Nunalleq, Stories from the Village of Our Ancestors:Co-designing a multivocal educational resource based on an archaeological excavation

This work was funded by the UK-based Arts and Humanities Research Council through grants (AH/K006029/1) and (AH/R014523/1), a University of Aberdeen IKEC Award with additional support for travel and subsistence from the University of Dundee, DJCAD Research Committee RS2 project funding. Thank you to the many people who contributed their support, knowledge, feedback, voices and faces throughout the project, this list includes members of the local community, colleagues, specialists, students, and volunteers. If we have missed out any names we apologize but know that your help was appreciated. Jimmy Anaver, John Anderson, Alice Bailey, Kieran Baxter, Pauline Beebe, Ellinor Berggren, Dawn Biddison, Joshua Branstetter, Brendan Body, Lise Bos, Michael Broderick, Sarah Brown, Crystal Carter, Joseph Carter, Lucy Carter, Sally Carter, Ben Charles, Mary Church, Willard Church, Daniele Clementi, Annie Cleveland, Emily Cleveland, Joshua Cleveland, Aron Crowell, Neil Curtis, Angie Demma, Annie Don, Julia Farley, Veronique Forbes, Patti Fredericks, Tricia Gillam, Sean Gleason, Sven Haakanson, Cheryl Heitman, Grace Hill, Diana Hunter, Joel Isaak, Warren Jones, Stephan Jones, Ana Jorge, Solveig Junglas, Melia Knecht, Rick Knecht, Erika Larsen, Paul Ledger, Jonathan Lim Soon, Amber Lincoln, Steve Luke, Francis Lukezic, Eva Malvich, Pauline Matthews, Roy Mark, Edouard Masson-MacLean, Julie Masson-MacLean, Mhairi Maxwell, Chuna Mcintyre, Drew Michael, Amanda Mina, Anna Mossolova, Carl Nicolai Jr, Chris Niskanen, Molly Odell, Tom Paxton, Lauren Phillips, Lucy Qin, Charlie Roberts, Chris Rowe, Rufus Rowe,Chris Rowland, John Rundall, Melissa Shaginoff, Monica Shah, Anna Sloan, Darryl Small Jr, John Smith, Mike Smith, Joey Sparaga, Hannah Strehlau, Dora Strunk, Larissa Strunk, Lonny Strunk, Larry Strunk, Robbie Strunk, Sandra Toloczko, Richard Vanderhoek, the Qanirtuuq Incorporated Board, the Quinhagak Dance Group and the staff at Kuinerrarmiut Elitnaurviat. We also extend our thanks to three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on our paper.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

People, Land, Arts, Culture and Engagement: Taking Stock of the Place Initiative

This report serves as a point of entry into creative placemaking as defined and supported by the Tucson Pima Arts Council's PLACE Initiative. To assess how and to what degree the PLACE projects were helping to transform communities, TPAC was asked by the Kresge Foundation to undertake a comprehensive evaluation. This involved discussion with stakeholders about support mechanisms, professional development, investment, and impact of the PLACE Initiative in Tucson, Arizona, and the Southwest regionally and the gathering of qualitative and quantitative data to develop indicators and method for evaluating the social impact of the arts in TPAC's grantmaking. The report documents one year of observations and research by the PLACE research team, outside researchers and reviewers, local and regional working groups, TPAC staff, and TPAC constituency. It considers data from the first four years of PLACE Initiative funding, including learning exchanges, focus groups, individual interviews, grantmaking, and all reporting. It is also informed by evaluation and assessment that occurred in the development of the PLACE Initiative, in particular, Maribel Alvarez's Two-Way Mirror: Ethnography as a Way to Assess Civic Impact of Arts-Based Engagement in Tucson, Arizona (2009), and Mark Stern and Susan Seifert's Documenting Civic Engagement: A Plan for the Tucson Pima Arts Council (2009). Both of these publications were supported by Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, that promotes arts and culture as potent contributors to community, civic, and social change. Both publications describe how TPAC approaches evaluation strategies associated with social impact of the arts in Tucson and Pima County. This report outlines the local context and historical antecedents of the PLACE Initiative in the region with an emphasis on the concept of "belonging" as a primary characteristic of PLACE projects and policy. It describes PLACE projects as well as the role of TPAC in creating and facilitating the Initiative. Based on the collective understanding of the research team, impacts of the PLACE Initiative are organized into three main realms -- institutions, artists, and communities. These realms are further addressed in case studies from select grantees, whose narratives offer rich, detailed perspectives about PLACE projects in context, with all their successes, rewards, and challenges for artists, communities, and institutions. Lastly, the report offers preliminary research findings on PLACE by TPAC in collaboration with Dr. James Roebuck, codirector of the University of Arizona's ERAD (Evaluation Research and Development) Program

