Like many schools within the last few years, at Colby College, we have been experimenting with virtual reality in the classroom and have been impressed with its potential to create profoundly immersive virtual environments, both real and imagined. Recently, in addition to building virtual spaces, we have also been exploring more specific uses of this technology. Creating models to represent objects which are to be studied has always been an essential part of scholarly research in every discipline, and we have found that VR is a powerful tool for modeling relationships, interactions, and behaviors, in addition to spaces. This presentation will focus on three projects that take advantage of VR’s modeling potential to fashion classroom experiences which allow students to observe that which is otherwise unobservable to them in the natural world or, at least, unobservable in the way their instructors would like.
In the spring 2018 semester, seven students in History 419: Digital History and Archival Practices built Android apps as one of their assignments. The focus of the class is students creating projects using digital tools based on archival research in the St. Bonaventure University archives. It is team taught by Dennis Frank, University Archivist, and Phillip Payne, Department of History. Rachael Schultz, also of the archives, joined in helping the students. Her MLIS background proved valuable. Building an app was a new assignment for the class. The instructors wanted to explore the impact of mobile technology on digital history practices and make a legacy digital mapping and web page project into project mobile. Over several iterations of the class, we have built a digital map of a cemetery. The next logical step was to make the map mobile friendly. Additional goals included having students think broadly about mobile technology, design, and collaboration. We propose a session where students and instructors discuss their experience building their first app.
