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Sustainability 2019, 11, 1373; doi:10.3390/su11051373 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
Article
Ksar Said: Building Tunisian Young People’s Critical
Engagement with Their Heritage
Paola Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco 1,*, Mark Winterbottom 2, Fabrizio Galeazzi 3
and Mike Gogan 4
1 School of Philosophy and Art History and Interdisciplinary Studies Centre, University of Essex; Colchester,
CO4 3SQ, UK
2 Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, CB2 8PQ, UK; mw244@cam.ac.uk
3 Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, YO1 7EP, UK; Interdisciplinary Institute for the
Humanities, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR1 4DH, UK; fabrizio.galeazzi@york.ac.uk
4 The Virtual Experience Company, Malvern, WR13 5EZ, UK; mike@virtualexperience.co.uk
* Correspondence: pd17425@essex.ac.uk
Received: 15 January 2019; Accepted: 22 February 2019; Published: 5 March 2019
Abstract: This paper describes the work undertaken as part of the ‘Digital Documentation of Ksar
Said’ Project. This project, funded by the British Council, combined education, history, and heritage
for the digital preservation of tangible and intangible aspects of heritage associated with the 19t h
century Said Palace (Ksar Said) in Tunis. We produced an interactive 3D model of Ksar Said and
developed learning resources to build Tunisian students’ critical engagement with their heritage
through inquiry learning activities within the 3D model. We used a user-centred approach, based
on pre-assessment (i.e., co-creation of contents), mid-term evaluation (i.e., feedback on contents
and preliminary design of virtual activities), and post-assessment design (i.e., user trial). Our
results demonstrate the potential of this novel approach to virtual learning and inform future
co-design, evaluation and implementation choices for improving the generative power of three
dimensional virtual replication of heritage sites in the cultural heritage sector.
Keywords: Virtual Reality; cultural heritage; historical thinking; inquiry; critical design;
co-creation; critical heritage; evaluation; Ksar Said; 3D replicas of heritage at risk
1. Introduction
In countries affected by conflict, there are often contested narratives about a country’s history
and heritage, beliefs and faiths, culture and identity [1]. Because these narratives are strongly held, it
is difficult to reach consensus between different groups (religious, ethnic, etc.) about the accepted
historical narrative of a country. In such countries, it is crucial to equip students with tools to enable
them to reflect on histories, rather than history, and to think about their personal and community
connections to their heritage, rather than trying to teach an agreed historical narrative [2,3]. Heritage
is separate from history, because it is concerned with the “re-packaging of the past for some purpose
in the present” [4]. Education must take into account, from an early age, how the past, and especially
the ‘difficult’ past [5] is negotiated in the present. In conflict-affected countries, heritage is about
making sense of the past to inform children’s understanding of present or recent conflicts.
Engaging young learners in historical inquiry [6] can be a fruitful approach to heritage
education. This method aims to support students to inquire about their heritage using similar
approaches to those used by a professional historian. The development of such inquiry-based
activities in virtual heritage environments may be a creative and accessible way to engage young
learners with the richness of their heritage [7]. Such activities enable children to follow their own
lines of inquiry, engaging with the ideas autonomously, within pre-defined foci (i.e., selected
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themes). Based on these premises, in 2017 we developed an online project combining virtual reality
(VR) and historical inquiry to engage young Tunisians with learning activities related to the rise of
their nation in the context of their built heritage. The project started from the digital documentation
of Ksar Said, the final residence for the last Ottoman Beys (rulers) of Tunisia. The main assumption
was that increasing understanding of the complex and varied influences that have culminated in the
nation as it is today can help to develop a culture of critical understanding of historicity and heritage
values so that the diversity of Tunisian Heritage will be appreciated and protected. The project was
funded by the British Council Cultural Protection Fund and had two aims: (1) the high-resolution
documentation of the Palace using laser scanning technology for the long-term preservation and
monitoring of the building; and (2) the development of educational activities to foster young
learners’ engagement with the history of the Palace and more broadly with Tunisian heritage. This
paper will focus on the process of co-creation of the online educational contents and will emphasize
the reflexive approach adopted for the creation of the final online outcome. We co-designed and
evaluated the inquiry-based activities to examine how such inquiry could foster children’s
understanding of their heritage. The findings suggested that the use of inquiry questions within a
virtual heritage environment can help primary and secondary age students to access and reflect
upon their heritage, across different historical era. The educational platform is available online at
http://ksarsaid.net [8].
The remainder of the article is organized as follows.
Section 2 presents the theoretical framework underlying the project. Section 3 presents the case
study, with specific reference to why the Palace was selected to exemplify the rise of the nation, and
with reference to the 3D digital documentation process (i.e., laser scanning and subsequent data
optimization for the online platform). Section 4 introduces our process of design and evaluation of
the online platform and associated educational contents. Section 5 presents the results of the main
phases of design and evaluation. Finally, Section 6 concludes by discussing strengths and limitations
of this project, its implications for the heritage field and future research directions.
2. Theoretical Framework
Heritage is concerned with the re-packaging of the past for some purpose in the present. When
children try to make sense of their history, and work out what it means for them, they are reflecting
on their sense of heritage. This kind of ‘intangible’ heritage is important; the meaning which a child
makes from real historical buildings and artefacts is important to their identity and their
understanding of the history of their country or their local environment [8,9].