A collection of narrative practices on cultural heritage with innovative technologies and creative strategies

[Abstract] The H2020 project rurAllure, “Promotion of rural museums and heritage sites in the vicinity of European pilgrimage routes” (2021-2023) aims to enrich pilgrims’ experiences with the creation of meaningful cultural products focused on the lesser-known heritage sites of rural areas that are not found on pilgrimage routes, but in their surroundings. One of the project goals is to create contents and narratives to be offered to pilgrims over successive days with the integration of state-of-the-art technology. This way, hidden rural heritage will be discoverable and pilgrims will have the opportunity to actively engage with rural places nearby, their local communities, identity, and culture. The latter will no longer be passive witnesses, but active participants in transnational networks of shared history and living heritage. The rurAllure project aims to develop a new concept of mobile guide for pilgrims that will present rural heritage sites and activities of interest along with information of transportation and accommodation to help movement from and back to pilgrimage routes, as well as cohesive narratives to be consumed along the way, focused on four pilots: literary heritage on the ways to Santiago de Compostela, thermal heritage and others on the ways to Rome, ethnographic heritage on the ways to Trondheim, and natural heritage on the ways to Csíksomlyó. To facilitate the pilots’ brainstorming in the creation of multimedia contents, we developed a review of narrative models on cultural heritage storytelling. In this paper, we present the results, a collection of 22 case studies we analyzed with a common structure, from which six distinctive groups of narrative practices emerge: sound-walks, wearable guides, context-aware games, simulations, digital exhibitions, and cultural wayfinding. All cases studies disrupt traditional notions of storytelling consumption and foster new relationships between people and places of interest that may lead to advancements in the pilgrimage context. The present review provides a collection of best practices and actions that utilize the latest digital technologies and innovative strategies for producing meaningful narratives, mainly about cultural heritage sites. All of them are focused on the active engagement of users with particular locations of interest, landmarks, structures, objects, or intangible expressions. By doing so, their creators try to enhance tourists’ experiences while they explore or travel to places with cultural, natural, or historical significance. This state-of-the-art collection was developed within the H2020 project rurAllure, “Promotion of rural museums and heritage sites in the vicinity of European pilgrimage routes” (2021-2023). The project is focused on attracting en-route pilgrims to hidden or lesser-known rural museums and heritage sites located near four European pilgrimage routes: Santiago de Compostela, Rome, Trondheim, and Csíksomlyó. With this collection, our aim is to develop the project in the creation of multimedia contents and multimodal narratives for people that make their way to these pilgrimage destinations based on an initial, precise approach to the latest actions in the field

Digital Storytelling and History Lines: Community Engagement in a Master-Planned Development

The introduction of new media and information and communication technology enables a greater variety of formats and content beyond conventional texts in the application and discourse of public history projects. Multimedia and personalised content requires public historians and cultural community developers to grasp new skills and methods to make representations of and contributions to a collective community memory visible. This paper explores the challenge of broadening and reinvigorating the traditional role of the public historian working with communities via the facilitation, curation and mediation of digital content in order to foster creative expression in a residential urban development. It seeks to better understand the role of locally produced and locally relevant content, such as personal and community images and narratives, in the establishment of meaningful social networks of urban residents. The paper discusses the use of digital storytelling and outlines the development of a new community engagement application we call History Lines

