VIrtual muSeums In The cOvid eRa Erasmus Project

Project Title

VIrtual muSeums In The cOvid eRa

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Open and distance learning; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Covid- 19 has signaled the closure of many schools globally posing a stress test to the education system and its smooth continuity. The need is global and all countries should implement emergency plans in order to effectively address the unprecedented situation with the minimum possible losses in the effective continuity of education. To achieve this, teachers should be trained and provided with digital learning opportunities on how to use digital training resources effectively and create educational scenarios.
As the personal development of the human capital is at stake, the problem should urgently be addressed. While confronting the second wave of the pandemic, national Governments put a lot of effort so that the schools will be able to deliver the curricula even in the event of a second lockdown. To this end, human capital has been engaged in developing training material for blended learning or for e-learning. The main effort is to put on the core subjects of the school curriculum, like mathematics, grammar, history, physics etc. Due to the forced digitalization of education, not all educational aspects are effectively covered and especially the thematic that is not considered mandatory. The situation is urgent and there is no precedent for that, not all needs can be simultaneously addressed and with success.
The project aims to deal with the prohibition of cultural visits to museums and other culture and science exhibition areas in the Covid- 19 era, even now that the schools are open and proposes its digital integration in the school curricula. The purpose of the current effort is to foster students’ intercultural awareness and conscience through a virtual educational process. The objective is to fill in this gap through the effective use of:
a) a digital museum exhibits content aggregator and toolkit,
b) a digital application for virtual tours, exemplar use cases including citizen science and related resources
c) the appropriate training for the school community in order to unite the digital material made openly available by museums and virtual tours providing an Education and Entertainment solution (Edutainment) to school teachers to design novel structured learning experiences.
The project goes beyond the state of the art and will train the teachers on how to make the most of the digital technology in the interest of the school community and exploit the resources that are at the disposal of education. The pandemic has forced the museums to be quickly digitized, so technology advancement offers the opportunity to provide integrated knowledge to the student through experiential learning and in parallel a tool to be exploited by the school community.
The objectives are to:
• upskill and support teachers
• support school community to adapt to the new era
• empower the dialogue and cooperation between different specialties
• create innovative training material and e-tools
• fill the gap of outdoors cultural activities and provide a holistic knowledge experience to the students activities
The project will develop and provide to teachers:
• An aggregator of the digital museums exhibits for all partner countries
• A text-based game will be made available in the form of a freely distributable application that can be downloaded
• Guidelines and use cases on how to set up and use additional digital tools for developing digital stories using mainstream technologies adopted in different levels of school education like scratch or other block-based coding
• Exemplar use cases of the digital museum exhibits and citizen science resources
• An innovative training course for school teachers that will support them to deliver virtual visits to museums.
• A repository of archiving appropriately categorized digital content, stories and projects plans Expected results
• Integration of effective tools in Education that will be sustained
• Integration of innovative and inclusive pedagogical techniques
• Equal access to cultural treasures
• Upskilled teachers
• Integrated knowledge for the students that develop cognitive and emotional skills.
• Virtual Unity of the European Digital Culture Target group
• School teachers of Primary and Secondary Schools
• Cultural Organizations Long-term impact & benefits
The students will gain the power to:
• get motivated, as there is a final product that is constructed by them
• work on the subject without restrictions based on their abilities and aesthetics
• approach the learning content through a multidisciplinary procedure.
The project is promoted by 5 partners from France, Greece, UK and Belgium, representing Open Universities, educational technology and e-learning companies and skills development/ inclusion experts, with an extended European network that will be mobilised for the promotion and sustainability of the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 200450 Eur

Project Coordinator

INTERACTIVE 4D & Country: FR

Project Partners

• SCS LogoPsyCom
• THE OPEN UNIVERSITY
• HELLENIC OPEN UNIVERSITY
• AINTEK SYMVOULOI EPICHEIRISEON EFARMOGES YPSILIS TECHNOLOGIAS EKPAIDEFSI ANONYMI ETAIREIA