Abstract:

Digital Cultural Heritage is a term that has begun to emerge in recent years. As almost every aspect of our lives, the digital revolution has also transformed cultural heritage. New digital objects are being created and integrated into the mainstream culture every day around the world. UNESCO states that this type of heritage consists of various digital objects of timeless value that would be advisable to preserve for future generations. However, digital cultural heritage has often been deemed indiscriminately as non-timeless, with the end result being that important parts of modern culture have already been lost.

The European project “CrowdDreaming - Youth co-create Digital Culture” aims to disseminate and scale-up at a European level a good practice in the field of the valorization of digital cultural heritage as means for an inclusive education and the promotion of European values among youngsters.

CrowdDreaming has developed a curriculum and a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for teachers of various specialties on the new required interdisciplinary skills, such as digital tools, digital storytelling and Augmented Reality (AR). Through the MOOC, teachers are being trained on how to use simple AR and other digital tools in the classroom in order to introduce digital cultural heritage to their students and support them in developing digital cultural heritage scenes.
The MOOC includes 6 modules and is offered in 5 languages: English, Italian, Greek, Latvian and Croatian. Each module is designed based on specific Learning Outcomes and Learning Objectives, consisting of relevant Open Educational Resources, discussion fora and self-assessment activities. Apart from the introductory module, the course covers the topics: the art of CrowdDreaming method, project development, digital tools for digital content creation, digital storytelling, digital cultural heritage, and media literacy.

The MOOC lasts 26 hours in total and can be taken in a self-paced mode. During their training the learners are supported by the CrowdDreaming tutors. Moreover, in parallel to the MOOC, the learners are obliged to participate in 4 hourly coaching circles coordinated by the tutors. During a coaching circle, each trainee presents their Action Plan on how they will involve and support their students in developing digital scenes. After the end of the MOOC, trained teachers apply the newly acquired competences and the Action Plan in their classrooms and guide groups of students in developing digital stories using simple AR tools. Through the pilot implementation of the CrowdDreaming methodology in Italy, Greece, Latvia and Croatia, the end result of the project is the creation of a digital monument, called Europa Square, which showcases students’ creations and connects primary and secondary education teachers and students across Europe in order to facilitate the exchange of projects, ideas and proposals regarding culture and cultural heritage.

The project is reaching 400 secondary school students supported by at least 80 teachers per country, which create 20 digital scenes per country. The Europa square hosts at least 80 digital AR scenes from the students across Europe.

Keywords:

MOOC, digital cultural heritage, AR, teachers, education.