Augmented Reality Is Helping Undo the Euro-Centric Version of U.S. History
When Glenn Cantave was in first grade, his teacher asked the class to color in an illustration of Christopher Columbus’ three famous ships: the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María.
Like so many other schoolchildren, he memorized the names of the boats and learned that Columbus first set sail for the so-called New World in 1492. But it wasn’t until many years later that he would learn what happened once Columbus landed off the coastof the island that is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Columbus acted as a cruel dictator, enslaving countless indigenous inhabitants and forcing them to work on plantations and in gold mines. Those who resisted were brutally killed. Cantave — whose family is from Haiti — didn’t learn anything about Columbus’ brutal legacy in his Long Island public school classroom. Whoever wrote the curriculum apparently didn’t think it was important.
That’s part of the reason Cantave and Idris Brewster later co-founded an educational advocacy group called Movers and Shakers NYC. The nonprofit “uses augmented reality to highlight underrepresented narratives." One of their first efforts was creating augmented reality (also known as AR) content that reveals the full scope of Columbus’ legacy.
The New York City-based company develops AR material to bring tech and history directly to the public by working with communities, museums, and schools. They offer a range of programming, from a project depicting alternative monuments to one that allows young people to experience a holographic protest. All of their work focuses on lifting up marginalized voices and bringing important, often overlooked, history to life, especially the stories of people of color, women, and queer and trans people.
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With support from Verizon's Innovative Learning initiative, Movers and Shakers is slated to introduce its 5G AR programming to 100 under-resourced schools by 2021. They kicked off the effort this school year in Cleveland, Ohio.
See the full story here: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/augmented-reality-history-movers-shakers