Heritage Tourism as a Means for International Student Cultural Integration: The Baludik and aPlace4u User Experience

Abstract

Intercultural education is taking on momentum in the education field. As part of a language project, a group of international Master’s level students at the Ecole Centrale de Nantes was asked to use two tools: “Baludik” (a gamified circuit editor) and “aPlace4u/eZoomBook” (an enriched book editor). Our goal was to suggest possible pedagogical uses of these tools as a means for gaining an understanding of a foreign environment, its history and heritage, all of which contribute to cultural integration. Our article reports on the methodology used to offer students creative activities based on the Baludik and aPlace4u/eZoomBook editors, and analyses the results and student feedback. The study concludes that the use of multimodal devices fostered student creativity and helped them better interpret their new environment. The tools required the students to elaborate hybrid productions in their story-telling integrating elements of both the host and the home culture. In this sense, the combination of the two tools served as a catalyst to connect the widely divergent aspects of home and host cultures.