Category: Blog

Language Immersion

Main Idea: VR experience where you get put into a foreign country and have to find and learn your way around without fully knowing the language.

Expertise: A lot of people in the world only know one language. While some of us are multilingual a good chunk of us only know English. People don’t realize how frustrating it can be to be in a country where you don’t speak the language. It basically leaves you isolated like Frankenstein’s monster. He starts to watch the family in the woods and slowly starts to pick up language from the sounds that that they make.(Shelly 83)

Learning experience: vocally NPCs in the game could speak this foreign language and the signs and world around them could be written in it. It could be a way of using maybe a foreign language made up with different letters from another alphabet with similar structure and vocabulary to English that way people could learn the language in a decent amount of time, but they would have to learn the language and slowly learn what it’s like. In the journal “Virtual World Anonymity and Foreign Language Oral Interaction.” it talks about how the participants of the test were a lot more confident in learning and practicing a language when they were anonymous. (Melchor-Couto 242).

Market: This would be good for school environments to learn what it is like to be an immigrant to a country that doesn’t speak the same language as your own. This can also be a great learning tool to see the language in action. This could help people trying to learn the language immerse themselves in the language and foreign culture to help learning. Forbes has an article written in 2016 by Ava Seave titled “In The Battle Of Online Language Learning Programs, Who Is Winning?”. This article describes the different language learning apps and compares profits for their English learning tools. The figures were $2.8 billion in 2015. (Seave).

Can Interactive VR Bridge the Gap through the Eyes of the Modern Prometheus?

The revitalization of Frankenstein into a modern-day virtual reality (VR) experience will help to not only pull out the real monsters from the eighteenth century but also help in recognizing the true monsters of today. The intended audience for this application is educational professionals that teach from high-school to undergrad programs. The secondary audience includes the students in these classrooms. These parties will be reached through interactive virtual reality. This application will retell a tale from over 200 years ago. The purpose and learning objectives of this game is to experience the world through the lenses of someone that sticks out from the rest. This chilling first person experience of the creature will invoke empathy in people who are different than us.

The research behind this is seen in “What Becomes of Empathy” by Tim Recuber. This article focuses on the empathy gap and the effect it has on others. It is when we feel and see our own subjective experiences versus the pain and experience of another person. This is also how bias, misunderstanding and miscommunication can spread. In the article, VR is mentioned as being a bridge for the empathy gap. The use of VR can also cause people to feel “a surge of empathy for those experiences we are immersed in” (Recuber, 2016).

This is an educational experience for these students because it will help them invoke empathy and relate to the creature. The game is set up so that the player does not realize that they are the creature until the game is almost over. This will help the player understand that it is important to get past a surface level appearance and instead focus on someone’s action. Through the revitalization of the story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, both hosts and players will gain a better concept of empathy, feel empathetic, and help bridge the empathy gap with people who are different than them. This can also be used as a narrative on bullying and why its important to understand others and their actions before persecuting them.

Extra Credit (The Importance of Being Earnest)

Over this past weekend I saw the Importance of Being Earnest and I’m glad to say it was a fun experience. I hadn’t seen a play in a long time so I was looking forward to this one in particular, especially because I knew some of the actors that starred in the play. When I arrived I was greeted at the ticket booth by my old professor Ryan Clark, who helped direct the play. After our brief talk, I went inside the theater and sat towards the left of the stage. The stage had been made to look like the interior of someone’s house. I took-in all the detail that was there: from the large home-made double doors in the center of the stage to the fake (or possibly real) books and other props sitting on the shelves to the left and right. Soon, the play started, but I did not recognize the initial two actors. They were funny, at times, although the actor who played Algernon kept stumbling with his lines and repeating some words. Acting aside, the play was entertaining and funny to watch, the dialogue was a little hard to follow but I adapted to the accents quickly. (I think knowing a few of the actors in the play helped with my understanding of their accents). Overall, I enjoyed the production.

The Importance of Using Your Own Name

On Saturday November 10th, Stevenson University students put on their final performance of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’. The show starred Jordan Brown and Jackson Goodwin, these two were the comedy match made in heaven. Together they kept the audience intrigued whether through there battle over cucumber sandwiches and muffins or through their shared experience of faking the name Earnest. The director Jenny Male had her cast express true humor in relatable ways that allowed for the entire audience to enjoy. This comedy with the deeper meaning of being true to yourself and those around you was put on perfectly by the University and I look forward to attending other shows.

