The Novelty of storytelling through location based augmented reality: actualising Jewish history in Lithuania

The change of a society’s characteristics (a shift from an informational to a creative one) requires novel techniques, especially in the two spheres that this article is interested in – education and cultural tourism. One of the most challenging topics in an education curriculum is history. A plurality of teaching methods is one of the reasons for such difficulty. A challenge to educate creative people has meant the development of new methods, such as storytelling, exploring localities, experiments and the use of counterfactual history using different media, including video games. It shows that the various protagonists in history education, while looking for its actualization and popularization, are willing to use new media to address the challenges of creating an interest in history among a new generation of young people. A change in museums’ exhibition techniques, the usage of TV series and films, mobile applications or video games reflect this trend. Similarly, new technologies also offer new opportunities for cultural tourism to discover places, history and heritage in a more personalised way. This article reflects the implementation and result of one such innovative project in the broadening field of “public history” that aims at the actualisation and popularisation of a very sensitive aspect of Baltic history: Jewish history, culture and heritage in Lithuania. A location based augmented reality mobile application, Discover Jewish Lithuania, addresses both educational and touristic demands, uses novel techniques in its content and technology; and is, therefore, a good example for popularising and actualising history. The article is divided into three sections: first, we will discuss the rationale of the project; secondly, the technology and its off erings; fi nally, we will summarise the impact that the application has had so far and the main lessons of the development process. The concluding part is oriented, in particular, to people trying to develop similar projects who might wish to avoid making the same mistakes