2.1. Learning through Inquiry
While historical inquiry [6] is specifically used to help a student to ask questions about history,
it may also be a valuable way to reflect on how layers of history build up, and are selected,
negotiated and celebrated in the past and in the present [10,11]. In other words, historical inquiry
can be an invaluable method to help a student to reflect on the complexity of history and heritage.
Historical inquiry involves students asking and answering questions about people, objects,
buildings and artefacts, such as ‘what is it?’, ‘why is it significant’ and ‘what does it mean to us
today?’. Questions are asked which begin with ‘Who?’, ‘What?’, ‘When?’, ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’.
Students decide upon evidence needed to answer those questions, they interpret the evidence, and
explain and communicate the meaning of the evidence. In doing so, they engage with key historical
concepts, including:
● Continuity and change. For example, exploring questions like ‘How did society change?’, ‘Why
did society change?’, ‘What stayed the same?’, ‘Did change last a long time?’
● Cause and consequence. For example, exploring questions such as ‘What caused it to happen?’,
‘What are the consequences of what happened?’, ‘What can we learn from what happened?’
● Historical significance. For example, exploring questions such as ‘Was it significant?’, ‘Why was
it significant?’, ‘How significant is it?’
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● Use of primary sources. For example, looking at historical documents and artefacts, and asking
what information can be gained from them, who wrote them, why they were written in
particular ways, and what possible explanations could there be for how they are written. Taking
a historical perspective. For example, examining ‘How did people react?’, ‘Did different people
react differently?’, ‘Why did people react differently?’, ‘How did people’s reactions cause
change?’
Students who engage with one or more of these concepts are asked to work on several phases of
inquiry, which include:
● Making observations, asking questions, developing hypotheses, planning what evidence to
collect
● Collecting and collating evidence to confirm or refute their original ideas.
● Interpreting and analysing the evidence
● Concluding and communicating
● Discussing and reviewing the evidence
By involving children in inquiry, they increasingly take initiative, and become more
autonomous and self-directed. Such inquiry can also enable children to go beyond ‘collective
memory’ and become more critically analytical of the bases for identities they already hold [12].
Because of this, their learning builds on, and goes beyond, their existing ideas and understanding.
We believe that the main strength of the historical inquiry method resides on the fact that the
conclusions students make are not definite, which means that the words probably, and possibly are
essential for students to use. Students cannot engage in historical inquiry if they spend all lesson
listening to the teacher. They need alternative and appealing opportunities to reflect upon their
cultural heritage.
2.2. Virtual Reality in Education
Virtual Reality (VR) platforms can provide a good first step to enacting inquiry ideas into
teaching and learning. Such platforms can enable children to follow their own lines of inquiry,
engaging with the ideas autonomously, within pre-defined foci. Using a pedagogical framework,
such as historical inquiry, in combination with a virtual reality environment, may therefore have
utility in maximising students’ learning and thinking; using any sort of virtual environment alone is
not a guarantee of student learning [13,14]. That said, virtual environments have several affordances:
such environments can capture students’ interest and imagination, and online virtual
reconstructions of monuments and sites can respond to common interests between young learners,
and interests in new media, gaming, and hands-on activities [7, 15–19]. When engaging in historical
inquiry, a virtual environment enables students to move in the virtual representation of historical
and heritage sites to seek sources of evidence that will allow them to: make conclusions on the basis
of evidence; consider if they are trustworthy or useful to a particular inquiry; make their own
judgements and build their own conclusions; discuss and communicate their answers; and realise
which inquiry process or historical concept they are working on. They allow students to learn from
non-symbolic first-person and group experience [20–23] and can encourage or require collaboration
and provide a social atmosphere [16,17,19]. Such collaboration can be important for effective
learning. Importantly, VR provides a very open format for users to make decisions. Scenarios in
adventure games can be very linear, constraining students’ learning. The inquiry process places
emphasis on students’ own decision making; for example, VR allows for repetition (revisiting a
location, or doing an activity more than once). This kind of repetition also expands students’
learning opportunities beyond the regular class schedule and spaces, with proven benefits for the
learning experience [15,16,24,25]. Finally, VR encourages active participation and a user-centred
approach [26] (p. 37), which is also enhanced by the inquiry approach, suggesting that VR and
historical inquiry can be naturally combined to increase critical engagement with history and
heritage. To summarize, it is important to state that we avoided simply adopting a gamification
approach; our intention was to prioritize the pedagogical model of inquiry, building students’
autonomy in their learning and enhancing the role of discussion. As such, the panoramas provided
authentic access to evidence which students were asked to consider in their inquiries, but allowed
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them to feel ownership of their learning, rather than being distracted by mastering aspects of a game
format. Of course, such inquiries are possible using video fly-throughs or images of the palace to
provide evidence sources, but by situating the palace within a VR environment, we hoped to build
students’ immersion, engagement and enjoyment of the activity, giving a sense of place which we
hoped would enable them to situate themselves historically to build understanding of their heritage.
3. 3D Digital Documentation of Ksar Said
The Digital Documentation of Ksar Said project was aimed at promoting Tunisian heritage,
starting from the story of Ksar Said, through engagement with a 3D experience, combined with the
novel pedagogical approaches discussed above.
3.1. Background: Why Did We Choose Ksar Said? What Does This Monument Represent for Tunisians and
Tunisian Heritage?