'Breaking the glass': preserving social history in virtual environments

New media technologies play an important role in the evolution of our society. Traditional museums and heritage sites have evolved from the ‘cabinets of curiosity’ that focused mainly on the authority of the voice organising content, to the places that offer interactivity as a means to experience historical and cultural events of the past. They attempt to break down the division between visitors and historical artefacts, employing modern technologies that allow the audience to perceive a range of perspectives of the historical event. In this paper, we discuss virtual reconstruction and interactive storytelling techniques as a research methodology and educational and presentation practices for cultural heritage sites. We present the Narrating the Past project as a case study, in order to illustrate recent changes in the preservation of social history and guided tourist trails that aim to make the visitor’s experience more than just an architectural walk through

Mobile Historical

The Center for Public History + Digital Humanities (CPHDH) seeks NEH Level II Start-Up support for work leading toward the release of Mobile Historical, an open-source (and, optionally, hosted) software application (app) that allows cultural institutions, K-16 teachers, and university-based humanists to publish humanities information to mobile devices. The proposed project builds and extends (dramatically so) an existing mobile app development project aimed at curating the city, Cleveland Historical. We seek funding to scale up, revise, and extend our previous work toward the creation of the open-source tool Mobile Historical. Thus, the principal activities of this proposal are focused on creating a new vehicle for interpretive humanities publishing in mobile environments via innovative technologies and guidance on how to curate humanities content, including especially developing approaches to state-of-the-art interactive humanistic learning for broad public audiences and users

Excavation to storytelling: Perspectives from archaeological heritagescapes in Sweden

Recent research has revealed that interdisciplinary work combining archaeological and heritage practice continues to be limited by enduring assumptions separating the two fields. Traditional structures and institutional barriers make it difficult to break away from what is expected in order to explore what is possible in what archaeologists and heritage practitioners ‘do’. Though archaeologists play an integral role in the discovery and interpretation of the past—providing the foundation for the heritage-making process, there is often a gap between scientific dissemination of archaeological findings and the interpretation and communication of these findings as heritage. We therefore position storytelling as a key to bridging the divide between archaeological and heritage practice. Offering perspectives from archaeological and heritage practices in Sweden, we argue that a renewed focus on storytelling creates more dynamic and collaborative pathways to interpret, communicate and experience archaeological heritagescapes

Museos virtuales y entorno construido: narrativas y experiencias inmersivas vía centros de geodatos multitemporales

