�鶹ӳ����ý and the other Future Learning Collaborative members are working with Sony designers and researchers to develop classroom technologies and enable more effective teaching methods, with the goal of creating a more immersive learning experience for students.

“�鶹ӳ����ý is excited to be a part of the collaborative, which provides an opportunity for universities to guide tech companies towards more effective and usable solutions for classrooms,” says Don Merritt, director of �鶹ӳ����ý’s Office of Instructional Resources. “�鶹ӳ����ý faculty have already had one opportunity to give feedback on technology solutions Sony is researching, and we look forward to more classroom-based feedback opportunities as the collaborative moves forward.”

The collaborative — a cross-section of public, private, two- and four-year institutions — has been meeting in working sessions, focus groups and technology demonstrations facilitated by Entangled Studios. In each meeting, members shared ideas, asked questions, and participated in candid discussions about teaching and learning technologies and pedagogical strategies. In the coming months, the collaborative will begin sharing its findings with the broader higher-education community.

This initiative is part of Sony’s commitment to provide creative products and solutions that directly support the mission of higher-education institutions. The company’s work with colleges and universities ranges from manufacturing products for classrooms and presentations, developing virtual and augmented-reality activations for admissions, leading the design and system integration of new campus facilities, and other services.

“Our top priority is improving every aspect of instruction, which necessitates exploring the most effective uses of technology in the classroom,” says Edward Gomes, senior associate dean at Duke University and a charter member of the collaborative. “By working closely with Sony and our colleagues, we’ve created an environment that addresses our common challenges, encourages honest feedback about the development of classroom technologies, and enables educators and administrators to come together and share best practices that will shape the future of higher education.”

The members of the collaborative are:

“The work of the collaborative is rooted in Sony’s fundamental philosophy of designing with purpose and developing technology that reflects the experiences — and challenges — of practitioners across a range of fields,” says Satoshi Kanemura, head of B2B of America, Sony Electronics. “Higher education’s mission and complexity present a unique opportunity for our team. Having the support of institutions through their investment of time, and their willingness to share perspectives, enables us to develop solutions that are both actionable and relevant.”

The conference for the annual Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory [organizers pronounce the HASTAC acronym as “haystack”] will be hosted in Orlando for the first time by �鶹ӳ����ý and the Florida Digital Humanities Consortium. The 10-year-old conference previously was held at Duke University, UCLA, University of Illinois, York University in Toronto, the Ministry of Culture in Lima, Peru, and elsewhere around the world.

“This conference is a venue where digital humanists from across the world and across disciplines come together to share their research, their pedagogical methods, and their experiences. This sharing of knowledge in both the practical and the theoretical allows us to broaden our own world,” said Amy Giroux, managing director for the conference and a �鶹ӳ����ý computer research specialist at the university’s Center for Humanities and Digital Research.

This year’s conference theme, “The Possible Worlds of Digital Humanities,” highlights new opportunities for digital humanities and allows attendees from the more than 400 member organizations an opportunity to discuss and explore new research and creative work. The program will include scholars from around the globe interested in topics such as the humanities across disciplines, gaming, social media, archives, and other fields. There will be roundtables, demonstrations, maker sessions, workshops, media art projects, and other sessions.

“Having the HASTAC annual conference at �鶹ӳ����ý allows us to see the superb work being done in the digital humanities around the world, and to show off what we’re doing here at �鶹ӳ����ý to help interpret our meaningful world using digital tools,” said philosophy Professor Bruce Janz, conference director and co-director of �鶹ӳ����ý’s Center for Humanities and Digital Research. “HASTAC has always focused on the ways education and society have changed and must adapt in the Information Age, and this fits into the forward-looking and socially conscious orientation of programs at �鶹ӳ����ý such as Texts and Technology, Digital Media, and Digital History.”

One of the conference sessions asks: What can other disciplines learn from Digital Humanities and what can Digital Humanities learn from other disciplines?

“This particular panel is made up of a group of scholars who work both in traditional academia and also on the cutting edge of innovative digital spaces,” Giroux said. “They hope to foster a good discussion on how digital humanities practitioners can grow within institutions which may not be as interested in supporting digital humanities work and how the current institutional level research infrastructure may need to be modified to allow digital humanities research to flourish.”

Many digital humanities projects draw from a number of disciplines including history, anthropology, computer science, data science, digital media, traditional media, and other fields.

For example, Giroux said, one project her team will present at HASTAC is ELLE, the EndLess Learner, a second-language learning video game in which her colleagues from the Office of Instructional Resources (Don Merritt), the Games Research Lab (Emily Johnson), and modern languages (Sandra Sousa and Gergana Vitanova) teamed up with a group of computer science undergraduate students to create a database-driven learning game.

“It is this type of inter/multi-disciplinary project that allows the digital humanities to emerge from many different fields,” she said. “The five of us will be doing a roundtable discussion on the project and the undergraduate students will be displaying the 2-D and 3-D versions of the project.”

Other �鶹ӳ����ý students will showcase their research and work in front of the international audience and will serve as moderators at many of the conference sessions. HASTAC also has a scholars fellowship program, whose digital-age members blog, host online forums, develop new projects and organize events. �鶹ӳ����ý’s three HASTAC scholars – Nicholas DeArmas, Jennifer Roth Miller and David Morton from the Texts & Technology doctoral program – will host a professionalization workshop for conference attendees.

Some of the conference speakers are: Purdom Lindblad, assistant director of Innovation and Learning at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities; Tressie McMillan Cottom, assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University; T-Kay Sangwand, librarian for UCLA’s Digital Library Program, and Cathy N. Davidson, distinguished professor of English and director of the Futures Initiative and HASTAC @ CUNY at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Tours for registered attendees also are scheduled for the Orange County Regional History Center, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, and the Wells’Built Museum of African American History and Culture.

The conference will be presented at several venues around campus and is open to everyone. Advance registration is encouraged, but registration also can be done at the door at Classroom Building I. For the schedule and registration, visit .