Ksar Said is a former Tunisian Beylic Palace located in Bardo, on the outskirts of Tunis. It
contains a wealth of architectural and decorative features which reference Tunisia’s rich cultural
history and its Roman, Punic, Ottoman, modern European (Italian, French), Arab (including
Andalusian) and Islamic influences. It was the final residence for the last Ottoman Beys of Tunisia,
but despite its grandeur, it was locked up for nearly a century.
The Palace is unique in Tunisia, as it represents aspects of the country’s heritage which were
overlooked by earlier regimes, prior to the Revolution in 2011. The Palace has associations with
many of the early achievements of the country, including abolition of slavery, and the first written
constitution in the Arab-Muslim World. In essence, this monument is a microcosm of Tunisian
history, combining both tangible architectural evidence and intangible associations with the myriad
aspects of the nation’s history. The Palace fell into disuse some 50 years ago and has been slowly
deteriorating ever since. Through the recent efforts of the Rambourg Foundation, it has once again
become accessible to local people through the exhibition ‘L’Eveil d’une Nation’ [27]. The exhibition
attracted enormous attention in Tunisia and was attended by over 25,000 people in less than two
months. The exhibition, and the Palace which hosts it, have hugely increased the awareness of the
emergence of Tunisia as a nation: its role in abolishing slavery, its democratic and inclusive
constitution, its role and its relationship with the great empires of recent centuries and its identity as
a modern Muslim state - the seed from which the Arab Spring emerged. The success of the exhibition
has demonstrated a real interest in such cultural experiences across a wide range of Tunisian society.
Following the success of the exhibition and renovated interest in the Palace and its history, this
monument is currently undergoing restoration and will soon become the Museum of the Nation.
This work was carried out under a collaboration between the Rambourg Foundation and the
Institute Nationale du Patrimoine (INP).
The re-emergence of the Palace into public awareness provided an opportunity to build on the
momentum that the exhibition had started. The values represented by the Palace, and by the inquiry
activities embedded within its virtual reconstruction, provide an opportunity to build upon the
kinds of educational reform which can help to prevent young people from adopting extremist
ideologies [28]. On a more pragmatic level, many Tunisians cannot afford to visit Tunis and its major
monuments, exposing them to disaffection with an important aspect of their cultural heritage. The
aim of the Ksar Said project was to bring the Palace to most Tunisians, with particular attention
being paid to young people.
Based on these premises, our project was characterised by two main objectives: (1) digitally
preserve Ksar Said to allow future interventions of restoration in the building; (2) use innovative
approaches to engage young Tunisians in their cultural heritage, both in co-creating the learning
activities, and in using those activities, with a view to raising awareness of the diverse influences
that make up modern Tunisia.
3.2. 3D Documentation and Visualization
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3.2.1. From Digital Preservation to Future Physical Restoration
The first phase of the project was to undertake the scanning of the interior of the Palace for
long-term preservation and monitoring purposes. We used a Faro Focus 3D Laser Scanner and
preferred this documentation method to others (e.g., Structure from Motion) [29–31] due to its ability
to record large buildings in a short period of time without losing the finest details of the
architectonic elements [32–35]. Laser Scanner technologies have also been demonstrated in recent
decades to be valuable tools to monitor buildings, favouring restoration planning and interventions
on built heritage at risk [36,37].
Due to the complexity and dimensions of the Palace [38], and the limited time and resources
available for this project, it was impossible to acquire the whole building. For this reason,
professionals from the INP and Rambourg Foundation working on the maintenance and restoration
of the Palace guided us in an accurate exploration of the building to illustrate the different phases
and the evolution of its architectonic history and identify the key areas to document. The choice
considered the preservation conditions and the historical relevance of the different parts of Ksar Said
in relation to the research objectives of this project. As a result, we opted to select the rooms which
bore the most significant historical influences and which would serve to illustrate the breadth of
influence of cultures that exist in present-day Tunisia, including Roman, Punic, Ottoman, modern
European (Italian, French), Arab (including Andalusian) and Islamic influences. We did not scan
areas of the Palace that have been subjected to major changes; for example, when the Palace was
used as a hospital, with many rooms being adapted for this use.
During the course of the data capture process we involved the staff at the Palace, providing
specific training on the various technologies used during the project (e.g., laser scanning and
panoramic photography), and the benefit of integrating the different techniques for the effective
digital preservation of the Palace (see Figure 1). The active participation of professionals that work in
the Palace on a day-to-day basis, was crucial to increasing awareness of the importance of
developing long-term strategies for the preservation of Tunisian built heritage. To facilitate the
development of durable preservation strategies and practices, we donated a panoramic camera to
the INP.
Figure 1. Ksar Said: laser scanning acquisition and training.
We produced an accurate 3D replica of the palace setting a millimetric resolution for each scan
(Resolution Setting: 1/4; Point Distance at 10 m: 6.14 mm). To avoid redundancy in the final 3D point
cloud, we tried to minimize the number of scans. The total number of produced scans was 55 for a
total of 14 rooms. The number of scans for each room varied based on complexity and dimension of
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the space to be acquired (i.e., 3–4 scans for the smaller rooms; 7 scans for the larger and more
complex room, the main salon).
