Visual Library of Cultural Heritage Erasmus Project

Project Title

Visual Library of Cultural Heritage

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 : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

IT technology is rapidly growing and adult people are struggling to keep up with the new opportunities offered by various devices designed to make their lives easier. Although technology is gaining new frontiers, adults are reluctant to use it at its full potential. This leads to a new form of exclusion that the adult population faces: technological exclusion.
In order to contribute to the alleviation of this, the project set 4 major objectives:
– raising awareness of European cultural heritage by involving adults in the creation of an AR visual library with the most important elements of cultural heritage in the participating countries.
-introduction of the learning by doing method using AR technology. in creating promotional flashcards that compose the European Cultural Heritage Portfolio.
-increasing the confidence of adults in the use of modern devices and improving their ITC skills by getting involved in learning by doing and gamification using AR technology.
-facilitating the transfer of innovative practices in educational communities, through the exchange of experiences and methods.

Augmented Reality (AR) technology represents a huge potential in education and it changes the way that people acquire skills. The Visual Library of Cultural Heritage ( CHERITAGE) Project has exploited this by initiating a learning method based on the AR app. The project targeted especially adults from cultural, educational or social fields, having ITC low skills. In total, the project Learning Activities were attended by 135 people and at the Transnational Meetings participated 78 people, delegated by the organizations in the project.

During the project’s four learning steps, participants learned to create from scratch a visual library with the most representative objectives from the cultural heritage of their country, items selected, documented and promoted by themselves through AR technology.
They have created flashcards for each selected cultural objective in their countries. The flashcards were made in both virtual and physical versions. The virtual version of the flashcards formed the gallery The Visual Library of Cultural Heritage uploaded on www.cheritage.eu, the project website, and the physical form of the flashcards formed brochures of the European Cultural Heritage Portfolio that were exhibited and presented on different occasions.

In total, were created 8 brochures comprising 89 flashcards that shaped the Visual Library of Cultural Heritage Gallery, presented both as a friendly map and a dynamic carousel. In addition to the IT educational component, the project activities also aimed to initiate participants in methods of promoting heritage. Moreover, learning by doing methods provided participants with new technical skills and also required strong emotional involvement on their part. As one of the main objectives was to raise awareness of European cultural heritage, participants were actively involved in achieving the results of the project in order to gain deep insights into European values. This also facilitated the transfer of practices to other educational communities.

The most important outputs of the project are the Cultural Heritage Portfolio and the Cultural Heritage Visual Library – an online gallery organized as a friendly map, a database with cultural heritage elements selected by each country, superimposed with images and animation, references and comments. Selected items are material objects (monuments, old books, frescoes, folk costumes, instruments, landscapes) or immaterial objects (traditions, dances, gastronomy).

Participants have acquired new skills in using ITC and mobile applications and are much more confident in using new devices as well as online promotion platforms. They also acquired new professional research and documentation knowledge on a certain topic. They have now the required skills to create audio-video content and to use AR in various areas. The whole set of activities led to a better understanding of other cultures and increased the participants’ confidence in communicating in a foreign language with people from different parts of Europe. The learning methods used were very versatile and easy to be reproduced in other fields: schools, libraries, online social pages, cultural managers as well as in leisure activities.

In order to achieve a higher impact, we ensured good sustainability by involving 8 different European organizations, which have experience in the educational, cultural and social fields. For each process planned within the project, a specific dissemination method was used related to the purpose of the activity and a certain target group. Also, meetings with stakeholders from various areas of activity with different occasions contributed to the transfer of learned methods and the promotion of cultural heritage. Libraries, schools, leisure centers, municipalities attended the project presentations and were inspired to use augmented reality for new purposes.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 137229,15 Eur

Project Coordinator

BIBLIOTECA JUDETEANA ANTIM IVIREANU VALCEA & Country: RO

Project Partners

• KNIHOVNA KROMERIZSKA – PRISPEVKOVA ORGANIZACE
• INVENTYA VENTURES (EU) LIMITED
• Associação de Ensino Cristóvão Colombo
• Associazione Culturale Twitteratura
• VISOKA SOLA ZA STORITVE V LJUBLJANI, samostojni visokosolski zavod
• EYROPAIKO INSTITOYTO TOPIKHS ANAPTYKSHS
• TR ASSOCIATES LTD