THATcamp discusses humanities and technology

In an effort to bring the humanities and technology closer together, UCF's history department hosted an "unconference" in the hopes of sharing ideas and collaborating on future research projects.

Fifteen members of the UCF community gathered in Research Parkway's Partnership III building Feb. 19 and 20 for THATcamp to discuss projects relating to the humanities and technology. Participants were encouraged to blog and tweet during presentations and actively engage in discussions versus simply listening and viewing.

On the morning of Feb. 19, the team met up with Charles Hughes, director of the Synthetic Reality Lab and professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design.

Each person got a behind-the-scenes look at projects like a mixed reality system for cognitive rehabilitation of traumatic brain injury. Using a green screen, researchers have been able to help those who have experienced extreme trauma to retrain their brain.

"The green screen technology was a quick way to blend real and synthetic content into a single landscape. We do have other ways, but this one is very convenient when most virtual content surrounds real content, rather than there being many layers of real and virtual intermingled," said Hughes. "The use in traumatic brain injury, or cognitive assessment/rehabilitation in general, is to create realistic environments that provide context in which people can be assessed or trained on their performance of real world tasks."

More recently, a panel has been working on a 3D experience set in 1964 at the New York World's Fair. The interactive software would allow users to go back in time and explore real elements of the fair.

"We have three major goals. The first is to produce an accurate and visually stunning digital recreation of the 1964/65 NY World's Fair," wrote history department instructor Mark Long in an e-mail. "The second is to use that recreation as a gateway to show the Interconnections that exist between science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the arts and humanities. The third is to motivate middle school-aged children to be more interested in STEM careers. We are, in fact, developing 25 professional quality STEM games."

Hughes explained that they have a great team however; they are always in search of an innovative idea.

"We're prepared because we have the technology, but ideas aren't always there," said Hughes.

Afterwards, individual presentations began and each member introduced developing projects in their respective fields.

Humanities Professor Bruce Janz and Alex Katsaros, director of education for Interactive Expeditions, discussed Janz's fall semester trip to South Africa with Rosalyn Howard, a professor in the anthropology department.

Janz and Howard taught students through a series of 90-minute live webcasts using wireless cameras to feed video to a video mixer that allowed them to introduce video clips, slides and other media to the students via satellite.

Janz said that before this project, they had never taught a course like this.

He said that while students were simultaneously logged in, they were moving around the country.

"One of the issues were encountered was that there wasn't a model for this," said Janz. Interactive Expeditions wasn't a mixed mode class, an online class or a lecture hall class.

Connie Lester, associate professor for the history department, then introduced RICHES, a website in which anyone can witness how communities are interrelated. Visitors will have access to historical archives about Central Florida, as well as the ability to add content.

"Although we are looking at nine local areas, we want them to be seen in global terms," said Lester.

In the future, Janz and other professors hope to introduce a digital humanities minor that would include an introduction to digital humanities, tools and techniques and practicum that would involve working with companies in the field for credit.