Reimagining the humanities: Immersive 3D environments for teaching, learning, and research
Monday, February 19, 2024 4 PM
About this Event
6475 Forsyth, St. Louis, Missouri 63130
https://artsci.wustl.edu/events/reimagining-humanities-immersive-3d-environments-teaching-learning-and-researchThe Virtual Viking Longship Project, supported by a Level I Digital Humanities Advancement Grant from the NEH, explores strategies for establishing a digital humanities (DH) community of inquiry and practice at two leading liberal arts institutions, Grinnell College and Carleton College. The creation of an immersive, standalone virtual reality (VR) experience for visualizing the social, linguistic, cultural, political, and economic roles that the longship played in the Viking Age will provide the impetus to this investigation. This presentation will detail the development work leading up to the grant award, including the creation and operation of the Grinnell College Immersive Experiences Lab (GCIEL). The presentation will also discuss the affordances of immersive 3D environments for teaching and learning, how GCIEL supports the public good and promotes social responsibility through its activity, and how students on GCIEL development teams learn the technical, social-awareness, and problem-solving skills within a liberal arts context that make them attractive candidates for 21st-century jobs. By the conclusion of the presentation, the audience will be able to see how the Viking longship is created in Blender, a free 3D modeling platform, and experience a prototype of the longship on a Quest mobile VR headset.
Speaker bio: David Neville is the founding Director of the Grinnell College Immersive Experiences Lab and a Digital Liberal Arts Specialist at Grinnell College.