Cultural heritage and mobile learning: a GPS guide to monuments and sites of Roman town Emona

Bernarda ŽUPANEK¹ / Dimitrij MLEKUŽ²

(¹Ljubljana City Museum, Slovenia / ²University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)

In order to enable increased acessibility, beyond the ordinary sphere of activities, to the heritage of the Roman town Emona, hidden beneath and partially preserved in modern Ljubljana, we chose to use mobile technology.
Mobile technology, increasingly seen as a normal part of everyday life, presents the opportunity to support educational visits by providing both location-based information and guidance through this information based on the visitor’s interests and needs and encourage learning within an authentic context. Supporting access to heritage with mobile information technology is not new, but is still a novelty, especially in Slovenia.
After testing several applications we decided to use Caerus, a platform developed at University of Birmingham. Our GPS guide is personal, flexible and together with location awareness offers information — animations, narration, video, sound effects and music — relevant to the particular site or monument. The guide is currently being tested by our visitors. In broader view, we wish to assess ways in which handheld computers facilitate ambient teaching and learning, and to explore the possibilities for active participation of visitors through actions such as e-graffiti and different spatial annotations.

Keywords: archaeological heritage, mobile learning, GPS guide