The 3D models created as part of this project were exported and preserved in OBJ and PLY
formats and shared with the Rambourg Foundation (see Figure 2). They will be used as visualisation
and simulation tools to facilitate future planning of the physical restoration of the Palace, and
fundraising.
Figure 2. Laser scanning 3D model of the Ksar Said main salon: (a) Point cloud 3D model; (b)
Textured 3D model.
3.2.2. Engage Young Tunisians through Digital Technologies
Once we had completed the 3D scans, the next stage was to develop interactive models we
could deliver online to as wide an audience as possible. We developed interactive 3D panoramas
from the scan data. Considerations here were the availability across the country of high-speed
broadband and the level of technology (high-end computers, mobile devices, etc) that were available
to our audience. We also needed to consider the priorities of the project, which focused on the
educational and advocacy aspects, rather than the 3D technology per se. 360° panoramas are easily
deliverable over multiple platforms and are accessible to users with very slow broadband
connections. While we recognise the strong educational potential of serious digital games [39–42],
we decided to adopt solutions that could minimise any requirement for familiarity with gaming
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technology, by providing a very simple to navigate interface that could enable children and teachers
to focus on the educational activities designed in association with the platform. Also, as indicated
above, we wanted to provide students with maximum autonomy to conduct inquiry, and by
removing constraints which can be embedded in digital games, we expected them to be able to learn
through open inquiry, rather than directed inquiry. This fits with the aspiration of the project, to
enable individual young people to build their own understanding of Tunisian heritage.
To create the panoramas, we imported the 3D scans of the different rooms of the Palace in the
3D modelling software 3D Studio Max. After a preliminary stage of optimization of the models and
the set-up of lighting and camera in the 3D environment for the final rendering, we exported several
panoramas from the software (see Figure 3).
The final stage of the project was to integrate the panoramas in a web portal and associate them
with educational activities based on inquiry. The contents were translated into Arabic, French, and
English, to allow a wide international audience to know more about Tunisian cultural heritage
through the exploration of the digital replica of the Palace.
Figure 3. Ksar Said: 3D panorama of the Bey’s room.
4. Design and Assessment: Methods
The panoramas were designed to provide portals to a range of specific educational ‘missions’.
These aimed to engage young people with the concept of ‘hybridity’ and the complexity of the
history of their nation. The main idea is that students ask questions about their heritage, collect
evidence needed to answer those questions by virtually touring Ksar Said, they interpret the
evidence, and explain and communicate the meaning of the evidence. The design of each was
focused around an ‘inquiry question’, and embeds one or more aspects of historical thinking
(continuity and change; cause and consequence; historical thinking; use of primary sources; taking a
historical perspective) [43]. Each mission has a specific ‘content-knowledge’ focus as well, with each
focus chosen as one which can communicate the diverse historical influences on modern Tunisian
society, namely: Architecture, Ceramics, Food, Language and the Beys. In such a way, the project
delivered the educational and advocacy content to a wide audience across the country with limited
and/or diverse methods of access to the Internet, this being the primary aim. Hence, the focus was
not on simply reading factual information about history and culture, but the ‘missions’ required the
audience to look around the panoramas, moving from room to room, and to question
preconceptions and to construct their own understanding and opinions from the evidence of
different influences on Tunisian culture.
The idea was to present contents that appeared different from the children’s everyday reality,
which might seem foreign at first, and ask them to make connections between these apparent
uncanny objects or concepts and their culture and everyday life. Such an approach has its
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foundations within inquiry learning, but also within the theory of the uncanny, taken from Freud
[44] and conceptualised by James Auger: “any experience that challenges a preconception will at
first appear odd, but here the details and finish of the artefacts, combined with the short
explanations describing their functions and modes of interaction, entices the audience into exploring
the concept further” [45] (p. 145). Such ‘critical design’ is used to explore alternative views of the
world, to develop questions and to engage the audience in reflection [46]. The narrative approach
embedded within the missions tried to foster curiosity and concern, and to avoid “visceral reactions
of rejection” [46] (p. 79), something important when audiences’ values and beliefs are strongly held.
Hence, children should be able to explore this idea of hybridity and the concept of culture as
heterochrony [47]: a series of layers, which add up. By beginning with the idea of the ‘uncanny’,
inquiry approaches enable students to relate aspects of their daily life to the ‘uncanny’ elements
presented by some of the features of the Palace and elements of the educational missions.
Unfamiliarity is a useful starting point of such a learning experience, with the hybrid influences
on Tunisian culture embodying aspects of such unfamiliarity. Anthony Dunne emphasises that “our
ideas make their way into the material world in some way; it is not enough that they end up as pure
thoughts. They must be embodied in object typologies that we understand: furniture, products,
clothing, buildings, etc.” [48]. Indeed, design of the missions drew on the following assertion:
“The designer has to create a ‘perceptual bridge’ to fill the gap between the viewer’s present
state of mind—technical knowledge, psychological perception and cultural background—and the
foreign proposition. Drawing from the different texts, we can consider that the ‘perceptual bridge’
appellation includes:
• Using tangible artefacts, and a familiar typology of objects,
• Narration (rhythm, plot, style, etc.),
• Scales of complexity among a variety of media used,
• Aesthetic experience of encountering the artefact.” [46] (p. 95).
