花季传媒

Ancient writing characters that date to the first century AD are being taught in a decidedly 21st-century technological programs developed by two 花季传媒 students.

Kanji characters were developed in China and then, since the fifth century AD, used in the Japanese written language. Seniors Christopher Bibat of Chicago and Keisuke Ohtani of Machida, Japan, are using them to entice other 花季传媒 students to study Japanese.

By connecting studies of the Japanese language with technology, their research represents the interdisciplinary nature of academics at 花季传媒. And by working under the supervision of two professors and the new director of the Tenzer Technology Center, the students are experiencing the curricular and cocurricular opportunities for which 花季传媒 is known.

Each student developed a virtual reality program; Bibat also developed a touch-screen application and Ohtani developed a phone app.

They worked under the supervision of Hiroko Chiba, professor of modern languages (Japanese), and David Berque, a computer science professor who also is associate vice president of student academic life, dean of academic life and executive director of the Kathryn F. Hubbard Center for Student Engagement.

Bibat, who is studying in Japan this聽semester, says via email that his collaboration with the two professors as well as his classmate Ohtani provided 鈥渁 nice and tight system of checks and balances that guided me well when building these projects.

鈥淥ne of the decisions I was able to make almost entirely on my own is which Japanese characters to include in the final product, which meant a lot to me. As someone studying Japanese, it was a great feeling to be able to include the characters that stood out the most to聽尘别听飞丑别苍听滨听started learning Japanese.鈥�

According to Berque, a viewer of Bibat鈥檚 virtual reality program wears headgear with which he/she/they view a virtual museum gallery. Empty frames hang on each of the museum鈥檚 walls. Kanji characters float from above and the viewer is expected to 鈥済rab鈥� one 鈥� let鈥檚 say, the character for 鈥渞ain鈥� 鈥� with a virtual glove and throw it into an empty frame, which erupts into a video of rain. The viewer hears the English word, then the Japanese word, 鈥渁me.鈥�

鈥淏y using a visualization and also the audio and using their own body so they can sense, they can experience Japanese in it,鈥� Chiba says.

KoroKoroll, Ohtani鈥檚 phone app, places the gamer in a castle. Ohtani says he was able to develop the app with available 3D game software, so he did not have to write code from scratch.

鈥淭he word 鈥榢orokoro鈥� is onomatopoeia meaning 鈥榬oll鈥� in English,鈥� he says. 鈥淧layers control a cube in a castle and form a Japanese sentence that translates to a prompt. While creating the game environment was not very difficult, the random path generation for the game was very challenging.鈥�

Berque and Chiba came up with the original ideas, having been inspired by a museum exhibit on Japanese calligraphy that they saw while attending a conference in Vancouver. They daydreamed about creating such a visualization at 花季传媒. Then things fell into place: two spots were opened for students to participate in the Information Technology Associates Program last summer and the new Tenzer Technology Center opened.

Tenzer鈥檚 director Michael Boyles says Bibat and Ohtani were already well on their way when he started at the center July 1. He served as an adviser during the long hours 鈥� 40 or so a week 鈥� that they spent in the center, located in the basement of Roy O. West Library.

The Tenzer center teaches advanced technology and computing skills to students of any major, not just computer science students, Boyles says. Its goal is to give any 花季传媒 student who has an interest experience with technology programs and thus an advantage over students from other schools with whom they鈥檒l be competing for graduate school placement or jobs.

Students who are studying disciplines other than computer science may learn, for example, how to do digital storytelling; create interactive timelines; and聽produce interactive news stories for class or senior projects, Boyles says. 鈥淓verybody benefits. The students get a different perspective; they get a little bit of hands-on with tech and then they walk out more comfortable.鈥�

Neither Bibat and Ohtani nor their advisers expect that the Japanese language programs will be used to teach even beginning Japanese; they鈥檙e just not robust enough, at least not yet. Bibat writes that he 鈥渨ill happily leave any future updates to computer science students looking for some software development experience鈥�

鈥淲e realized that this project isn't meant for use in Japanese classes; it鈥檚 meant to get students聽颈苍迟辞听Japanese classes,鈥� Bibat says. 鈥淭his meant that聽we needed to make the project more immersive and attractive. So we changed the interface, and every major feature after that was dedicated to showcasing the beauty of kanji, which will hopefully interest students to the point that they will look into studying Japanese.鈥