A navigator for sharing cultural heritages in an educational context: the “pollicina” project.

The goal of the Pollicina project is to build a collaborative coordinated environment which allows to create knowledge itineraries and to bring the students closer to cultural heritages (museums, churches, archaeological sites, etc.). Pollicina enriches the collaborative teaching practices through the contribution of external cultural institutions, thanks to the use of off-the-shelf technology. The itineraries are based on the digital collections provided by the cultural institutions which have joined the Pollicina project and by external information sources (e.g., Europeana collections, http://www.europeana.eu). The objective is to develop a SaaS (software as a service) called Educational Social Network (EduSN) that integrates aspects of a Social Learning Management System for the social educational aspects, and of a Content Management System for the management of the cultural heritage objects (hereafter, chos). In Pollicina the definition of the itineraries is performed thanks to several methodologies and technologies. Methodologies:  An approach to the flipped learning paradigm according to which the contents are proposed and articulated through interactive channels and they are elaborated collaboratively by the students. The students are organized within editorial committees, where each student has a specific editorial role in the creation process of the itinerary. A gamification approach where badges are assigned according to the soft skills acquired is defined in order to validate the work of the students.  A novel recommender system based on personalization and contextualization aspects with the intent to suggest new chos to the students according to their interests, academic level, and actions performed on the educational platform.  A classification system aimed at grouping the chos in an innovative way according to the common properties (e.g., author, material, theme, year, colour, geo-location, etc.) by using rough set methodologies and/or conceptual maps. The goal is to build a semantic network for chos in order to logically link cultural heritages. Technologies:  Software as a service cloud.  A dedicated App.  Beacon and QR code for an indoor use. The Pollicina project is supported by the Regional Operational Program of the European Fund for Regional Development 2014 -2020 (POR FESR 2014-2020).