Museums and cultural institutions have a central role in presenting history and art as well as teaching history, arts and cultural heritage. In Europe alone the recognition of shared cultural history and an appreciation for cultural differences highlight the importance of providing diverse, inclusive and accessible educational content for people across the continent. In the last decade alone, the process of digitalization and emergence of innovative technologies have created new possibilities and unforeseen challenges for the museums to carry out their educational mission. In order to stay meaningful and relevant education providers museums and cultural institutions must keep up with changing times and develop new tools for carrying out their mission in presenting and teaching the history and cultural heritage for audiences of the 21st century.
DREAM – Digital Reality and Educational Activities in Museums is a collaborative project that aims to do just that. Funded in part by the Eramus+ program and consisting of 7 partner organizations across Europe, our aim is create a methodology that brings together our shared European cultural heritage and augmented reality (AR) technologies. Using the DREAM methodology and a set of open source digital tools we set out to develop working practices and applications that make it possible to present and utilize museum collections, cultural artifacts, exhibitions and other content in new, innovative and easily approachable manners. The project also encourages and teaches new types of digital competencies.
The project involves 45 primary school teachers from Italy, Croatia and Portugal and their 900 students. All of them will participate in the creation of a “museum theater” – which, with the help of augmented reality, will turn a visit to a museum into a museum play. Combined with AR technology, these “museater” performances act as tools for interpretation and expression and provide students with motivation and means to learn about history. DREAM also aims to provide new tools to support teaching students with learning disabilities. Close co-operation between project partners and teachers helps to achieve these goals.
DREAM is a two year long project that is currently in it’s first phase. Our immediate goal is to produce and test out the DREAM methodology, which will then be used as the basis for practical implementation of the DREAM concept. Second phase will consist of building up an edutainment platform that acts as an easy-to-use interface for combining open educational resources (OER) with AR technology. Last but not least, the third and final phase consists of organizing a blended course that provides teachers with skills to implement the DREAM method in practice. During the final phase 45 museater plays will be produced across Europe. The best performance will be awarded in the end gala of the project in Finland in late 2022.
We invite you to join us on our journey to make the DREAM come true. To keep up with the latest updates and news on the DREAM project, please feel free to follow the website or our social media channels. Frequent updates will provide insight to different aspects of the project and its results. And hopefully they will help you to live the DREAM with us!
The partner consortium of the DREAM project consists of partners: M9 District, Stati Generali dell’Inovazione, Center for Technical Culture Rijeka, Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral Rijeka, Mapa das Ideas, and Camara Municipal de Oeiras and Postimuseo. More information about the partners can be found here.
