Dear Mabel and CK,
I am truly sorry to hear of your loss. Leo was one of my best and brightest students, and I remember him well. He was a shining star, and an absolute pleasure to teach. He demonstrated a contagious passion for learning and rose to any challenge I brought to the class. Leo was the kind of student every teacher wishes they had the opportunity to have in their classroom.
In HUMA 150, we explored how to represent history using the digital medium. The students learned about topics including digital remediation, mapping & geolocation, text analysis & data visualization, and knowledge representation. I asked each student in HUMA 150 to put together a blog as a digital space to share their work from our lab sessions. Leo went above and beyond what was required of him; he was an incredibly hard worker and I was always impressed with his intelligence, tenacity, and dedication to high quality work.
In the final class project, students were required to build a website that demonstrated their understanding of the digital tools we had discussed in class. Students were asked to choose a historical event and provide 1. a digitization component (scanning images, using photoshop, making a video, etc) 2. a text analysis and/or data visualization component 3. a map and/or timeline plotting of their chosen event, and 4. an essay that contextualized the project and explained the work they produced. Leo chose to analyse the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War, and his site included an essay about the history of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, textual analysis of letters written by survivors of the bombings, and a map that showed the impact of the event (before and after). He wrote a proposal for his project on his blog, here. For his efforts, he received the highest grade in the class on his final project.
I wish there were words to convey how deeply sorry I am for your loss. I know that Leo touched the hearts and minds of many. He was an inspiration to his classmates, and to his professors as well.
My thoughts and prayers are with you during this difficult time.
– Meagan
Note: for more of Leo’s Blog, you can visit it here.
