Renovating the Cultural Heritage of

traditional Shadow Theatre with eShadow

Design, Implementation, Evaluation and Use
in Cross-Curricular Learning in Primary and Secondary education
http://www.eshadow.gr
https://www.youtube.com/eshadowtheater
http://www.music.tuc.gr/Publications.show?WHAT=BY_PERSON&PERSON=211
Nektarios Moumoutzis, nektar@ced.tuc.gr
Marios Christoulakis, christoulakis@ced.tuc.gr
Stavros Christodoulakis, stavros@ced.tuc.gr
Dessislava Marinova-Paneva, dessi@cc.bas.bg
Laboratory of Distributed Multimedia Information Systems and Applications,
School of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Technical University of Crete (TUC/MUSIC)
http://www.music.tuc.gr
8th International Conference on Digital Presentation and Preservation of Cultural and Scientific Heritage – DiPP2018
September 27-29, 2018, Burgas, Bulgaria
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 Motivation and aim

 Children today are disconnected from their national culture due to

the phenomenon of “disneyfication”:
“This bogus culture imposed hour after hour on the people by the
media is a serious interference with free thinking and therefore free
action.”
From Andre Kehoe's 1991 book,
“Christian Contradictions and the World Revolution”

 Reconnecting the new generation with tradition is essential to

renew the collective local identities and revive life values/norms
 Shadow Theatre is a rich storytelling tradition with significant
educational value – How it could be revived?
 Exploit ICT to achieve this aim in a way that promotes active
learning and opens up the prospect of valorizing cultural heritage

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 Outline

 A short presentation of eShadow

 Digital content production with eShadow
 eShadow in education
 Evaluation of eShadow
 Digital marionettes: Uses and evaluation
 Conclusions and future plans

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 A short presentation of eShadow

 Promotes dramatized digital storytelling rooted in a rich tradition

 Realistic simulation of shadow puppets and their control model
 Extends traditional features with:
 Online collaboration to support playful improvisations
and role-playing interactions
 Easy recording of scenes to produce digital stories
 Special tool to easily create new digital puppets
 Let us see how: https://youtu.be/qL4NW-ApFSk

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eShadow architecture

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Enacting scenes in eShadow

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Creating digital puppets and sceneries

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Digital content production
with eShadow

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 Possible variations
 Use a pre-existing scenario
• Students focus on recording scenes
• Final video editing can be done by the teacher
 Literature – Theatrical game
 Comics
 Interactive presentation
 Combine with actual theatrical performance
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgIzFBrpQPc
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpf8tMhP_iM
 Creative workshop and improvisations
• Use a certain play – create scenes
• Improvisation contest 9
Exhibition “The Triumph of Shadows,
Athens, 2012

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Student Digital Creativity Festival
Chania, 2013 & 2014

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Student improvisation contest

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 Safer Internet annual contest

 Annual event organized by the Computer Science Counselor of

Informatics in Western Crete
 From the school year 2013-2014
 Scenarios and stories about safer internet
 Animating the stories with eShadow
 Use of other platforms as well (e.g. Scratch)
 Web page of the contest:
(http://saferinternet4edu.blogspot.gr/)

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 Supporting the teachers

 Training seminar with hands-on workshop

 Including an introduction to the pedagogical value
of shadow theatre
 Second seminar for teachers in pre-school, primary and secondary
education
 Dozens of teachers used eShadow and created amazing stories
 Most of them developed stories within the safer internet contest.
 Some teachers selected very interesting themes like the Platonic
Dialogues from the 19th Primary School.
 https://youtu.be/BsO2cGu9u4c

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 Student projects in Schools

 More than 50 Greek schools (mainly in Crete) used eShadow

within the cross-curricular learning framework already presented
 Great variety of themes:
 Traditional Shadow Theatre scenarios
 Economic crisis and other topical themes
 Safer internet
 Mathematics and science
 Philosophy
 Cultural themes
 Let us see some indicative examples:
https://youtu.be/rZ0QDG3q5Vc

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 Evaluation (1/2)

 QUIS-based questionnaire for children above 8 years old

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 Evaluation (2/2)

 Emotional response using emoticons for children under 8 years old

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 Arts in Education

 Shadow theater combines many art forms:

• Visual arts (puppets, sceneries)
• Music
• Drama – Literature
• Movements for expressing
 Arts can enrich the teaching of curricular subjects:
• Project Zero in Harvard University
http://www.pz.harvard.edu/who-we-are/about
 Project ARTinED
One of the many projects that studied the use of
arts in education
 Project e-ARTinED – http://www.e-artined.eu
The continuation of ARTinED
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 Social Inclusion and Cultural
Awareness using stories
 Children stories as a way to understand the Other
 MultiLib Project (http://www.multilibproject.eu/)
• 6 EU Countries: Belgium, Czech Republic,
Greece, Sweden, Turkey, UK
• 6 Immigrant Cultures: Arab, Armenian,
Haitian, Kurdish, Rusian, Tibetan
• 24 stories – 12 traditional / 12 modern
• Set of playful activities
• Teacher guide
• Piloting – Case studies
• Repository of Open Educational Resources
 eShadow – Animating a traditional Armenian Story:
https://youtu.be/8zHVnNtKkRU
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Social Community Theatre – ePuppets

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ePuppets in School & Cultural Events

https://youtu.be/GqiOaCejFxs

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ePuppets evaluation (1/3)

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ePuppets evaluation (2/3)

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ePuppets evaluation (3/3)

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 Conclusions and Future Plans

 Shadow theatre is revived exploiting

digital technologies
 Offers playful learning in an engaging
way linked to arts
 Promotes cross-curricula learning
scenarios and promotes student
engagement and creativity
 Future plans
 Traditional tales and poems
 Mythology
 Literature works – epic poems
 Educational programming

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 More information about eShadow

 eShadow youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/eShadowTheater

 eShadow site and web client: http://www.eshadow.gr
 Scientific pubications: http://www.music.tuc.gr/Publications.show?WHAT=BY_PERSON&PERSON=211
 Project team:
• Marios Christoulakis christoulakis@ced.tuc.gr
• Nektarios Moumoutzis nektar@ced.tuc.gr
• Stavros Christodoulakis stavros@ced.tuc.gr

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 Thank you!
Nektarios Moumoutzis
nektar@ced.tuc.gr
Marios Christoulakis
christoulakis@ced.tuc.gr
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