Herit-app. Tandem-developed multilingual audioguides for the dissemination of our cultural heritage. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Herit-app. Tandem-developed multilingual audioguides for the dissemination of our 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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

CONTEXT/BACKGROUND
The context where we start is the current year work on a four-country collaboration on the design of several itineraries in our countries and the need to take a further step to translate them into our mother languages, as well as the in situ check in of their adequacy.
OBJECTIVES
Two are the European initiatives which have been inspirational to us. At a more precise level, the Decision (2017) to celebrate The European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 . Its slogan “Our heritage: where the past meets the future” made us think of a way to connect both and we found the best tool in an app. It seeks many of the objectives fixed in this Decision, among which we would like to stand out the ones related to more integrated and sustainable approaches, to promote debate, research and innovative reuse and enhancement of cultural heritage, to promote solutions which make cultural heritage accessible to all, including via digital means, or to facilitate the dissemination of research results to a broader audience. We have sought and seek to continue our task of promoting and sharing both our tangible (buildings, monuments, ..) and natural heritage. To do so, we will create both historic and geologic itineraries.
We wish to leave an imprint beyond 2018 and follow six of the ten long-term impact projects that the Commission, in collaboration with the Council of Europe, UNESCO, and other partners, will be running on engagement, sustainability and innovation.
At a different level, the Europe 2020 targets show us, Spain, and one of our partners , Hungary, among the countries with the highest drop-out rate (Spain 19% and Hungary 12.4%). On the other hand, we find two of our partners among the lowest rate, being Czechia (6.6%) and Lithuania (4.8%). Thus, we aim at creating a synergy among all four countries which may contribute to the EU target, reducing up to 10% the drop-out rate.
NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS
120 students and 24 teachers will participate in the mobilities, though many more will benefit from the blended learning activities we have and will design during these two years. Teachers will have a sufficient or above average level of English to ensure communication among all four partners. It will also apply to students. Both written and oral skills, along with empathy and social competences will be core at the selection process, not to forget level of committment with the tasks to be carried out and their quality.
DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES
Every country will design, in their mother tongue, their itinerary, with a solid base of previous research, will translate it into English and will share it with the other three countries so that we all translate every toher’s itineraries to our mother tongues. We will record them and upload them to our apps. When meeting we will do a part of this job and will check their adequacy.
There will be many other activities carried out in orden to fulfill this main task.
METHODOLOGY
The methodology has been designed along two main guidelines. In the first place, Problem-Based Learning, by which we find out the need in some of our city of having an app designed to learn about the place they visit. Secondly, Service Learning, by which two institutions collaborate and through mutual help, ellaborate a product which will be offered, for free, to our city. In our case, the University of Alicante will provide with students from the degrees of Translation and English Studies, who will mentor our students in their translations and their recordings. The final product will be enjoyed by our visitors through the app, accessible from the City Hall website.
Along the two years, we are also going to collaborate through blended learning, to prepare those itineraries. We will design activities through the safest platform we know, etwinning, through Forums, Chats, econferences, a diary, and uploading the materials we cproduce.
RESULTS
We aim at creating four apps, one per country, where we will upload the itineraries hosting the written and audio versions of the stops to visit for public use.
IMPACT
The impact can be viewed from two perspectives, the most measurable one is the enhancement of the English language, but we aim further. We aim at developing a wider view of languages as different from Spanish or English as Lithuanian, Check or Hungarian, admiring their beauty and the treasure they host. Culturally, getting to know their cultural heritages will also be a turning point in our students’ lives.
We cannot forget the impact on teachers’ careers participating in this project means. It is a milestone as some of us have already experienced. The school’s curriculum can also include tasks created now on it.
LONGER TERM BENEFITS
We regard Erasmus+ as a starting point. We wish to build solid and lasting relationships with our partner countries and plan to build a system to continue working together, through mobilities and virtual cooperation, making blended learning our focus.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 127736 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES CABO DE LA HUERTA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Obchodní akademie Vinohradská
• Vilniaus Gabijos gimnazija
• Felcsúti Letenyey Lajos Gimnázium Szakgimnázium és Szakközépiskola