Bringing history alive in partnership with Sony

The Education team is working in partnership with Sony to trial cutting-edge technology which has the potential to increase learning and access to learning at Wroxeter Roman City, West Midlands – and in the long term, if viable, many more heritage sites.   

The trial comes after an approach from Sony with particular reference to its PSP (PlayStation Portable) technology. Sony has trailed the units, content and impact in schools, but this will be the first time it has attempted to overcome the challenges presented by a heritage site and mesh the technology with a site such as Wroxeter.

Using features such as semacodes (sort of an advanced barcodes), video, live broadcast, streaming, recording and photography, the PSP embraces fully interactive learning on a gaming platform and has the potential to bring history to life as never seen before. In future users will be enabled to drive the content, live documentaries will be able to be filmed and beamed back to schools and our experts will be able to beam talks and tours to schools and onsite users. Walls will be able to be re-built and layers of ground removed to reveal hidden archaeology. Historical characters and the sights and sounds of our properties in their heyday should be able to be recreated, with full audio, video, sign and text.  

This will be a world first for Sony and, should the trial prove successful, the Sony PSP could turn out to be an astonishingly powerful learning tool for us.