“Ever wondered what schizophrenia was?”: Students’ digital storytelling about mental disorders

Digital storytelling is a short form of multimedia production that can foster digital literacy and facilitate subject matter learning. This study describes how middle school students learned about mental health by composing digital stories, showing how this also influenced their attitudes toward mental health in their own lives. Using a qualitative multiple-case method, we explored three immigrant students’ digital storytelling in a psychology class. We use a visual grammar derived from systemic functional linguistics to analyze their digital stories, examining representational, relational, configurational, and social functions. Our analysis shows how students chose design elements to reflect their learning about and reactions to mental illness. We analyze how students projected relationships with the audience and how these projected relationships both reflected and influenced their learning and personal development. We conclude that digital storytelling can be an excellent pedagogical tool that allows students to engage both in subject matter learning and self-reflection. &nbsp

Pathway to Future Symbiotic Creativity

This report presents a comprehensive view of our vision on the development path of the human-machine symbiotic art creation. We propose a classification of the creative system with a hierarchy of 5 classes, showing the pathway of creativity evolving from a mimic-human artist (Turing Artists) to a Machine artist in its own right. We begin with an overview of the limitations of the Turing Artists then focus on the top two-level systems, Machine Artists, emphasizing machine-human communication in art creation. In art creation, it is necessary for machines to understand humans' mental states, including desires, appreciation, and emotions, humans also need to understand machines' creative capabilities and limitations. The rapid development of immersive environment and further evolution into the new concept of metaverse enable symbiotic art creation through unprecedented flexibility of bi-directional communication between artists and art manifestation environments. By examining the latest sensor and XR technologies, we illustrate the novel way for art data collection to constitute the base of a new form of human-machine bidirectional communication and understanding in art creation. Based on such communication and understanding mechanisms, we propose a novel framework for building future Machine artists, which comes with the philosophy that a human-compatible AI system should be based on the "human-in-the-loop" principle rather than the traditional "end-to-end" dogma. By proposing a new form of inverse reinforcement learning model, we outline the platform design of machine artists, demonstrate its functions and showcase some examples of technologies we have developed. We also provide a systematic exposition of the ecosystem for AI-based symbiotic art form and community with an economic model built on NFT technology. Ethical issues for the development of machine artists are also discussed

Andarele Dance: The Female Body Empowerment Through The Sensual Movement

This article commences with the historical-epistemological background of the sensual Andarele dance from Esmeraldas, Ecuador, aiming to comprehend the symbolic and social conception of the body. Employing a qualitative methodology, it scrutinizes the relationship between the Andarele dance and social and gender theories. The article's primary objective is to engender a discussion concerning female empowerment, with due consideration given to analyzing data on women's experiences in Ecuador and theoretical studies elucidating the benefits of women's body movement as a novel instrument for self-awareness. This process enables women to recognize their creative potential, empower themselves, and embark on emancipation. Consequently, their bodies become a transversal axis that connects and communicates with the external world. Tari Andarele: Pemberdayaan Tubuh Wanita melalui Gerakan Sensual Abstrak Artikel ini diawali dengan latar belakang sejarah-epistemologis tarian sensual Andarele dari Esmeraldas, Ekuador, yang bertujuan untuk memahami konsepsi simbolis dan sosial tentang tubuh. Menggunakan metodologi kualitatif, penelitian ini meneliti hubungan antara tarian Andarele dengan teori sosial dan gender. Tujuan utama artikel ini adalah untuk melahirkan diskusi tentang pemberdayaan perempuan, dengan pertimbangan diberikan untuk menganalisis data pengalaman perempuan di Ekuador dan studi teoretis menjelaskan manfaat gerakan tubuh perempuan sebagai instrumen baru untuk kesadaran diri. Proses ini memungkinkan perempuan untuk mengenali potensi kreatif mereka, memberdayakan diri mereka sendiri, dan memulai emansipasi. Akibatnya, tubuh mereka menjadi sumbu transversal yang menghubungkan dan berkomunikasi dengan dunia luar