Historic gardens and their related landscapes are often experienced only for their social, aesthetic, and environmental resources, yet their cultural, architectural, and perceptive significance is often ignored. The paper demonstrates how historic and educational values of historic gardens and related landscapes can be revealed by combining historic maps, reading perspective cones, and also applying advanced digital and educational methods and techniques. Historical maps, especially military and cadastral maps, associated with historical iconography, can provide us with a lot of information to study historical gardens and also to define conservation and valorization plans that are related to the history of the site: geomatics tools to georeference and co-relate metric and non-metric historical maps provide growing useful outputs, that can be deployed through the use of Virtual Hubs, boosting the availability of content and the accessibility of open data for policy makers, experts, and non-expert members. Moreover, they can also support heritage education programs providing the opportunity to allow to understand the wealth of sites now simplified, in their system, with different functions and with a transformed context. The study of historic gardens involves the analysis of the landscape in its dynamism and complexity, defines tools that make users more aware of the richness of our heritage.

The study of the physical state of historic monuments – the main content of the first and decisive stage in the process of their conservation, is a frequently treated topic in two distinct areas: scientific research and university courses. Can the two be combined to their mutual benefit? This paper examines a specific part of this question: whether students’ output on completion of their courses can be used by scientists and conservationists in material deterioration study and research on historic monuments. An approach applicable to non‐conservational curricula is outlined in brief, with a view to narrowing the existing gap between educational tradition and the needs of contemporary conservation.

Modern Conservation of Cultural Heritage (CCH) is an interdisciplinary field, comprising arts, crafts, architecture, humanities, IT (Information Technology) and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). Several decades of extended research have shown the importance of spatial skills and spatial literacy for success in STEM. A major part of cultural heritage is visual, and three-dimensional. A sufficient level of spatial understanding and spatial skills is needed to understand, study and preserve cultural heritage. Visualization is especially helpful in teaching and learning the interdisciplinary CCH. However, the necessity of developing spatial visual literacy, and acquisition of relevant theoretical knowledge by experts and educators in CCH has not yet been commonly accepted. This paper outlines an innovative Methodology for developing Spatial Visual Literacy (MSVL) - a crucial tool for CCH and heritage education, - and selected perspectives of its feasibility and applicability to teacher training and also wider interdisciplinary uses. The paper addresses selected lessons from application of some elements of the Methodology as part of previous research and educational scenarios for different objectives and target audiences, from high-school, undergraduate, PhD students, to experts from different areas of expertise within the CCH, to facilitate its uses for teacher training in heritage education. La Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural (CCH) es un campo interdisciplinario, que comprende artes, artesanía, arquitectura, humanidades, TICs (Tecnología de la información) y STEM (Ciencia, Tecnología, Ingeniería, Matemáticas). Varias décadas de investigación han demostrado la importancia tanto de de las habilidades espaciales, como de la alfabetización espacial para el éxito en STEM. Una parte importante del patrimonio cultural es visual y tridimensional. Se necesita un nivel suficiente de comprensión espacial, así como habilidades espaciales para poder comprender, estudiar y preservar el patrimonio cultural. La visualización, es especialmente útil para enseñar y aprender el patrimonio desde un punto de vista interdisciplinar. Sin embargo, aún no se ha aceptado por parte de expertos y educadores en patrimonnio la necesidad de desarrollar la alfabetización visual espacial y la adquisición de conocimientos teóricos relevantes sobre la misma. Este trabajo presenta una metodología innovadora para desarrollar la alfabetización visual espacial (MSVL, por sus siglas en inglés), una herramienta crucial para la conservación y la educación del patrimonio, y perspectivas seleccionadas de su factibilidad y aplicabilidad a la capacitación docente, así como usos interdisciplinarios más amplios. El documento aborda una selección de ejemplos de aplicación de algunos elementos de la Metodología como parte de investigaciones previas y escenarios educativos con diferentes objetivos y audiencias distintas, desde estudiantes de secundaria, bachillerato o doctorado, hasta expertos de diferentes áreas de experiencia dentro de la conservación del patrimonio, buscando facilitar su uso en la formación docente en educación patrimonial.

Abstract. The revolutionary development in digital theory and technology calls for non-trivial decisions in bridging between the virtual and real worlds. The field of conservation of cultural heritage thus provides various challenges, especially with regards to learning, study and investigation of tangible heritage through applications of intangible ICT technologies. This paper examines the interaction between e-learning, and the actual on-site learning and study of historic buildings and sites, with an emphasis on their visual characteristics. In this context, the paper presents some aspects of application of a methodology which allows basic documentation, monitoring and primary analysis of data on cultural (built) heritage sites by general public through educational process enabled by an e-learning platform.

No abstract