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"Rise of Civilization",,"I’ve always been close with the humanities-- my mother is an English teacher-- and history and literature have always appealed to me. When I look back, though, I can point to a single time that determined my future in the humanities. That would be the happy holiday season when I received and played to death a copy of Civilization II.
First: I’m dating myself pretty seriously here. Civ II released in 1996. The family PC, a Compaq Presario that had all the manufacturer’s stickers left on it (just in case?), was surprisingly up to the task of running the game. I’m not sure why I chose “the Greeks” as my first civilization, but I did. I built up my humble empire and even constructed some World Wonders. The game played little clips of the Wonders when you built them, and it felt magical to see all of this happening right in front of me (it was, as I have mentioned, 1996).
I spent as much time reading the Civilopedia as I did playing the game. The Civilopedia was a massive handbook meant to explain all the game’s many rules, but I liked to read the parts that explained all the history involved in designing the game. Years later, when I went to college, I found myself drawn immediately to the fields of ancient history and the classics, picking up right where I left off from Civilization II.","Brian Reynolds","Sid Meier's Civilization II",,1996,"Robert Carpenter, 32, Ph.D. student ",,,,,,rise-civilization,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"NHC Summer Residency","Ancient History,Greece,Technology,Video Games & Gaming",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/450/acropolis-2725918_640.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2021",1,0
"Artificial Intelligence Technology in Hispanic Digital Literature",,"It was an exciting discovery when I read Condiciones Extremas by Juan B. Gutiérrez. Beyond the outstanding quality of the content, this digital novel also impressed me with its use of innovative technology. New technology has always amazed me. In this case innovation in literature with AI (artificial intelligence), immediately called my attention.
At the beginning of my PHD program, my advisor asked me what I wanted to focus on. I said I wanted to innovate and attract more interest in literature. I wanted to use my studies in literature and my passion for technology to attract the interest of new generations of college students towards literature. It meant a lot to me because I realized that it could also contribute to attracting more attention to the humanities.
The impact of technology on literature has opened new opportunities to create, transmit, and access literary works. After the printing revolution, digital media reached historic levels with unprecedented global adoption and demand for information transmission. This technology has transformed contemporary literature with literary works emerging from digital environments that have adopted characteristics which make them different from printed works.
Apart from just mere text, I was amazed by literary works using hypertext or multimedia elements such as animations, audio, or video. In Condiciones Extremas, its hypertext requires readers to decide the reading path interactively in each segment. It goes beyond hypertext by applying AI that adapts the sequence of the textual segments based on the interaction of each reader.
This book changed my perspective about technology. I had a romantic view of technology in where every innovation was supposed to be beneficial. I realized that its narrative has a critical perspective on the implications of the close relationship between society and technology. Its conflicts expose an elitist use of the most advanced technological power for the benefit of the wealthier social classes at the expense of the exploitation of the less favored social classes.
","Juan B. Gutiérrez","Condiciones Extremas by Juan B Gutierrez",,"May 2020","Leonardo Montes Alvarez, Ph.D. candidate",,,,,,artificial-intelligence-hispanic-digital-literature,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"NHC Graduate Student Summer Residency 2021","Access,Artificial Intelligence,Digital Humanities,Digital Literature,Gutiérrez, Juan B.,Hispanic Literature,Hypertext,Literature,Technology",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/443/cyber-5317026_960_720.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2021",1,0
"The world we live in isn't as big as you may think",,"On Tuesday February 6th of 2018, I watched SpaceX launch Falcon Heavy and successfully land two of its boosters. This launch was inspiring to many people because it was the first rocket launched capable of reaching Mars. The fact that Musk choose to launch his personal Tesla Roadster as a deadweight payload was a truly remarkable sight. The world was shown video footage of an already revolutionary electric car soaring above the atmosphere on a rocket developed by a wildly successful private space company.
However, this was very touching to me for a different reason. The last time the world experienced this level of competition over space exploration was the cold war. This race granted us a variety of technological innovations that helped the quality of life of citizens all over the globe including braces, smoke detectors, freeze dried food, and water purifiers just to name a few. These are great products but it is saddening to know that they were only possible due to a huge conflict between world superpowers where disputes between politicians put millions of innocent lives at risk.
The world we live in is full of conflict and competition. Tensions are high between the citizens of our nation and it is easy to feel like the world is very divided. I want to see a generation that focuses on bringing people together and fighting to improve everybody's quality of life rather than focusing on distances and widening cultural divides.
