About

Lucia Binotti’s is a Textual Philologist, a Digital Humanist and International Educators and an EDTech entrepreneur. Lucia’s books and articles are recognized for close analysis of the printed communication that evolved in response to technological advances during the early modern period in Italy and Spain, and as cultural discussions about how the printing press changed learning, thinking, and culture in the Early Modern period. More recently, Lucia’s 15 years old pedagogical experiment leading the Honors Carolina Renaissance Program in Rome, together with her pioneering research in the then budding field of Digital Humanities for the Languages with the NEH granted project Gnovis (2011), coalesced into the body of work that designed RoadAmico, a technology enabled method for experiential and global learning.

The transformational experience of teaching Renaissance Cultural History using the entire city of Rome as a classroom, reinforced in Lucia the conviction, backed up by a growing body of scholarly research, that a teaching approach that puts place and mobility at the core of its methodology enables students to make connections and understand their surroundings in empowering ways. In turn, smart technologies facilitate the design of platforms able to incorporate experiential and place-based learning in traditional Humanities curricula.

In 2012 Lucia ideated a prototype toolkit for such a teaching method, adapted her Renaissance Cultural History and her Renaissance Art History courses’ content to it, and piloted it with high-rocketed improvement of learning outcomes with her 2013 and 2014 Rome students. Cognizant of the project’s vast scalability and its high-impact educational opportunities, Lucia diversified RoadAmico from a Digital Humanities product of research into an Ed-Tech company, founded in 2015.

Lucia’s vision as a digital philologist informs the theoretical and applied structure of the RA platform, particularly its flexibility and scalability for the diverse course-content packaging needs of faculty and students in the Humanities. RA is applicable to any traditional courses in campus as a way of getting students out of the classroom, into their local environments, and exploring the world in a rigorous way to improve learning and engagement.