We developed the missions as a co-design and assessment project based on: 1. Formative
consultation with various stakeholders to build our understanding of Tunisian history and heritage,
aimed at selecting the inquiry questions and related “missions” for the web portal; 2. A first stage of
assessment with schools; 3. A summative assessment with one school and members of the INP, to
assess content and infrastructure development and the quality and level of engagement of the
proposed activities. As mentioned earlier, this project and the paper was conceived as a proof of
concept. We wanted to explore how the combination of inquiry learning and VR could foster the
critical engagement of young learners in Tunisia with the complexity of their heritage. For the
project, we were concerned with the whole process of content development, rather than the final
outcome [49–51]. For this reason, we decided that a qualitative approach to our research was an
optimal way to gather metacognitive and reflexive data for the critical design and implementation of
the platform and associated educational contents. Engaging in a qualitative approach provides
enhanced opportunity for detailed understanding of users’ engagement and learning, allowing us to
build understanding of the responses from the ‘ground up’, rather than superimposing our
expectations through the use of a survey. We achieved this through a thematic coding analysis
approach [52] to understand and make sense of users’ contributions. Engaging with fewer
stakeholders to gain richer data is a common approach in educational research, and underpins the
data collection and analysis processes here. Of course, the findings of this study could subsequently
contribute to design of a survey to test the ideas presented below, and to assess specified learning
outcomes, but that was not the immediate aim of the current study.
A total of 22 teachers and 30 school-children took part during the whole process.
1. The formative consultation aimed to define the inquiry questions and design of “missions”,
included in-depth interviews and discussions with scholars of Tunisian history, members of the INP,
members of the Bey family, and museum curators, especially curators of the recent exhibition
‘L’Eveil d’une Nation’ [38]. This stage was aimed at bringing together stakeholders’ understanding
of Tunisian heritage, choosing the appropriate pedagogical strategies for the learning content, and
identifying and building learning content from the starting points of local learners.
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2. The first stage of assessment consisted of focus groups with teachers, head teachers and
selected students of one state and two private schools, providing both primary and secondary
education in Tunis. Focus groups are a recognized approach to qualitative data collection [52]. We
organised a focus group with each school. The focus groups with the two private schools included
teachers and headteachers only (four and fifteen respectively), while the head teacher of the state
school decided that four selected students (age range 11–13) should participate in the focus group,
which also included him and three teachers. Our concern before these focus groups was that inquiry
activities would be too distinct from normal classroom activity, and that teachers would not see
value in them, preferring instead to teach content, rather than let children build ideas in relation to
their heritage. As such, we designed first drafts of five learning activities which drew on five
concepts of historical thinking, and those aspects of cultural heritage outlined above (architecture,
ceramics, food, language, Beys). We sought to establish the following:
a. Subject knowledge of teachers and students about the five proposed themes (architecture,
ceramics, food, language, Beys), and what support material teachers need to build their own
knowledge?
b. Pedagogical knowledge of teachers. We asked questions about how instructors teach history and
how this might differ based on different schools (e.g., state-funded schools vs international
schools). More specifically, we also focused on how Beylical history is taught in the classroom.
To record possible dichotomy between didactic (being taught lists of dates and facts, etc.) and
inquiry (students engaging with ideas and building knowledge themselves with some
scaffolding) approaches, we asked teachers the extent to which they engaged with key areas of
historical thinking (establish ‘historical significance’; use primary ‘source evidence’; identify
‘continuity and change’; analyse ‘cause and consequence’; take ‘historical perspectives’).
We also focused more generally on whether aspects of inquiry were a common feature of lessons,
asking teachers whether they ask students to do any of the following:
1. Ask questions
2. Collect evidence
3. Interpret and analyse evidence
4. Make conclusions
c. Finally, we talked through the first two mission activities with teachers and students and
asked them to give honest opinions on how they would work, both for children at home and in class.
3. Our summative assessment was a final trial of activities in one of the three schools. We used
three groups of four students to work through each of the activities, with an additional 14 students
being shown the missions projected onto the whiteboard at the front of the class. A total of 26
students were involved (age range 11–13). Again, we interviewed each group of students at the end
of each activity to understand their perceptions of the activity, how it engaged them and how it
enabled them to learn.
5. Results
5.1. Design of Main Themes and Activities and Formative Assessment of Technologies
In developing learning content, we wanted different stakeholders to have an active role and, as
such, we had to build in multiple review points. These stakeholders included historians, teachers,
staff members of the INP, surviving members of the family of the Beys, and employees of the
Rambourg Foundation, who had been involved with, and were building upon the legacy of, the
exhibition ‘L’Eveil d’une Nation’. There were multiple opportunities to revise our approaches, to
ensure that what we produced would be relevant. As explained earlier, our aim was to agree on five
or six broad themes that would become the main ‘missions’ of the virtual application. This stage of
the design was particularly complex, as the very nature of the online activities required us to reduce
the complexity of Tunisian history and heritage to a small selection of contents presented in a
language that would be engaging for young students. In our views, the missions would serve as a
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starting point: for teachers, to engage in new, open, generative, teaching approaches; for students, to
engage with history and heritage in a way that might enhance interest in deepening their
understanding of the heritage of their nation. The preliminary stage of content-design required three
trips to Tunisia, aimed at visiting Tunis and its surroundings; scrutinizing the Said Palace, to detect
and understand the many influences embodied in its material features; and recording audio
interviews with our selected stakeholders (see above).
