For centuries, European history has been riddled with conflict, often extending to the point of war,

hatred and genocide. For this reason, it is often believed that history is primarily a source of
division and hatred. This a very widespread belief that still persists to this very day. People often
focus solely on the dark points of history, ignoring the positive values it brings. Therefore, the goal
of this project shall be shedding light upon some positive effects of history and its potential to
unite rather than divide. One of the ways to achieve this is to find similarities among historical
monuments from various nations worldwide, which is why castles and palaces were chosen as the
fundamental link between cultures for this project. This link shall be used to demonstrate the
historical unity between nations present in spite of war and conflict in order to initiate an
intercultural exchange of local customs. However, similarities aren't the only factor in achieving
international cultural exchange, since differences play a crucial role as well. They are the
foundation of culture and should not be ignored. That is why this project also places an emphasis
on demonstrating the cultural differences present between participants through singing folk sings
and telling local tales, all of which will serve to promote culture.

Historical introduction

This is the initial phase of the project. It involves all the participants introducing their local
palaces/castles and the surrounding town (assuming that there is one).

The activities include:

 Creating a presentation
 Including media from the locality (images, videos, audio recording, etc.)
 Introducing the locality (the castle/palace) to other participants of the project
 Creating a quiz or a crossword to test other participants' memory of the given presentation

The purpose of this phase is to take the first step to establishing an intercultural exchange that will
continue throughout the project.

The recommended digital web tools for the project include:

 https://www.genial.ly/ - Genially, a website used to create the presentations, polls, quizes,

etc.
 https://www.prezi.com/ - Prezi, an alternative website for making presentations

Local tales

In this phase, all participants shall create a comic/storytelling (using the digital tools listed here)
demonstrating the local tales from the region surrounding the castles/palaces that they presented.

The activities include:

 Preparing the stories

 Making a comic book containing or referencing some of the stories
 Presenting the rest of the stories in a manner chosen by the participants (this can include
posts on a shared message board, forum posts, etc.)
The purpose of this phase is to expand participants' knowledge of different cultures using interesting
stories pertaining to their localities. This will allow a deeper understanding of different cultures and
forge deeper bonds between participants which may extend far beyond this project.

The recommended digital web tool for a digital storytelling:

 https://www.storyboardthat.com/
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