Four Paws: Training a Service animal

In 2003, an article written for Australian psychologist examined the importance of using humane education programs to increase empathy and prosocial behaviors in children (Thompson and Gullone). These programs utilized introducing children to non-human mammals, so they can better understand the needs of other. The proposed game, Four Paws: Training a Service animal, aims to act as a humane education virtual reality game. In this game, children will foster an animal, who will be trained to assist a mentally or physically disabled individual. It was found in a 2009 study, at Simon Fraser University, that when children play human-animal interactive games, like Nintendogs, there is an increase in empathy and compassion for others (Y.-F. L. Tsai and Kaufman). The researchers also found in a follow up study in 2014 that when a child is focused on a common goal with the animal, there is an increase in the understanding of the needs of others (Y.-F. (Lily) Tsai and Kaufman). The use of the service animal in this game is to act as a way to connect students to those who may not be like themselves. In Denise Gigante’s “Facing the Ugly: The Case of “Frankenstein””, she notes that it was not until the creature came to life that Victor becomes uncomfortable and began obsessing about how different the creature was from humans, although he was made of human parts and had not physically changed since becoming reanimated. It was not until Victor saw the constricted and limited movement of the creature that he began to fear the creature, who was similar to him but was not able bodied. Through this game, children will be given the opportunity to help those unlike themselves and gain altruistic behaviors. The benefits of this type of game can go beyond the classroom community and potentially into the everyday life of the player as they develop the skills to relate to others and their needs.

Thompson, Kelly L. .., and Eleonora1 Gullone e. gullone@med. monash. edu. a. “Promotion of Empathy and Prosocial Behaviour in Children through Humane Education.” Australian Psychologist, vol. 38, no. 3, Nov. 2003, pp. 175–82.

Tsai, Yueh-Feng (Lily), and David Kaufman. “Interacting with a Computer-Simulated Pet: Factors Influencing Children’s Humane Attitudes and Empathy.” Journal of Educational Computing Research, vol. 51, no. 2, Sept. 2014, p. 145.

Tsai, Yueh-Feng Lily, and David M. Kaufman. “The Socioemotional Effects of a Computer-Simulated Animal on Children’s Empathy and Humane Attitudes.” Journal of Educational Computing Research, vol. 41, no. 1, Jan. 2009, pp. 103–22. Baywood Publishing Company, Inc. 26 Austin Avenue, P.O. Box 337, Amityville, NY 11701. Tel: 800-638-7819; Tel: 631-691-1270; Fax: 631-691-1770; e-mail: info@baywood.com; Web site: http://baywood.com.

Extra Credit: An Experience

On October 30th, I listened to Dr. Cheryl Wilson’s A History of Frankenstein presentation. Truly, it was an experience. At the beginning of the semester, when I heard we would read Frankenstein in class, I really didn’t like the idea because I thought it was a scary story. I repeat I dislike scary stories, but after reading this story I really enjoyed reading Frankenstein. And Dr. Wilson’s A History of Frankenstein presentation brought Mary Shelley’s work home for me. One thing I really enjoyed what Dr. Wilson talked about that day was the quote from Mary Shelley’s book, “my hideous progeny”. Reading Frankenstein changed my mind and made me feel very sympathetic towards the creature. Unlike me, many readers still believe Frankenstein is just another scary story. If you read the introduction, you will see how she compared Frankenstein’s Creature and Mary Shelley’s novel is very similar. Opening the front page can absolutely change your perspective on the meaning of this story and why she wrote it.

Extra Credit (Frankenreads)

On October 30th, Dr. Sheryl Wilson spoke on the History of Frankenstein for the 200th Anniversary of the novel. In the presentation Dr. Wilson gave, she discussed many points, but certain one’s grabbed my attention. The first interesting point she gave was about the narrative structure of Frankenstein, which we also discussed in class. She labeled the Creature as the center layer, Victor Frankenstein as the middle layer, and Robert Walton as the outer layer.

The next interesting point she covered was Orientalism, and how Safie represented wisdom at the center of the book, just by the meaning of her name, and her origin. Then, she asked “How long did it take Victor to create the Creature?”, leading the class (and other participants) into guessing numbers, until we ultimately learned that Mary Shelley purposefully chose the time of nine-months; this also added onto our in-class discussions on Shelley’s interest in the “rhythm of creation”, as explained by Dr. Wilson.