Our discussions with our selected parties confirmed that learning activities which involved
student inquiry were appropriate. It was clear from the interviews that they felt students were
taught well in schools, but that greater questioning and learning autonomy would be of benefit. We
decided to frame the learning activities around broad concepts of inquiry.
During our interviews, we observed that different parties had different views about the key
aspects of heritage to explore. Some parties were reticent about activities focused on the role of
women, on the post-Arab spring era, and on the era of Bourguiba. After consultation with some of
our Tunisian collaborators, we decided to avoid engaging with more recent history, including the
post-Bey era of Bourguiba and the Arab Spring; it was not our intention to make a direct political
contribution to current public discourse in Tunisia. We felt that our knowledge of, and ability to
build learning around, less recent historical periods may be more successful, and not attract
controversy. It was our aim to enable children to think, without having such thinking masked by
strongly held beliefs. As such, we opted to focus on five “missions” and their related activities: Food;
Language; Architecture; Beylical history; Ceramics (see Figure 4).
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Figure 4. Missions and their related activities: Food; Language; Architecture; Beylical history;
Ceramics.
Food: this was the first theme selected for the ‘missions’. All parties agreed that it could be
immediate and easy for children to relate to food as a form of cultural identity. Food is a form of
heritage that transcends cultural and religious barriers [53,54], and Tunisia is filled with restaurants
that reflect the movement of people in the country throughout history. We thought this could be the
easiest mission to make students think about ‘hybridity’ and ‘heterochrony’. Such a judgement was
reinforced from a professional standpoint (by the teachers), from an academic standpoint (by a
history academic) and by children themselves.
Language: this provided another immediate theme to introduce the concept of hybridity.
Listening to foreign sounds that are familiar, students can create easy connections between their
language and foreign languages that might have influenced the formation of some of the Tunisian
words in the past. This ‘mission’ also represented an occasion to introduce the concept of ‘Lingua
Franca’, a mix of Ottoman, French, Spanish, and Italian, which spread in the Mediterranean starting
from the 16th century [55]. Tunisian Arabic has a lot of borrowed and adapted words from the
Sustainability 2019, 11, 1373 12 of 20
languages of the Mediterranean, and hence itself has some characteristics of a ‘Lingua Franca’. This
idea originated with the Tunisian history academic, and its potential utility was reinforced by our
own etymological research.
Architecture: this theme was aimed at inviting the students to explore the Palace and its
architectural features and think about the various intangible cultural aspects that might have
influenced the construction of this building. Members of the INP confirmed that recognition of
features within the Palace had the potential to both raise awareness of different cultural influences,
but also to make sense of architectural features outside of the Palace, enabling their everyday built
environment to reinforce their learning from within the virtual model of the Palace.
Beylical history: this was the most historical theme overall and the one in which students could
engage with original documents which formed that basis of their modern nation. The Beys were the
owners of the Palace, ruled Tunisia from 1705, and had a significant role in the formation of modern
Tunisia [56]. Nonetheless, many Tunisians do not know much about them, and we agreed with our
parties that it would be important to challenge young Tunisians with this period of Tunisian history
through historical inquiry. A member of the Bey family was keen for an accurate story to be
communicated to young people, and the Rambourg Foundation had already asserted its importance
by including Beylical history within ‘L’Eveil d’une Nation’.
Ceramics: Tunisia has some of the most beautiful ceramics in the world and had been renowned
historically for its production of ceramics. The INP and the history academic recommended ceramics
as being a topic area which is strongly related to Tunisian identity. Ksar Said contains a rich variety
of tiles that decorate each corner of the building. Many clearly represent Tunisian culture, with some
representing clear influences from other European ceramics schools. The number and variety of tiles
in the Palace and their differing styles gave a wide variety of evidence upon which to build inquiry
activities (see Figure 5).
Sustainability 2019, 11, 1373 13 of 20
Figure 5. Missions: Ceramics.
Regarding infrastructure development, we came to understand that Tunisian schools,
especially state schools, are not well provisioned with up-to-date computers, and that many children
would engage with the Palace via mobile phone. Hence, as indicated earlier, we opted for
Sustainability 2019, 11, 1373 14 of 20
panoramas within the scanned model, to ensure low bandwidth, while still allowing us to build in
virtual content.
5.2. First Stage of Assessment with Schools
Our concern before the focus groups was that inquiry activities would be too distinct from
normal classroom activity, and that teachers would not see value in them, preferring instead to teach
content, rather than let children build ideas in relation to their heritage. As such, we designed first
drafts of five learning activities which drew on five concepts of historical thinking, and those aspects
of cultural heritage outlined above. During the focus groups, teachers and students could interact
with the 3D panoramas while discussing contents with us. One student highlighted the importance
of the panoramas for the interaction with Ksar Said. He said: “During our visit [to Ksar Said for
‘L’Eveil d’une Nation’] they said we could not take photos, so we could easily forget the details of
the Palace. With this we can revisit the details of the Palace” (Emphasis on the original talk in
English).