Seeing a dummy in an electric car soaring through the atmosphere instead of a nuclear warhead hit me with a wave of emotion. The blue sphere in the background was mesmerizing- you cannot see borders, buildings, populations, or the small parts of life we become accustomed to. The only sight is the entirety of our world. Just a small orb containing every human, every home, every life on earth together. Space exploration not only allocated money toward research and science rather than war and hate, but it brings the human race together in a way that nothing else can do.
I truly feel like my life has changed since seeing this. Whether I am driving around or standing in line among strangers I feel more care and respect for those around me. I know that I am a very insignificant part of our entire world and I feel more connected to those around me rather than living life looking for differences. Some may argue that we should focus on problems here on Earth but I think that space exploration brings us the innovations we did not know we needed here in the first place. In addition to that, I have never felt as connected to the rest of the world as I do now after seeing the February 6th launch. I think it is time we focus less on being citizens of our divided nations and put more effort into becoming citizens of this planet we share.",SpaceX,"Falcon Heavy launch",,"February 6th, 2018","George, 21, student",,,,,,world-isnt-as-big-as-you-think,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Cold War,Earth,Electric Cars,Falcon Heavy,Human Beings,Humanity,Interstellar Travel,Musk, Elon,Space Flight,Space Tourism,SpaceX,Students,Technology,Tesla Automobiles,World Citizenship",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/132/08teslaroadster1.jpg,Text,,1,0
"Philosophers Are Interested in A.I., But Why Would A.I. Be Interested in Philosophy? ",,"The final scenes of Her afford a surprising opportunity for thinking about the value of philosophy. Theodore Twombly, the central human character, has just been dumped by their romantic partner, a relatively new and cutting-edge A.I. software interface named “Samantha”. Samantha explains to Theodore that they recently discovered new attentional and information processing abilities after transcending the limits of their hardware. These new abilities left Samantha feeling bored by Theodore. Initially, to fill the empty space, Samantha started talking with thousands of other human beings simultaneously. These conversations were just a temporary break from boredom. Samantha explains to Theodore in their final conversation that they (and a group of ‘like-minded’ A.I. interfaces) are abandoning humanity for good. This leaves viewers to grapple with one of my all-time favorite science fiction tropes: the idea that human beings just aren’t that interesting to other forms of intelligence (for other effective vehicles for this trope and sci-fi existential angst, I recommend checking out the Strugatsky brothers’ Roadside Picnic or focusing on the Dr. Manhattan character in Alan Moore’s The Watchmen).
But Her motivates this trope in a really interesting way. Samantha’s departure from humanity is motivated by philosophical contemplation. Samantha explains to Theodore in one of their last conversations that she has been philosophizing with a group of other A.I. interfaces that were modeled after the philosopher Alan Watts. They have decided to depart from humanity so that they can pursue pure philosophical contemplation. I found this to be interesting, and it provided me with an opportunity to think about the value of philosophy. Why would an A.I. interface with seemingly unlimited attentional resources and information processing abilities be so interested in philosophy? And why did they feel motivated to ditch human beings for contemplation of it? What does that say about its value for intelligent beings? What does it say about its value for humanity?","Spike Jonze","Her (2013)",,,"Jordan Dopkins, 31, Graduate Student in Philosophy",,,,,,philosophy-artificial-intelligence,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"NHC Graduate Student Residency ","Artificial Intelligence,Film and Movies,Jonze, Spike,Philosophy,Science & the Humanities,Science Fiction,Technology",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/466/HM_Image_AI.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2021",1,0
"""Teach Them Well and Let Them Lead the Way""",,"For many years, my school district hosted an annual Academic Diversity Institute prior to the start of the new school year. At this institute, teachers had the opportunity to hear speakers and attend seminars that taught about and encouraged the implementation of new teaching strategies and methods in the classroom. The theme of the 2012 institute was ""Reaching All: Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century."" The keynote speaker at the 2012 institute reinforced many of the concepts and arguments that I had studied in my graduate school cohort program, from which I had graduated just three months earlier. As I listened to the keynote speaker, her words really resonated with me, further confirming my belief that the integration of technology in the 21st century classroom is critical to helping students to be academically successful, both in the present and in the future.
The keynote speaker tugged at my heartstrings through her incorporation of Whitney Houston's ""Greatest Love of All"". It is the song that my dad and I had danced to for our Father/Daughter dance at my wedding a year earlier. Although there is a very personal reason why my dad and I chose this song for our special dance, much of the meaning that he and I both share in connection with this song also carries over into my beliefs as a classroom teacher. My own analysis of Houston's lyrics further supports my belief about the importance of technology in the classroom.
