A new way of teaching will immerse students in history by allowing them to experience historical events in the metaverse.
Morehouse College in Atlanta will provide a first-of-its-kind Black history course taught exclusively in the metaverse. The course, according to NBC News, will begin in the spring and will be led by professor Ovell Hamilton. Students engaged in the course will enter a virtual three-dimensional realm to experience the life of enslaved African Americans. The course will be called “History of the African Diaspora Since 1800” and will be part of the Virtual Reality Project.
The course’s content is inspired by Hamilton’s “Journey for Civil Rights,” a separate Black History course he taught through VictoryXR, the software startup Morehouse worked with. The course will recreate key moments and artifacts from the Haitian Revolution to the civil rights movement.
“That is an experience that they would not have if they were sitting in a classroom, if they were sitting in a lecture,” Hamilton said regarding the virtual experience of the La Amistad slave ship.
“WHEN YOU GO THERE AND SEE THE BOTTOM OF A SLAVE SHIP, SEE THE SLAVES PACKED IN TOGETHER…YOU WILL HAVE A NEW APPRECIATION AND YOU HAVE A GREATER KNOWLEDGE OF HOW THE EVENTS TOOK PLACE.”
Students will witness the harsh reality of enslaved Africans shackled on top of one another, while others stand on the vessel’s ledge, choosing between life and death. “It definitely inspires feelings of sadness,” Morehouse senior Jerad Evan Young, a Black student majoring in film, television, and emerging media studies, said.
In Hamilton’s world history class, Young had the opportunity to virtually tour the Underground Railroad and a slave ship.
“ALSO, THERE’S A SENSE OF PRIDE BECAUSE NOT EVERYBODY MADE IT THROUGH THE SLAVE TRADE,” YOUNG ADDED.
“You know, you had to really be a strong individual. So, that let me know that my ancestors were strong enough to last that grueling journey across the sea.”
This past spring, Morehouse College apparently made history by launching its first official course in the metaverse. Hamilton, along with ten other professors, was assigned to instruct pupils using virtual technology.
Attending Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, entering an all-white high school in Arkansas in 1957, and touring a slave ship are among the historical experiences available to students.