[EN] Our built environment is nowadays considered as a dynamic complex, stretching and transforming across space and time, with the interaction of human, social and economic dimensions. It needs to be safeguarded as living places for the future taking into account such complexity. The general aim of this work is to contribute to the comprehension of landscape values, enhancing participation processes by tourists and local communities, considering the built environment as a system: the sum of natural transformation, ancient artefacts stratification and human activities, partially covering the tangible traces, and functioning as a vehicle for the comprehension of intangible values. Multi-temporal, multi-scale and geospatial datasets can play an important role in such knowledge transfer processes by means of narratives and immersive experiences in a multimedia museum approach. In particular, the cartographic heritage, in the form of metric and non-metric maps, can be progressively used as a source of information for innovative narratives. Virtual Museums (VMs)are additional "channels" to disseminate content and to provide knowledge about cultural heritage; they have emerged from the crossbreeding process between museums and digital technologies. Investigating how digital storytelling may support communication and understanding of complex systems, such as the built environment and landscape, it is relevant because cultural awareness may foster the sense of belonging and identity construction of which Europe is thirsty, contributing to the safeguarding of fragile sites. The paper provides useful information for museums that would like to follow this pathway. It retraces the main steps of storytelling production and presents interesting examples of immersive narrative models based on geospatial data and a virtual hub, helping people to retrieve and access information and to recognize places of memory mostly unknown. Moreover, it offers an evaluation of existing tools that can be adopted for this purpose. Eventually, by virtue of the research carried out for the case study of the Virtual Museum of Como Lake Landscape, the paper aims at ascertaining which kind of stories and experiences can be designed, the potential of these tools and possible weaknesses or constraints that deserve future researches.[ES] El entorno construido se considera hoy en día como un complejo dinámico, que se extiende y transforma a través del espacio y el tiempo, con interacción de dimensiones humanas, sociales y económicas. Debe salvaguardarse como lugares donde vivir el futuro teniendo en cuenta tal complejidad. El objetivo general de este trabajo es contribuir a la comprensión de los valores paisajísticos, potenciando los procesos de participación de los turistas y de los autóctonos, considerando el entorno construido como un sistema: suma de la transformación natural, de la estratificación de artefactos antiguos y de actividades humanas, cubriendo parcialmente los rastros tangibles, y vehículo de comprensión de valores intangibles. Los conjuntos de datos multitemporales, a multi-escala y geoespaciales pueden desempeñar un papel importante en dicho proceso de transferencia de conocimiento a través de narrativas y experiencias inmersivas en el enfoque de un museo multimedia. En particular, el patrimonio cartográfico, en forma de mapas métricos y mapas no métricos, puede utilizarse progresivamente como fuente de información para narrativas innovadoras. Los Museos Virtuales (VM) son “canales” adicionales que permiten difundir contenido y proporcionar conocimiento sobre el patrimonio cultural; surgen del proceso de mestizaje entre museos y tecnologías digitales. Investigar cómo la narración digital puede apoyar la comunicación y la comprensión de sistemas complejos, como el entorno construido y el paisaje, es relevante porque la conciencia cultural puede fomentar el sentido de pertenencia y la construcción de identidad de los que Europa tiene sed, contribuyendo a la protección de sitios frágiles. El artículo proporciona información útil para los museos que deseen seguir este camino. Describe los principales pasos que deberían considerarse a la hora de producir narrativas y pone ejemplos interesantes de modelos narrativos inmersivos basados en datos geoespaciales y centros virtuales, que ayudan a las personas a recuperar y acceder a información, y a reconocer lugares desconocidos o vagamente retenidos en la memoria. Además, ofrece una evaluación de las herramientas existentes que se pueden adoptar con este propósito. El objetivo es aclarar, finalmente, en virtud dela investigación desarrollada en el caso de estudio del Museo Virtual del Paisaje del Lago di Como, qué tipo de historias y experiencias se pueden diseñar, el potencial de estas herramientas y las posibles debilidades o limitaciones que merecen futuras investigaciones.We thank Stefano Della Torre (Head of Polimi dABC) as Sc. Responsible of the Advisory within the PORL FESR 2007/2013 ‘Multimedia system for the presentation and participated recognizing of the environmental values of the landscape of the Lake of Como’; and Leoni Marco (Director of the Museum of Como Lake Landscape) for the concession of museum’s data and his support in developing the PhD research of which this paper presents a summary of preliminary findings.The research leading to the results of this paper is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the European Community (CIP) GA no. 620400.Brumana, R.; Oreni, D.; Caspani, S.; Previtali, M. (2018). Virtual museums and built environment: narratives and immersive experience via multi-temporal geodata hub. Virtual Archaeology Review. 