14th and 16th Century works augmented through 21st Century Technology

I still have the daily newspaper delivered to my front door. I like text on paper.

Yet, as an educator, I am surprised by my field's almost complete lack of engagement with technology. Perhaps I shouldn't be. After all..

"Centuries of text‐based scholarship and the primacy of the press created the context within which print culture became naturalized."

from the Digital Humanities Manifesto
  
Change isn't happening as quickly as predicted. 

The Kindle hasn't replaced books. (That's a good thing.) 
Many magazines still enjoy healthy circulations. (So is that.) 
Computers in the hands of every student has not significantly changed education at any level, despite Papert's plea from 20 years ago.   (This is troubling.) 

Even the Manifesto which I quote above is almost 10 years old. Still, it argues:

Needless to say, we are NOT arguing for the abolition of books; on the contrary, we are advocating for a neo‐ or post‐print model where print becomes embedded within a multiplicity of media practices and forms of knowledge production.  It is one in which architecture and design (again) become central features of how research questions get formulated as well as communicated, shaped, and styled. This is an incredibly exciting moment in which determining and designing  the interface to information, data, and knowledge becomes just as central as the crafts of writing, curating, and coordinating. "    

Interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity are empty words unless they imply changes in language, practice, method, and output. Yet we in education sit in our silos and rarely do those in the humanities or social sciences think about publishing beyond the paper or across our disciplines. 

Yet, there are sometimes glimmers of the possible. I have recently come across two amazing examples of digital humanities in which traditional content, Hamlet and the Canterbury Tales (can't get more traditional than these) are shared via fundamentally new interfaces. The way this content is styled allows for the viewer and reader to interact with these classics in startling new ways.

The Canterbury Tales? Chaucer's 14th Century classic ? Yep, there's now an app for that. And it's amazing. and it is a great example of embedding print "within a multiplicity of media" to enhance understanding.

VR is another medium that shows great promise. Thus far, it seems that the military and gaming industry is using it more than anyone. Artists, scholars and writers really haven't figured out what to do with it yet. I look at a lot of VR so I can filter the junk and share the best with the teachers with whom I work. And much of it isn't very good. So, I was thrilled to discover this 360 performance of Hamlet. Go grab a Google Cardboard headset or if you have the money, get a better one to watch it. You haven't really seen anything like this before.  Here's what the Grey Lady had to say about it. 

Both of these are stunning. Check them out! And let's think more about teaching kids how to begin to do this. It will be sloppy and messy. We have no clear understanding of how to grade such work. It takes us far out of our comfort level and area of expertise. 

But wouldn't it be fun?