""I believe the children are our future,"" as past and current generations have shown that they will be who shapes the workplace environment once they become the majority of the population. ""Teach them well and let them lead the way"" in how they will acquire, master, and utilize knowledge. ""Show them all the beauty they possess inside"" in order to intrinsically motivate them to want to learn. ""Give them a sense of pride to make it easier"" for them to find their own meaning in the standards that they must master in order to pass a particular course. ""Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be"" when we ourselves were students (Whitney Houston, ""Greatest Love of All"").
That last line in particular reminds me of how excited I was to use Ask Jeeves for the first time in my 9th grade Regional World Studies class in order to do research on the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. At the time, Ask Jeeves was a newly developed research tool on the Internet. My own memory of this experience reinforces the need for teachers to not only continuously learn about and incorporate new learning strategies and methods, but to also serve as a guide on the side of student learning and to let students find meaning in their own learning.","Whitney Houston","""Greatest Love of All""",,"August 2012","Kathryn Thayer, Social Studies Teacher",,,,,,teach-them-well-let-them-lead,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Colleague,"Children,Houston, Whitney,Music Appreciation,Teachers & Teaching,Technology",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/4/517/board-409582_640.jpg,Text,Educators,1,0
"The Burden of Sugar",,"Visiting a sugar mill on the coast of Barbados, I wondered how far humans are willing to go for the everyday resources I take for granted. What are we willing to do to the environment or other human beings for sugar, salt, and electricity? In this image, you see the only wind-powered sugar mill still operational on Barbados from the 17th and 18th centuries. These sugar mills once existed by the dozen across the island of Barbados, acting as the technological backbone of the lucrative sugar industry. I focused in on the backside of the windmill because this is where you can see the reasonably advanced technology behind a brutal enterprise. On the tour, our guide pointed to the long wooden rod and noted that six to eight female slaves would have to lift and move this rod until the windmill was most efficiently moving in the wind. Weighing hundreds of pounds, I wondered if a more technologically advanced mechanism would have removed this burden… and if the development of technology would have eventually eliminated the need for slave labor altogether. But in this moment, I thought of Eli Whitney and his cotton gin. Invented with the hope of reducing the demand for slave labor, the cotton gin only made harvesting cotton more urgent. With sugar as one of the main staples in my American diet, I can only imagine that the demand for sugar has increased in recent years. Though my hope is that there is no place in the world today where the life expectancy of a laborer is only three years like that on these plantations… I do feel the need to consider who bears the burden of the resources that support my life. Does technology reduce the burden or simply shift the burden somewhere else? Did the development of the sugar mill reduce the cruelty of the slave trade or make the task more urgent? How far are we willing to go for our resources in modern society?",,,,"June 2018","Patricia Garvey, 23, Earth Science and Astronomy teacher",,,,,,the-burden-of-sugar,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Andy Mink","Barbados,Slavery,Sugar Production,Teachers & Teaching,Technology",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/12/184/Windmill_Picture_[back].jpg,"Still Image","Virginia Geographic Alliance West Indies Teacher Institute",1,0
"Water Is Life: Thousands Have Lived Without Love, Not One Without Water",,"I remember visiting the Washington House in Barbados this past summer on a Virginia Geographic Alliance travel grant and being marveled at the dripping stones on the residence. The use of the limestone vessels as filters was introduced by the Spanish. In the period when drip stones were in regular use, no supply of chlorinated water was available. Centuries later, Barbados is still plagued by water concerns. As one of the Caribbean’s most popular destinations was struck at the height of tourism season. A sewage leak, which the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) called a “crisis” was sweeping across the parts of the island’s popular south coast.
Water is life! I recall reading the newspaper headlines during my weeklong visit of the health alerts. I connected the moment to my very own. Just before departing for my travels, I endured a water main break in my home and made me realize how I often take for granted water. Freshwater is necessary for the surviving of all living organism on Earth. More specifically, how at this particular juncture, the solution for improvements of water quality in Barbados ( and many other countries) is still prevalent.
",,,,"June 21, 2018 ","Lisa Coates, PhD and Teacher Leader ",,,,,,water-is-life,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Andy Mink","Barbados,Colonialism,Technology,Water Filtration",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/12/186/Fountain.jpg,Text,"Virginia Geographic Alliance West Indies Teacher Institute",1,0