Feedback on the activities was also very positive. We understood that teachers’ knowledge of
their own heritage was in some places limited, and that pedagogical understanding differed very
much between schools, with the international schools having a more ingrained tradition of involving
students in their own learning. All teachers, particularly the head teacher from the state school, were
very positive about the role of such activities in enabling students to learn, and in providing a new
approach to learning. The approach to learning through inquiry was one which they all valued but
may not have found easy to implement. Particularly, state schools struggle to introduce new
methods, due to time and programme constraints. When we asked the head teacher of the selected
state school how the Beylical period is taught, he replied:
“We have a theoretical answer and practical answer. Which answer would you like? ...OK, here
the practical answer. We have 50 minutes to teach the period from the ‘Beylical to the 19th century:
crisis and attempts of reform’...50 minutes in which we also have to take attendance. We start the
lesson with an introduction, then give a list of facts and ask them to take notes. This is what we do...
Last year for the first time we had this experience... we brought the students to the exhibition
[‘L’Eveil d’une Nation’] and they saw something they will never forget...” (English translation from
the original talk in French). The latter statement suggests a positive attitude towards experiential
learning and students’ engagement with material remnants of the past.
While it is difficult for state schools to experiment with novel pedagogical approaches in the
classroom, they can organise after-school teaching clubs and would welcome engaging material,
such as the virtual experience of Ksar Said, to critically engage students with history and heritage.
The head teacher also suggested that his students have little opportunities to visit the heritage sites,
making virtual tours particularly important for them: “This is a school with students coming from
suburban areas of the city. This does not mean that they are not clever, it means that they have less
opportunities… we do not have the money to bring them to visit monuments and sites, which means
that these virtual tours have an added value for our students. They allow them to visit monuments
that they would not visit otherwise” (English translation from the original talk in French) (see Figure
6).
Sustainability 2019, 11, 1373 15 of 20
Figure 6. Assessment with schools. Talking about pedagogy.
This first stage of assessment allowed us to refine our support materials based on the feedback
received. We decided to include briefs on the historical concepts in the webpage as professional
development materials, and we removed the information briefings to avoid teachers simply teaching
content. We finalised content of all activities and resources and then returned to Tunisia to conduct
user trials (i.e., summative assessment).
5.3. Summative Assessment
During our summative assessment with students, we found that activities which required them
to hunt the virtual Palace for evidence were most popular and engaging, and the benefits of setting
the learning activities within the virtual model were clear in fostering the engagement of students.
Because we had opted for panoramas (for technical reasons outlined above) there was a limit to the
sophistication of such activities, which might be overcome in similar future projects by
experimenting with the same activities in immersive gaming platforms.
We also tried priming students with knowledge before they engaged in the activities. This
undermined the activities in the students’ eyes, and this vindicated our decision to remove
information briefing documents from the website. This meant that all learning and information
could only be acquired by engagement with the learning activities. There is ample evidence around
the world that teachers can tend to focus more on content than on skills, particularly in response to
high-stakes testing (reviewed in [57]). However, encouraging students to think is important to their
learning; they cannot simply be considered to be ‘empty vessels’ into which information and ideas
can be ‘poured’ [58]. Finally, we found that some of the evidence hotspots were located wrongly or
needed text refining. We even found that treaty documents we had thought were Arabic (and which
we had asked students to examine as part of an activity) were in fact in Ottoman Turkish. We then
had to retranslate them to enable students to work with them effectively. We asked several summary
questions, both to understand students’ perceptions of the activities, but also to understand the
extent of their learning. We were unable always to audio-record and transcribe students’
contributions directly because of the amount of noise in the class; hence, we took ‘field notes’, from
which we drew the following themes:
1. Engagement: they liked “having to answer questions” and “looking around the Palace” for
that evidence.
Sustainability 2019, 11, 1373 16 of 20
2. Challenge: they found it surprising that there was not necessarily a right answer to some of
the questions, but the teacher thought they “understood they were working more like real
historians” and heritage specialists in the tasks provided.
3. Engagement with historical thinking: One group commented that it was “good seeing the
old Treaties and old photographs”, and that they were surprised by continuity in foods
eaten in Tunisia.
4. Surprise: Students were surprised by the impact of other languages on Tunisian Arabic,
displaying evidence that their preconceptions about their language had been effectively
challenged. This was visible in their facial expressions as we circulated around the class, but
also in the comments they made: “it’s the same in Italian!”. It appeared the language activity
was a helpful instrument to evaluate the idea of the uncanny (see above).
5. Relevance of outcome: Students’ engagement in the ceramics activity was perhaps less
pronounced than in the language activity. The focus of this activity was to foster pattern
recognition in students, while engaging with historical designs, fostering critical thinking.
Although it was impossible to change further, a game-based outcome in a games engine
may have been a better vehicle for this task.
6. Knowledge building: All students and their teacher reported that the activities enabled them
to critically reflect on their cultural heritage. This may have been almost a ‘default’ outcome,
given the design of the missions. We observed instances of dialogue, and of multiple
students contributing to that dialogue, questioning themselves and each other (see Figure 7).
Figure 7. Summative assessment of the 3D platform and activities with students.
In discussion with the teacher, he stressed the key importance of this kind of website. He
reported on behalf of colleagues that their knowledge of Tunisian cultural heritage is limited, and
having support sites like this, with which students can engage directly (through French or Arabic)
was essential to enable students to explore their own conceptions of Tunisian culture. The teacher
thought the areas were well chosen. He asked the students about their enjoyment of the activities, to
which they replied very positively. His review of the professional development materials (regarding
historical concepts) was also very positive. He thought these were “clear and provided a new way of
thinking about history teaching”, which he appreciated, and could see embedded in the online
activities.
