Abstract:

Understanding heritage phenomena through spatiotemporal maps provide users with multiple ways of experiencing heritage, as users can not only mix narrative text and multimedia content with interactive maps. Access to cultural heritage facilitates society with appropriate experiences to build its own cultural experiences.

Educating cultural heritage has traditionally been the subject of methods that have evolved from Recommendation R (98) to the Member States on Heritage Education (Council of Europe, 1998) which calls for heritage education to be based on cross-cutting approaches, as well as to partnership between education and culture employing the widest variety of modes of communication and expression, including technology. In this regard, the evolution and use of ICT in both heritage and education have brought about a paradigm shift in cultural use, enjoyment, interpretation and mediation.

Within the scope of the SeMap project, we have developed a web-based tool that aims to offer innovative dissemination of movable assets held in museums, linking them semantically and through spatiotemporal maps. Users are able to access cultural objects and the significant relationships between them more intuitively. In this way, it will put Spain at the European forefront of access to digital collections, which not only focuses on the traditional users of this type of tool but goes beyond and addresses the demands of the educational sector.

This paper explores the potential of this tool from a case study with students from 15-16 years old, from a secondary school in Spain. We explore the use of this tool in the classroom, showing how it can be used in secondary education. Finally, we show the results of the formative mixed learning evaluation and the results of the usability test. These results allowed us to improve the tool and make it known in the educational sector quite positively.

SeMap raises awareness of the vast and hidden Spanish heritage by developing interactive experiences, as an attempt to increase interest and awareness of cultural assets. From an educational point of view, we encouraged students to become more aware of their own history. Finally, from a teaching point of view, we developed a useful research tool, approachable, accessible and useful to teach history, geography and art history.

Keywords:

Interactive maps, cultural heritage, interdisciplinary.