Apr 26 at SML
The digital projects student poster session promises to feature an exciting array of semester- and year-long academic projects by Yale undergraduates that integrate technology with various disciplines. This LuxTalk will allow attendees to glean insight into the forefront of scholarship at an undergraduate level and to engage in discussion with students about their projects.
Summary:
Every year, senior humanities majors write lengthy papers about a topic of interest. These papers generally run over 20 pages and try to form new opinions on existing ideas and topics. Unfortunately, this makes for a monotone landscape in the academic world. Using technology, however, students are beginning to present their research and ideas about the humanities in new forms. Such approach can be taken for smaller assignments, such as culminating course research projects. In this LuxTalk, we heard from Charlotte Parker ’12, Sophia Szymkowiak ’15, and Erin Maher ’14 about what they did to present their senior project and course final project in an unconventional manner.
Parker developed a WordPress website that serves as an online exhibition. Using a horizontally scrolling layout, she replicated the feel of browsing through a physical collection of objects and their accompanying descriptions. Anyone can browse through the content on Parker’s online exhibition, which draws more audience in than a lengthy paper. Consequently, she is able to gain exposure for her work. The idea of online exhibitions has tremendos room to grow, and Parker’s project
Szymkowiak and Maher worked together on a visual choose-your-own-adventure game. The purpose of the project was to recreate the experience of visiting a sexuality and gender institute called “Institut für Sexualwissenschaft” in Berlin. Run by Magnus Hirschfeld in the late 1910s and early 1920s, the institute was a haven for homosexuals and other related groups. The project allows audience to “visit” the institute through a linked collection of YouTube videos. Each video has embedded links that allows audience to go from one video to the next, where each video is a part of the paths you can take when visting as an actual patient.