The Panhellenic Student Competition "Hack the Map: Rigas' Charta" - Building a new educational paradigm for generation next

This paper presents the case of an innovative national digital student competition for school groups of secondary education, entitled: “Hack the Map: Rigas’ Charta”, which was conducted remotely in Greece during the school year 2020-2021 by the Onassis Foundation and the Onassis Library in collaboration with the General State Archives, the GSA-Cartographic Heritage Archives, and the Department of Geography of Harokopio University, Athens, with the approval of the Ministry of Education, and in the context of the “Protovoulia 1821-2021” celebration events.

The competition invited students from Greek High Schools in Greece and abroad, together with at least one educator, to bring to life one of the most emblematic maps of the 18th century, RigasVelestinlis’ Charta (Map) of Greece (1796-97), motivating them to use advanced digital tools to create projects of augmented reality, virtual reality, digital storytelling and 3D video games for PC and Android devices. This cooperative educational initiative developed an innovative educational model for teaching the lessons of history, geography, cartography and visual arts, by applying OBL (Object Based Learning), GBL (Game Based Learning) and PBL (Project Based Learning) methodologies.

Despite the difficulties the educational community encountered due to the Covid-19 pandemic, through this innovative educational experience, students 13-17 years old managed to interact with cultural heritage materials in combination with advanced technology programs, open access platforms and interactive techniques. According to the assessment results, this learning approach offered a new educational paradigm, cultivating a positive attitude towards the learning procedure and unleashing the digital skills of new age learners.