Despite recent budget cuts, the Digital Worlds Institute is offering four new graduate-level courses this fall.
The courses include Interactive Storytelling, Interdisciplinary Research Seminar, Entertainment Design and Technology and Digital Culture and Convergence.
The department was able to add the new courses because of grants and reallocation of state funds, said James Oliverio, director of the institute.
"We were able to reallocate some of our limited resources because of our belief in this program," Oliverio said.
The institute, founded in January 2001, offers a Master of Arts in Digital Arts and Sciences and provides an interdisciplinary community where students and professors come together to create new technology and new types of digital culture, he said.
He said they include lessons about creating virtual reality inventions and writing shows for live webcasts.
"We're trying to enrich live experiences in the real world by using the emerging tools of digital culture," Oliverio said.
The classes are open to seniors and graduate students.
"We want to prepare students to use these tools to expand their interests," Oliverio said, adding that those who enroll should be dedicated students.
Pat Pagano, a digital media engineer and professor with Digital Worlds, said despite the advanced nature of the technologies used in the new courses, seniors from any major can take them.
Pagano said his virtual interactions have increased his social interactions by allowing him to talk with people from China, Chile and Japan whom he would never have met.
The institute's inventions do not take the place of real life or limit his social interactions, he said.
"Don't tell me that we're all going to be the lifeless zombies in front of the screen," he said.
Rather, he said the institute takes new technology and finds its core educational benefit.
For example, the institute partnered with the Levin College of Law to create a virtual law school complete with a classroom, a courtroom and a library.
Digital versions of students and professors walk around the school, and Pagano said their real counterparts communicate using headsets.
Pagano said the institute's use of digital media is preparing UF students for a "digital revolution" currently taking place in the United States.
"Innovation is one of the things that UF prides itself on," he said.
