On 18 March 2020, Spanish museums saw their in-person activities come to a halt. This paradigm shift has raised questions concerning how these institutions reinvented themselves and modified their edu-communicative strategies to promote heritage through active citizen participation. The present study centers on analyzing how the main Spanish archaeological museums and sites (N = 254) have used Twitter as an edu-communicative tool and analyzes the content of their hashtags through a mixed methodology. The objective is to identify the educational strategies for both transmitting information as well as interacting with users. We did it by observing and analyzing if Spanish archaeological institutions are promoting a type of quality, accessible, and egalitarian education and promoting the creation of cyber communities that ensure the sustainability of heritage through citizen participation. This paper proposes an innovative assessment of communication on Twitter based on the purpose of messages from the viewpoint of heritage education, their r-elational factor, and predominant type of learning. The main findings reveal a significant increase in Twitter activity, both in quantitative and qualitative terms: educational content is gaining primacy over the simple sharing of basic information and promotional content. The networks forge new ways to teach–learn and interact with media and represent a strong channel to promote the sustainability of heritage, its preservation, and appreciation.

As a consequence of the scarcity of studies of augmented reality (AR) in Spain, this study developed a questionnaire to evaluate teachers’ perceptions on the use of AR for heritage teaching (n = 347 teachers: n = 131 in-service/n = 216 in-training). The objectives were to: (1) identify teachers’ existing knowledge about AR; (2) evaluate educational strategies teachers value most in AR apps for teaching; (3) evaluate necessary AR functions; (4) determine desired technical and functional characteristics; and (5) compare any significant differences between the two groups. The results provide a contribution to the increasing implementation of AR apps in heritage education, which promotes the understanding, enjoyment, experience and knowledge of heritage. Heritage education is increasingly present in Spanish classrooms due to awareness of the country’s rich heritage, and AR is a good tool for understanding and linking society with its heritage. From the results, it is clear that, despite their desire for implementation, there is a lack of teacher training in applying AR; both subsamples pointed out the importance of humanising the explanations in AR apps with experts or actors who mediate heritage and value the ease of use of these apps, multifunctionality, low battery consumption, and use in the background. Significant differences suggest potentially greater educational commitment among active teachers who seek deep and meaningful learning, above the superficiality and enjoyment reported by teachers in training and, on the contrary, the value placed on technical and visual aspects, related to the high use of mobile devices.

Improving heritage educommunication on the web 2.0 is key to reaching certain sustainable development goals focused on educational quality and citizen participation. Although numerous partial studies have already been conducted, to date neither assessment tools nor detailed studies are available regarding the quality of educommunicative initiatives. Spain and Italy’s archaeological heritage museums have a consolidated track record on Twitter, which has been bolstered by museum closures due to COVID-19 and has resulted in a significant change to their educommunicative policies. The present article aims to analyze educommunicative actions undertaken on Twitter at Italian archaeological museums, compare their strategies with a previous study on Spanish institutions, and analyze to what degree the sustainability of heritage, citizen participation, learning opportunities, and universal access are being promoted. This mixed method analysis was carried out through the implementation of a web 2.0 heritage educommunication analysis tool focused on three key factors: educational procedure, R-elational interactions, and the prevailing learning paradigm, as well as a content analysis of the variables that comprise them. The key findings suggest that neither country is close to achieving a quality educommunicative strategy. Italian archaeological heritage institutions use Twitter simply as an advertising platform. Despite being a social media platform, participative initiatives are scarcely promoted, although heritage sustainability is promoted through raising awareness of conservation and appreciation. Spanish institutions, however, demonstrated the opposite pattern of use.

Los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) cada vez están más presentes en la formación de los futuros docentes como una de las metas más urgentes de la Agenda 2030. Desde la enseñanza de las ciencias sociales y, en concreto, desde la educación patrimonial, nos preguntamos si los futuros docentes reciben una adecuada formación al respecto, si conocen qué son estos objetivos y qué encierra cada uno de ellos. Así mismo, nos preguntamos qué saben sobre la sostenibilidad del patrimonio, cuál es su compromiso social y mediante qué estrategias lo prevén llevar a la práctica docente futura. Bajo estos planteamientos se ha llevado a cabo una investigación cuantitativa sobre la sostenibilidad del patrimonio en el Grado en Magisterio en Educación Primaria de la Facultad de Educación de Zaragoza, con un total de n=234 discentes, para conocer en qué grado este contenido está presente en su formación, en qué grado consideran que está relacionado con las ciencias sociales y qué estrategias de enseñanza aprendizaje les parecen más adecuadas para aplicar al aula. Los principales resultados reflejan que los ODS están presentes en todas las etapas educativas, pero que sigue distando de los niveles deseables. Tras la aplicación del cuestionario los discentes muestran un aumento en el grado de conciencia sobre la repercusión que tienen sus actos en el deterioro del patrimonio. Y, por último, didácticamente se percibe un compromiso vivo como agentes de cambio; entre sus prioridades para trabajar la sostenibilidad del patrimonio destacan la educación emocional y la importancia del enfoque relacional.

Which historical figures do Spanish students think are relevant after completing their compulsory schooling in the subject of history? The main objective of this research is to discover which four historical figures students choose as the most important in human history after completing their compulsory schooling, and the type of reasons they give to justify their answers. By means of a mixed study, this research involved asking 165 students, aged 16 to 17, which four figures they think are the most relevant in history and why. Based on this statement, a quantitative and qualitative analysis was conducted to explore the students’ discourses justifying their choices using the categories proposed by Partington, Hunt and Lévesque. The results show a clear tendency in students to choose key figures in Spain’s history, such as Christopher Columbus or Francisco Franco, or a prominent person, such as Adolf Hitler, as the most relevant historical figures, who appear in the curriculum in their last year of compulsory secondary education. Lastly, the argumentative approach regarding the level of historical significance focuses primarily on the impact of their actions on a large number of people during their historical moment, with no critical reflection on their long-term impact or consequences.

Museums have now been using social networks for nearly twenty years. While they began by engaging in activities characteristic of web 1.0, they have come to learn how to adapt to the new digital landscape. They are now fluent in the language and conventions of each social media platform and post content on a daily basis. The 2005 Faro Convention is partially responsible for urging museums to develop these new online strategies. The present chapter examines how large institutions are capable of generating daily content that is both multiform and attractive, but which barely encourages the exchange of experiences and opinions between users. Interestingly, it is in the local heritage-based cyber communities that we find the creation of authentic educommunicative spaces that are even capable of moving action from the digital realm of social media into the physical world.