9(19):34-49. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2018.9918SWORD3449919Bedford, L. (2001). Storytelling: The real work of museums. Curator: the museum journal, Vol. 44, Issue 1, 27-34. doi: 10.1111/j.2151-6952.2001.tb00027.xBarazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., & Roncoroni, F. (2013). Recognizing landscapes: can we change the point of view of geographic data? Journal of Mobile Multimedia, Vol. 9(1-2), 39-52. doi: 10.1111/j.2151-6952.2001.tb00027.xBarazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., & Previtali, M. (2014). Historical Map Registration via Independent Model Adjustment with Affine Transformations. In ICCSA 2014 (pp. 44-56). doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-09147-1_4Barazzetti L., Brumana, R., Cuca, B., & Previtali, M. (2015). Towards a Virtual Hub for a wider Open Data community. In Geomatics Workbooks n° 12, "FOSS4G Europe Como 2015" (pp.1-12).Brumana, R., Cuca, B., Oreni, D., Prandi, F., & Scaioni, M. (2010). Integration of old cadastral maps into up-to-date geodatabases for urban planning. In Core spatial databases - updating maintenance and services. From theory to practice (pp. 90-95). Haifa, Israel.Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Cuca, B., Rampini, A., & Pepe, M. (2012). Open Access to Historical Atlas: Sources of Information and Services for Landscape Analysis in an SDI Framework. In ICCSA 2012 (pp. 397-413). Springer Int. Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-31075-1_30.Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Van Hecke, L., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Roncoroni, F., & Valente, R. (2013). Combined Geometric and Thermal Analysis from Uav Platforms for Archaeological Heritage Documentation. In XXIV International Cipa Symposium (pp. 49-54). Strasbourg, France.Brumana, R., Santana Quintero, M., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Della Torre, S., Roels, D., & Capitani, M. (2015). A geo-swot chart, using a values centered approach and multitemporal-maps for landscape assessment and multimedia ecomuseum. In ICOMOS International Symposium "Heritage and Landscape as Human Values, Theme 1 "Sharing and experiencing the identity of communities through tourism and interpretation" (pp. 186-191). Florence, Italy.Bedford, L. (2001). Storytelling: The real work of museums. Curator: the Museum Journal, 44(1), 27-34.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2151-6952.2001.tb00027.xBarazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., & Roncoroni, F. (2013). Recognizing landscapes: can we change the point of view of geographic data? Journal of Mobile Multimedia, 9(1-2), 39-52.Barazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., & Previtali, M. (2014). Historical Map Registration via Independent Model Adjustment with Affine Transformations. In ICCSA 2014 (pp. 44-56). Guimaraes, Portugal. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09147-1_4Barazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Cuca, B., & Previtali, M. (2015). Towards a Virtual Hub for a wider Open Data community. In FOSS4G Europe 2015(pp.1-12). Como, Italy.Brumana, R., Cuca, B., Oreni, D., Prandi, F., & Scaioni, M. (2010). Integration of old cadastral maps into up-to-date geodatabases for urban planning. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XXXVIII, 4-8-2/W9, 90-95.Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Cuca, B., Rampini, A., &Pepe, M. (2012). Open Access to Historical Atlas: Sources of Information and Services for Landscape Analysis in an SDI Framework .In ICCSA 2012(pp. 397-413).Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31075-1_30Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Van Hecke, L., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Roncoroni, F., & Valente, R. (2013). Combined geometric and thermal analysis from UAV platforms for archaeological heritage documentation. ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Science, II-5/W1, 49-54. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprsannals-II-5-W1-49-2013Brumana, R., Santana Quintero, M., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Della Torre, S., Roels, D., & Capitani, M. (2015a). A geo-swot chart, using a values centered approach and multi temporal-maps for landscape assessment and multimedia ecomuseum. In ICOMOS International Symposium "Heritage and Landscape as Human Values", Theme 1"Sharing and experiencing the identity of communities through tourism and interpretation" (pp. 186-191). Florence, Italy.Brumana, R., Santana Quintero, M., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Banfi, F., Oreni, D., Roels D., & Roncoroni, F. (2015b). Towards a virtual hub approach for landscape assessment and multimedia ecomuseum using multi temporal-maps. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XL-5/W7, 49-56. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprsarchives-XL-5-W7-49-2015Bruner, J. (1991). The Narrative Construction of Reality. Critical Inquiry, 18 (1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1086/448619Caquard, S. (2013). Mapping narrative cartography. Progress in Human Geography, 37(1), 135-144.https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132511423796Caspani, S., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Previtali, M. (2017). Virtual museums as digital storytellers for dissemination of built environment: possible narratives and outlooks for appealing and rich encounters with the past. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XLII-2/W5, 113-119.https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W5-113-2017Castells, M. (2000). The construction of European Identity. Retrieved October25, 2017, fromhttps://www.chet.org.za/files/CASTELLS%202004%20European%20Identity.pdfCouncil of Europe. (2000). European Landscape Convention. Retrieved October25, 2017, from https://rm.coe.int/1680080621Cuca, B., Brumana, R., Scaioni, M., & Oreni, D. (2011). Spatial Data Management of Temporal Map Series for Cultural and Environmental Heritage. International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research, 6, 97-125.https.//doi.org/10.2902/1725-0463.2011.06.art5Cuca, B., Previtali, M., Barazzetti, L., & Brumana, R. (2017). Benefits of using Open Geo-spatial Data for valorization of Cultural Heritage: GeoPan app. In 19th EGU General Assembly (p. 19101). Wien, Austria. Retrieved June 20, 2018, from https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2017/EGU2017-19101.pdfGiaccardi, E., & Fogli, D. (2008). Affective geographies: toward a richer cartographic semantics for the geospatial web. In AVI 8 Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces (pp. 173-180). Napoli, Italy. https://doi.org/10.1145/1385569.1385598Hooper-Greenhill, E. (2005). I musei e la formazione del sapere: le radici storiche, le pratiche del presente. Milan: Il Saggiatore.ICOMOS. (1996). The Declaration of San Antonio. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from https://www.icomos.org/en/charters-and-texts/179-articles-en-francais/ressources/charters-and-standards/188-the-declaration-of-san-antonioICOMOS. (2008a). Charter on cultural routes. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from https://www.icomos.org/images/DOCUMENTS/Charters/culturalroutes_e.pdfICOMOS. (2008b). Quebèc Declaration on the preservation of the spirit of place. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from https://www.icomos.org/quebec2008/quebec_declaration/pdf/GA16_Quebec_Declaration_Final_EN.pdfICOMOS. (2014). The Florence Declaration on Heritage and Landscapes as Human Values. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from https://www.icomos.org/images/DOCUMENTS/Secretariat/2015/GA_2014_results/GA2014_Symposium_FlorenceDeclaration_EN_final_20150318.pdfMacdonald, S. (2013) .Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today. London: Routledge.Monti, C., Achille, C., Brumana, R., Musumeci, S., Oreni, D., & Signori, M. (2009). Perspectives on the 3-D analysis through the cadastral map series (XVIII -XX sec.) and the first geodetic large scale map of Milan realized by the 'Astronomidi Brera' (Astronomers of Brera): toward an advanced portal. E-PERIMETRON, 4(2), 86-100.Nativi, S., Craglia, M., & Pearlman, J. (2013). Earth science infrastructures interoperability: the brokering approach. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics. Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 6(3), 1118-1129. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2013.2243113Pierdicca, R., Malinverni, E., Frontoni, E., Colosi, F., & Orazi, R. (2016). 3D visualization tools to explore ancient architectures in South America. Virtual Archaeology Review, 7(15), 44-53.https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2016.5904Pini, L. (2003). Tremezzo il paese dove fioriscono I limoni. Tremezzo: Silvana Editoriale.Previtali, M. (2017). Geopan atl@s: A brokering based gateway to georeferenced historical maps for risk analysis. 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Retrieved October25, 2017, from http://www.v-must.net/sites/default/files/D2.3d_StateArt_VirtualMuseums_2015.pdfWong, A. (2015). The whole story, and then some: 'digital storytelling' in evolving museum practice. In MW2015: Museums and the Web 2015, Chicago, United States. Retrieved October25, 2017, from http://mw2015.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/the-whole-story-and-then-some-digital-storytelling-in-evolving-museum-practice