The last point that spoke to me was the discussion of the meaning of “my hideous progeny”. Dr. Wilson explained this phrase, by including Shelley’s statement in reference to her novel.

After this presentation, I learned that Frankenstein has an ingenious writer that does not make any mistake in the way the novel is written. Every word and phrase has meaning. Although Shelley is credited for Frankenstein, I also learned that the original journal entries of the novel show evidence that Percy Shelley may be the co-author. Dr. Wilson left us with the question, “Is Frankenstein co-authored”, and I do not have an answer; yet.

 

Extra credit: Bad magic is turning the emperor into a llama instead of killing him

On October 30th, my school participated in Frankenreads. It’s a huge event completely revolved around the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein. I had the opportunity to hear from one of our deans, who talked about the history of the romantic era and Mary Shelley. I then attended a lecture on alchemy and its relation to science as we know it today. This was a talk by two professors who I have had the ability to be taught by in earlier courses (one currently as well), so it was really fun to see them shift gears and give a fun talk. As an English minor, very rarely would I ever get to experience my science teachers engaging in what would seem to be an English department event so this was truly a highlight of the day for me. I learned so much about alchemy. It’s more complex than I gave it credit for and I see a lot of aspects of alchemy in today. My favorite quote from the talk, which I am completely paraphrasing, was “Good magic became science and evil/bad magic became what we know as magic today”. What they meant was things like medicines, herbal remedies, and chemicals were considered good so we should continue that and would be known as science, while potions that turned people into llamas were bad and that stayed as magic. Magic was able to be considered bad really quickly if we only associate the bad with it. In addition to learning about how science and magic became different, the lecture went into how alchemy had a lot of ethics behind it and that really effected how research at that time was conducted. People were less likely to do things if they thought they were unethical, which was great for alchemy. This also posed an argument that Victor’s switch from alchemy to science is what made him lose some of the ethical reasoning for creating the creature. It was a really great argument to think about.

After the lecture, I attended the art performance where there was a dramatic reading of chapter 7 and my creative writing class read our retellings of Frankenstein. My retelling was a letter from Henry Clerval to Victor after the death of his brother. I wanted to write something about being thoughtful and empathetic, as an underlying theme in this story is empathy. Shelley is able to make us question how empathy works and makes us question why we have empathy for “like” but have hatred and distrust for “unlike”. I had struggled initially with writing this piece but I love how it turned out. It had a similar tone to what I thought Shelley would have used for Clerval, if he had written a letter himself. Overall, I am happy I made the decision to attend all of the events and learn about different aspects to Frankenstein. Cultural events like these help to bring people together that wouldn’t typically have something in common. The English department and the science department at my school rarely have the opportunity to have events together because the curriculum seems so distant. By attending the Frankenreads event, students who would never share a classroom were able to find something to bond over.

 

Image from: The Emperor’s New Groove

Post originally from: https://masnead.wordpress.com/2018/11/01/bad-magic-is-turning-the-emperor-into-a-llama-instead-of-killing-him/

Extra Credit (Frankenreads)

I went to the Alchemy in Frankenstein event for Frankenreads. I thought that it was very interesting to learn the alchemy wasn’t necessarily this wrong thing, but it is seen more as a field of study that was later separated out into a lot of smaller subjects like astrology, chemistry, mathematics, etc. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be and the professors made the lesson very enjoyable. It gave a whole new perspective into the way of alchemy and also how it could be applied into the modern world today. This perspective was also interesting because Frankenstein kind of implied that alchemy had no use in the modern world where there could actually be some cases where it would make sense  I think it was definitely worth going to the event.

Extra Credit (The Importance of Being Earnest)

On Friday, November 2nd, I saw Stevenson University’s production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The writing was absolutely wonderful, the story had me engaged for the entire duration, and was very funny, with an unpredictable ending. When in attendance I was greeted with a very warm atmosphere. The theater was resonating with a soft piano track, that really welcomed me to this character’s home, which populated the stage. The first home was designed very well. It was filled with furniture, and book shelves, and in the middle big doors that entered to the rest of the home. The back of the stage was illuminated with a deep color, that slowly pulsated to a different color over time. After a while the set was switched to the other character’s house where it became an outdoor garden. The design was actually the same but with furniture being swapped to outdoor furniture, the doors being switched, and the book shelves turning into vertical gardens. The play was very character and performance heavy, and the cast did a wonderful job, and the play was a pleasant experience. The sets and lights kept everything that happened very jovial, and lent itself to creating a very pleasing atmosphere.