ENA Education Community in practice: 10 ways to promote the use of digital cultural heritage

It’s been more than a year since the Europeana Network Association Education Community officially started its journey. In this post we recognise the best practices of our dedicated members by sharing how they’ve been fostering the use of digital culture in education at the national level - as well as 10 ways new members can contribute in the future!

1. Organise workshops for educators in your country

Thanks to the initiative of our Community co-chair Olimpia Curta, from 4-5 October the University Library Cluj-Napoca hosted a workshop to introduce Europeana learning resources to a group of Romanian educators. In preparation for the event, the Guide to Europeana in Education was also translated into to Romanian. For a copy of the full report on the event, email [email protected].

2. Plan events for students to discover new educational experiences with cultural heritage

Our partners have organised a number of events focused on using digitised cultural heritage material to encourage younger generations to engage with their history. These included a series of activities organised by the Cluj County Library (Octavian Goga) to mark the events of the 1989 Revolution in Romania and educational sessions at the National Library of the Republic of Moldova with the theme ‘10 things to discover with Europeana - the cultural friend of the student and the teacher’. Thanks to Sorina Stanca and Natalia Gulco for organising these events!

3. Integrate Europeana resources for education in the virtual learning environment of your organisation or project

PHOTOCONSORTIUM, a non-profit association which promotes photographic heritage, have created an educational portal that gives access to resources and initiatives. They include Europeana Education on this portal, leveraging the potential of digital cultural heritage to support teaching and learning. Thank you to all their members, particularly to our community Chair Frederik Truyen!

4. Invite community members to get involved in European funded projects related to digital cultural heritage

Altheo Valentini, also co-chair of our community, has involved Europeana as an associated partner in the Crowddreaming project, which will see students from different European countries create a virtual or augmented reality ‘digital scene’ with Europeana content. These scenes will be put together in a digital monument, the ‘Europa Square’.

5. Use Europeana in your Erasmus+ and eTwinning projects

Teachers from all across Europe have been working with Europeana content and resources to involve a large number of students and create unique intercultural experiences with digital cultural heritage. Projects included:

via GIPHY

Gif produced by the students involved in the ‘Our culture is a Gif(t)’ project. CC-BY. 2019

Thanks to Eva Toth, Maria Antónia Brandão, Kati Lőrincz, Angeliki Kougiourouki and Sedat Güngörmez for their enthusiasm, dedication and excellent work on these projects which make Europeana available for students!

6. Do research about Europeana education as a pedagogical tool

As part of her work on the masters course ‘Pedagogia do e-learning’ at the Universidade Aberta in Portugal, Maria Antónia Brandão included Europeana in her research project on open education resources. She says that, ‘As Europeana is such a fantastic resource I wanted that more people could know’.

7. Help to translate materials

In August 2019, we launched a call to community our members via our Facebook group to help us to translate our Guide to using Europeana in Education in different national languages. We were able to add nine language versions to the five already available. Access the Guide and translations.

8. Write about Europeana resources to spread the word in your country and to show the relevance for your own project

See below some great examples of blogs and articles below, from Maria Drabczyk and Miško Staniši.

9. Act as an intermediary between Europeana and your Ministry of Education and other relevant public agencies in charge of innovation

In Croatia, the Ministry of Education has given teachers the opportunity to co-create the curricular reform by creating new learning scenarios. Two learning scenarios presented by Ivana Štiglec, our Europeana teacher ambassador for Croatia, have been approved, meaning that they will be used as an example by other teachers in the country. Additionally, Theodora Gkeniou, our ambassador for Greece, has met with a group of professionals of the Institute of Educational Policy to discuss how to better integrate Europeana resources for education in the educational system.

10. Organise meetings with CHI professionals involved in education at the national level

To involve more CHI education professionals in our initiative, on 27 November and in the context of the Europeana 2019 annual conference, the Education Community organised an informal meeting and a breakfast for the community steering group and a selection of representatives of education departments in Portuguese museums. Thanks to Joana Sousa Monteiro, director of the Museum of Lisbon, for hosting!

And last but not least, join our ENA community and engage with an exceptional group of international professionals, innovating in education with digital cultural heritage!