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Undergrads Totally Into Virtual Worlds, College Admins Swear

by Abby Seiff on March 22, 2011 at 05:45 PM

Remember how we thought in the mid-'90s that the 2000s would be all about holographs and virtual worlds? But didn't we collectively agree that virtual reality jumped the shark around the time CNN opened a Second Life news bureau, but apparently academe never signed on.

The New York Times has a charming story today on how university professors are using interactive, digital visualizations to teach history and literature. At Bryn Mawr College, they use a program called Theatron (really) to recreate Shakespeare plays in a digitally rendered version of the 16th-century Globe Theater. The theory, one of the students explains, is that: "The plays are in 3-D, not 2-D." True, so true. Who cares about lousy old text? In fact, we should probably just burn the plays altogether and stick with the LaserDisc video versions from now on.

Tags: academia, Avatar, BrynMawr, college, education, learning, nytimes, SecondLife, theater, theatron, top, university, Web

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