Our first post!
Bucknell University’s Digital Sojourns© Project pioneers the creation of immersive digital landscapes grounded in historical narratives through which users travel virtually, encountering engaging content and learning opportunities as they go. Digital Sojourns complement traditional college and university study abroad, allowing individuals who cannot travel – the physically challenged, homebound care-givers, the incarcerated – or anyone else the chance to do so in an accessible, inclusive way.
The Digital Sojourns Project is seeking financial support to transform the Digital Sojourns proofs-of-concept into a fully-functioning prototype ready for student testing. It exists in four, synchronized digital platforms:
• two-dimensional;
• virtual reality (VR);
• Ambisonic-audio-only; and,
• the Tabibto© smartphone app
The Tabibto© app enables Virtual Companion Travel (VCT), allowing individuals or groups to participate remotely in a journey someone or a group is taking in-person abroad.
Digital Sojourns maximize accessibility by adopting the standards of WCAG 2.2, Able Gamers, and the American Foundation for the Blind. It is intended that anyone may access the travel and learning that occur in a Digital Sojourn for free, and that students may also eventually earn college credits through them as well, but at a cost.
The first Digital Sojourn’s proofs-of-concept uses the Japanese haiku master Matsuo Bashō’s travel narrative /The Narrow Road to the Deep North/ as its basis. In 1689, Bashō journeyed 2,400 kilometers across northern and western Japan, providing an unparalleled view of the Japan of the past as well as a pathway along which to discover the Japan of today. The proofs-of-concept covers 33 kilometers of Bashō’s route in and around Fukui, Japan,, but ultimately the final product will recreate the entire length of Bashō’s journey. Subsequent Digital Sojourns will use the works of the 14th Century CE North African traveller Ibn Battuta (1304-1369 CE) and the 19th Century American abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895 CE) as their foundations.
Support for the Project would allow Bucknell faculty and students to refine and expand the existing proof-of-concept, including the full digital rendering of buildings and natural spaces along a 106 kilometer pathway and the addition of more supporting content and professionally-designed learning opportunities.
Our website: www.digitalsojourns.org
Our donation page, associated with Bucknell University, the project leader’s employer and home of the project: https://www.givecampus.com/campaigns/13331/donations/new?a=9425033&designation_id=rdigsojourns