Children Tell Landscape-Lore among Perceptions of Place: Relating Ecocultural Digital Stories in a Conscientizing/Decolonizing Exploration

We know that when children feel a sense-of-relation within local natural environments, they are more prone to feel concern for them, while nurturing well-being and resilience in themselves and in lands/waters they inhabit. Positive environmental behaviors often follow into adulthood. Our human capacities for creating sustainable solutions in response to growing repercussions of global warming and climate change may grow if more children feel a sense of belonging in the wild natural world. As educators, if we listen to and learn from students’ voices about how they engage in nature, we can create pedagogical experiences directly relevant to their lives. Activities that relate to learners’ lives inspire motivation, curiosity, and furthers understanding. Behaviors supporting environmental stewardship, environmental justice, and participation in citizen science and phenology are more probable when children feel concern for ecological landscapes. Internationally, some educators are free to encourage a sense-of -relation by bringing students into natural places. Yet, there are many educators who are constrained from doing so by strict local, state, and national education policies and accountability measures. Overcoming restrictions requires creative, relevant, and enjoyable learner-centered opportunities. Research shows that virtual nature experiences can provide for beneficial connections with(in) nature for children and adults. It is best to bring children outside. When this is not possible, a sense of wonder may be encouraged in the classroom. Our exploratory collaborative digital landscape-lore project makes this possible. We expand awareness about how we, educators, and children alike, are engaged within the landscapes and waterscapes significant to us. The term landscape-lore articulates the primacy of the places we find meaningful. Our intercultural investigations took place in collaborative public schools in colonized landscapes. New Hampshire and New Zealand, known by their first inhabitants, the Aln8bak and Māori peoples respectively, as N’dakinna (the Dawnland) and Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud) are landscapes that have transformed over millennia, as all places do. The deep relational knowing and caring for these landscapes and waterscapes for millennia has been greatly interrupted by colonization across the globe. Telling stories to following generations is serious storywork; they sustain culture, lands, and waters in reciprocity and deep memory. Landscape-lore and ecocultural multiliteracies, such as singing, oratory, music and dance are responsible rituals that support ancestral Indigenous Environmental Knowing and Wisdom Systems. These cultural frameworks could be vital for encouraging respectful and collaborative sustainability solutions for the entire biosphere. Centered within critical Indigenous methodologies, this relational, qualitative study endeavored to be ecoculturally responsive, respectful, and culturally sustaining. Creating experiential digital landscape lore gave us ways to share the natural world in our own voices. We were situated within a shared sense of holistic belonging in ecocultural places and communities. Exchanging our independent excursions in local land-/ waterscapes by crossing virtual biogeographical borders increased exposure to diverse worldviews and places. As a transdisciplinary process, such a learning experience fosters new emotional connections and critical human-nature systems thinking. Our study incorporates children’s landscape-lore in an ethical and respectful manner. Our main research questions were: 1. How are children engaged with(in) the natural world as described in their digital landscape-lore? 2. What culturally responsive background knowledges are vital for educators preparing to facilitate such a learning project both locally and globally? 3. How might a digital landscape-lore project support goals for connecting children and communities in relational reciprocity within and across diverse landscapes, worldviews, and times? How might landscape-lore create personal relevance, curiosity, and learning? Findings demonstrate that co-researching children each have experiential environmental knowledge that informs their relationships within their ecocultural locations and landscape-lore. Their embodied movements and experiences in nature are also significant. Children’s landscape-lore describe social participation in exploratory adventures among friends, family, beyond-human kin. Interactions with biophysical entities within land- and waterscapes hold diverse worldview meanings for children. Children demonstrated that they are savvy, digital citizens. They educated teachers and classmates about places meaningful to them. Significantly, most landscape-lore, in both N’dakinna/New Hampshire and Aotearoa New Zealand, included social moments with friends and family, and described local animals. This contrasts with many studies demonstrating a preference for distant charismatic wildlife. Children’s experiential landscape lore stories described the local biodiversity in their home environments. Our collaborative experiential landscape-lore supported innovative tech skills and critical multiliteracies directly relevant to the interests and ecocultural lives of learners of all ages

"Teaching Italian as a second language through digital storytelling. Students’ perceptions towards izi.TRAVEL"

The use of technology-enhanced language learning, representing an urgent issue due to the Covid-19 pandemic, has also been promoted by many studies in second language acquisition. Nevertheless, research in this field is only partially developed for the teaching of Italian as a second language (L2) within the university context and for investigating students’ perceptions. This article presents an action research project on the use of izi.TRAVEL, a website housing more than 15,000 audio guides for touring various sites in cities around the world. The aim of the study is to contribute to developing didactic practices relative to Italian as an L2 through digital storytelling, in order to raise and foster students’ linguistic and digital skills. Participants were a small group of students studying Italian as an L2 as part of a master’s program at an Italian university. Data were collected through a questionnaire, a focus group, and students’ multimodal artifacts. Results show the positive impact of project participation on students’ attitudes and perceived learning outcomes, as well as improvements in linguistic, cultural, environmental, and digital competences