Interactive digital storytelling: bringing cultural heritage in a classroom

Abstract: Interactive digital storytelling becomes a popular choice for information presentation in many fields. Its application spans from media industry and business information visualization, through digital cultural heritage, serious games, education, to contemporary theater and visual arts. The benefits of this form of multimedia presentation in education are generally recognized, and several studies exploring and supporting the opinion are conducted. In addition to discussing the benefits, we wanted to address the challenges in introducing interactive digital storytelling and serious games in the classroom. The challenge of inherent ambiguity of edutainment, due to opposing features of education and entertainment is augmented with different viewpoints of multidisciplinary team members. We specifically address the opposing views on artistic liberty, at one side, and technical constraints and historic facts, on the other side. In this paper we present the first findings related to these questions and to initiate furthering discussions in this area.