Ways to introduce technology and virtual environments

Virtual environments and other technologies can be a powerful tool for educating about intangible cultural heritage. Technology can be great at making educating both engaging and interactive for the participants, serving as inspiration for safeguarding heritage.

See a compiled list of different tools you can try out below, and see the other articles in this category about building virtual exhibitions, using 360 cameras and finding external digital resources to add to your educational activities.

List of digital tools

We built this list to introduce as many different tools as possible to help you with incorporating technology into your educational work. Experiment with them and add them to your repertoire of options!

The list consists of tools related to many different purposes such as virtual spaces, presentations, graphic design and interactivity, quizzes and engagement tools, collaboration tools, website builders, tools for sharing and 3D-model related tools, as well as some information about artificial intelligence and large language models. 

Scroll the slideshow for general information and links to the digital tools, with usage suggestions and examples.

Data privacy & Permissions

When utilizing technology, it is always important to bear in mind all the laws and regulations surrounding your working. In the context of European Union this means awareness about and complying of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines. Following these guidelines and general data privacy practices to conduct data collection in ethical and responsible ways, respecting participants and maintaining trust in the overall educational process is really important when utilizing technology and in general.

• If you are collecting any kind of personal data (photographs, audio recordings, videos…) be sure to get appropriate consent and permission from the participants for your work and be aware of the participants rights (accessing their data, erasing data).
• Always communicate to the participants how exactly you will use and store the data you collect. This can in practice be done with a consent and permission form that you hand out to all the participants. For example, in a workshop environment, this can be done in compilation with a participant questionnaire in the beginning to gauge out the understanding of ICH amongst the participants and at the same time giving them an understanding of the data collection you will be doing.
• Transparency is key, be sure to always elaborate on what data will be collected, how it will be used, and who will have access to it. These are all things that need to be made clear to all of the participants. Remember to also avoid collecting excessive or irrelevant data that could pose risks to the participants privacy, so keep data amounts at minimum that is necessary!

If you are going to use tools listed here or some other third-party educational tools or platforms in your work, be sure to always also check their own data privacy policies and practices!

References

Data Protection under GDPR. 2022. European Commission. Europa.eu. Cited 14.5.2024. https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers/data-protection/data-protection-gdpr/index_en.htm