# 3D Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage Sites as an Educational Approach. The Sanctuary of Delphi
## 2 Theoretical Background and Related Work
In addition, the appropriate use of modern technologies to achieve the specific objectives of communication and promotion of cultural content is increasingly being studied, and this scientific area is called Digital/Virtual Heritage [30, 40]. In the advanced needs of modern educational policies over the years, ICT has emerged as a platform that is seen to enhance the knowledge and skills of students in mainstream learning environments. Higher education should consider students' views and educational needs, which can contribute to better learning outcomes by actively participating in the design and implementation phases of the software [41]. It is important for students to learn to think critically and evaluate the knowledge they have before they take on functional and leading roles in society. The process of critical thinking as a basic learning function in adult education can offer higher education opportunities for an effective and lasting change in student lives [42]. An indicative example of virtual archeology was the project \"Rome Reborn\" [43] where a historically accurate reconstruction of a large part of ancient Rome has been recreated. Inside the rebuilt ancient city, visitors are just able to navigate and inspect the city from different angles without educational interactions. In some other similar applications, virtual humans were added to virtual cities [44]. In another project [45], the city of Pompeii was presented in a reconstructed form with many virtual humans walking around the city avoiding conflicts. In that work, virtual humans simply move and do not engage in historically authentic interactions. So, their presence just expands the atmosphere of the simulation making the environment 'lively'. [PERSON] [46] describes the simplest interaction at the first level, between user and virtual humans, as a passive perceptual interaction where digital navigation includes walking and flying, where the user can see 3D or panoramic virtual reality archaeological sites from different angles. This level of interaction was the most common in archaeological reconstructions, but it proved to be disappointing for many users who were targeting a more dynamic engagement with the content [47]. The inclusion of gaming elements (serious games or gamification) in Archaeology is a further way to motivate students to engage themselves more in the subject, given that most of them spend time playing digital games in their free time [48]. A relative project was the creation of a serious game for the Ancient Agora of Athens. The aim of play was to help non-expert people such as students, tourists, museum visitors, etc., to gain simple knowledge about the Ancient Agora and its monuments [8, 49]. Despite using modern virtual reality technologies and providing rich information about the content, these applications do not set general educational goals for university students. A lot of educational applications have been placed in museums as public installations, mainly for children to increase their interest through educational toys and activities in museum objects and their history [50]. Museums' authorities are mainly interested in finding new ways to deploy engaging and stimulating exhibitions within their establishment in an attempt to foster a wider appreciation and understanding of their exhibits [51] and/or apply augmented and immersive reality [52]. Lately, in the field of virtual museums the culture platform \"Google Arts & Culture\" [53] has collaborated with cultural institutions and uploaded history and heritage online. For the creation of virtual museums, a high-fidelity technology is used both in the digitization and in the presentation of the exhibits. Users can navigate virtual collections of collaborating museums and explore artworks and information about them. However, in the field of virtual museums, further research is needed on how to use virtual exhibits to educate students.