Digital cultural heritage and AR/VR: unleashing creativity in educational context
How is AR and VR used in education?
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) have transformed education over the past decade, fostering immersive learning experiences that promote student engagement, wide accessibility to educational and cultural content, and recreation of real spaces for the benefit of all European citizens.
A shift in educational paradigm
Immersive technologies have transformed not only the available content but also the teaching and learning process. Simulations of experiments in science and biology, historical events, art and architecture, and guided tours in digital museums are only some examples of digitized materials. On the other hand, collaborative learning in an experiential and personalized way, while solving problems and exploring the real world, is supported in face-to-face and blended contexts via their use.
The Europeana platform
How does the Europeana platform get involved? A varied selection of 3D objects can be found in Europeana collections under all topics, from music to migration, originating from museums, libraries, and archives for use in the classroom and in outdoor learning. An excellent example of the integration of such objects and immersive technologies with cultural heritage in an educational frame is the Built with Bits mentoring program and educational challenge for students and educators. The project ran in two editions, 2021 and 2022, showcasing how Mozilla Hubs, an open-source platform, can be used to develop virtual spaces such as museums, schools, and more, with a creative outlook.
The Teaching with Europeana website
On another note, the Teaching with Europeana website offers educators a wealth of learning scenarios incorporating the AR/VR experience in different disciplines, suggesting ideas on how to bridge the physical and the virtual world, and creating exciting interactive tasks for students of all ages and educational levels. A VR/AR school exhibition designed to discover all the hidden meanings and history around a worldwide known masterpiece, Picasso’s Guernica, is an example for secondary education. The Learning Scenario “Vintage VR” addresses art and social sciences through an exhibition where attendants of all ages can view stereoscopic images of monuments and buildings from the 19th century, in 3D. In “Life on the Trenches – a VR experience” the Europeana exhibition called “Trench life” is effectively used to allow students to have a clear idea of the devastation during a historical event such as WW1.
There are numerous suggestions, materials, and ideas for the educational community, produced by European teachers for European teachers, as well as implementations of these scenarios in the relevant stories of implementation. Do not hesitate to explore them and get your students to have a taste of the immersive experience!
CC BY-SA 3.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed.