces to consider the modulization connected to the virtual world? Focusing on the theme of how virtual environments can act as effectors or substitutes for our physical learning environments, this contribution, starting from a theoretical reflection to describe educational digital contexts as spaces for virtual social learning, proposes a review of some international studies on the use of digital technologies in education, starting from the museum. Among all different theories of learning, connectivism and activity theory suggest that our digital tools and the socio-historical culture that surrounds the public become an intrinsic part of the learning process. It is interesting to consider how these same processes apply to both virtual and physical worlds, since virtual worlds and physical worlds are not mutually exclusive entities but intertwined in parallel realities that not only influence each other but also each individual within them. Many researchers note that, nowadays, museums are placing a never before seen emphasis on education by highlighting that museums should be included in virtual learning environments, where they will be able to explore the use of digital technologies to interact with visitors in public environments, respecting the museum's mission to transmit knowledge of cultural heritage. This new attention placed by museums to the digital is also to attribute to the change introduced by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) regarding the museum's mission, that is the transition from a museum conceived almost solely for conservation to a user-centered museum (ICOM, 2007, museum definition, 1).