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Worcester State Students Travel Virtually to Spain

Thanks to the support from the Office of the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the World Languages Department, and Information Technology, students in Dr. Antonio Guijarro-Donadióss Spanish Civilization class are able to travel to Spain without leaving the classroom this semester.

Besides traditional instruction, students experience Spanish civilization and learn about Spain’s cultural traditions in an intense course experience through Virtual and Augmented Reality in this innovative course. Exploring ancient cave paintings in Northern Spain, visiting palaces and museums in Madrid, the Roman Aqueduct in Segovia, the old city walls in Ávila, strolling through the historic cobblestone streets of Toledo where three  religions lived harmoniously for centuries, seeing the house where Cervantes wrote the epic Don Quixote amongst the windmills, seeing the Moorish Alhambra palace in Granada, and the beautiful architecture and lively streets of Barcelona and Seville is no longer limited by the classroom.

Students are immersed in a study of cultural components such as Spanish history, geography, religion, migration waves, and artistic manifestations, and see how these elements come together to form today’s society and to explain many of society’s values and behaviors. 

After Guijarro-Donadióss participation in a special event in New York City about Augmented Reality in Humanities Education last October on how cutting-edge technologies are enhancing scholarship and expanding the possibilities for humanities research, he was able to incorporate it into his course this semester and has been overwhelmingly well received by students.