Essay Exhibits

     Over the course of this semester, I have gained an abundance of information, tools, and techniques involving digital culture which can help me in all areas of life. Whether I am creating a presentation for a job, researching materials, or fiddling around with technology in my leisure time, this Digital Humanities course has provided me with amateur experience, as well as highlighting new interests.
     Our final class project is creating an essay comprised of researched materials exploring multimedia in digital humanities. As an insider to what other students are writing about, our class exhibited a brief presentation of our individual essay ideas, and our classmates provided feedback about our projects.
     One of the projects I viewed in detail was about Virtual Reality and how it could affect job training. It begins by defining Virtual Reality (VR) a 3D world, created digitally, that allows the user to interact and manipulate objects within the world while stimulating each one of their senses. Next, there is a short video explaining VR more in depth. Then, career fields that are adopting VR practices are listed, including: Healthcare, Education, Advertising, Military, etc. Finally, it tells how a few of these careers use VR in their job training programs. I thought this exhibit was interesting because it demonstrates how growing digital technologies are being used in every day life, and could possibly affect us in our future jobs.

     Another project that I viewed in detail was about Video Games in the Education System. First, it defines gamification as the process of taking something that already exists and integrating game mechanics into it to motivate participation and engagement. Next, the presentation explains how video games are already implemented into the education system and what ways they can benefit students. For example, changes in cognitive development and socialization skills are detailed as improving children's' visual processes, attention span, relationship readiness. Finally, it closes with a brief video outlining the basics of gamification in school programs. I appreciated this exhibit because I would have liked being exposed to this type of teaching technique while in high school. However, maybe my children can benefit from this type of learning in the future.