6. Discussion and Conclusions
We present in this paper the results of the design and implementation of the Digital
‘Documentation of Ksar Said’ project, aimed at combining inquiry learning methods and VR to
enhance young people’s critical engagement with heritage in conflict affected countries. The
missions aimed to engage young people with the concept of ‘hybridity’ and the complexity of the
history of their nation and were built and designed based on inquiry learning and the theory of the
Sustainability 2019, 11, 1373 17 of 20
uncanny, a critical design theory used to explore alternative views of the world, to develop
questions and engage the audience in critical reflections.
The selection of effective technologies, and the design of the online platform and its associated
contents was a complex, non-linear process. It required formal and informal meetings, focus groups,
and interviews with various stakeholders, as well as an important process of mediation between the
different stakeholders involved in the co-creation of contents. While the selection of final contents
and activities for the platform required us to reduce the complexity of intangible aspects of Tunisian
heritage into a small number of ‘themes’, preliminary assessment of the activities suggests that the
learning method proposed is an effective way to actively engage young Tunisian students with the
concepts of ‘hybridity’ and ‘complexity’ and leaves an open space for teacher–student discussions
around constantly changing heritage values.
Students valued and worked well within the educational activities produced. Evaluation data
suggested they had learnt ideas about their heritage, and that the most effective approach was to ask
them to inquire to help them to think, rather than simply teaching them information. Some final
evaluation feedback led to final refinements which have now been made.
Inquiry activity design benefited from use of historical thinking as a frame. Evaluation data
made particular mention of the concepts of primary sources and continuity and change. By using a
well-evidenced framework to foster learning, we gained evidence that historical thinking can help
students build heritage ideas. A two-stage evaluation was important, evaluating at stage one with
multiple schools (in November 2017) and then evaluating pre-final versions (in January 2018) in
more depth enabled us to ratify our learning strategy and then refine the activities themselves.
Our final evaluation resulted in considerations and learning to take forward for future projects
that will deepen our understanding of how the combination of inquiry methods and an online VR
heritage platform can foster critical thinking about history and heritage in conflict affected countries.
The first consideration is related to historical and heritage contents: we did find it difficult to learn
ourselves about Tunisian culture. When the Institute for National Heritage reviewed our
information briefing documents about the themes, they found several errors, which also prompted
us to remove them from the site (along with our inclination to avoid teachers simply teaching
content, as explained above). With regard to the summative assessment, in future projects we would
trial activities first with teachers, to iron out difficulties, before taking them to trial with students.
Professional development materials were well evaluated, because they serviced a desire among
teachers to learn about modern pedagogies.
While our current work uncovers some first observations in this area, there is plenty of further
development worth exploring. It would be valuable in future to try to set learning activities more
fully within the virtual Palace by use of a game engine, to see if the use of immersive VR
environments might enhance student engagement and motivation. It would also be critical to
continue to involve students in the co-creation of contents for the virtual platform. For this purpose,
our future research will aim to expand this study by developing a more structured programme with
schools in Tunisia, aimed at testing similar activities using different technologies, to see which
technology might better enhance the learning experience. In future projects, we will also aim to
expand our study to other conflict-affected regions of the Mediterranean.
Author Contributions: All authors contributed equally to the work reported here, based on their level of
knowledge and expertise. Paola di Giuseppantonio di Franco led the preparation of the paper, and together
with Mark Winterbottom and Mike Gogan conceptualized and developed the methodological approach
reported here. Fabrizio Galeazzi and Mike Gogan are responsible for the technical aspects. Funding was
secured from the British Council by Mike Gogan, of the Virtual Experience Company, working with the
University of Cambridge (Mark Winterbottom and Paola Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco) and the University of
York (Fabrizio Galeazzi) to develop the project.
Funding: The project was funded by the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund.
Acknowledgments: The authors are grateful to the following people for their invaluable help and contribution
to the project: [Content development and design of activities]: Sonia Slim, Chief Architect at the National
Institute of Heritage; Aymen Chihauoi, curator of the Museum Leader Habib Bourguiba, Skanes Monastir; Leila
Blilli, Historian; Ridha Mouni, Art Historian and curator of the exhibition L’Eveil d’une Nation; Molka Haj Salem,
Sustainability 2019, 11, 1373 18 of 20
global coordinator, Rambourg Foundation; Aziz Bey, member of the Beylical family; all teachers, head teachers
and students who participated in the first stage of evaluation of the project. Project management and logistics (from
laser scanning to content creation and evaluation): members of the INP, including all staff of Ksar Said, for their
generous and enthusiastic support during the 3D laser scanning stage of the Palace; members of the Rambourg
Foundation, and especially to Olfa Terras Rambourg and Karim Terras. Technical Support for 3D data post
processing: Marco Di Ioia. Translations: Many thanks to Aymen Chihauoi, for work on the translation of contents
from English to Arabic and French, and to Mikiko Allouis for additional help with the French elements. Many
thanks go to Younes Hafidi and Valeria Meneghelli for their help with the Amazigh language elements. Website
Design: Open Eye Media. We are also grateful to Imed Belkhodja, from the British Council, Tunisia, for his
support during the development of the project. Finally, our sincere thanks go to the many wonderful people we
met on our travels in Tunisia for their warmth and hospitality.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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