COD’s new Immersive Reality Lab offers students a new way to learn.
COD’s newly built immersive reality lab may be moving the university toward the educational technology of the future. This lab will allow students to travel inside the human body, the world, outer space, or the depths of the ocean.
The Immersive Reality Lab at BIC 3465 offers new ways for faculty and staff to engage with students.
Created by London-based firm Igloo, the 32-foot (10-meter) cylindrical room has five ceiling-mounted projectors and speakers to create an immersive 360-degree experience. will be used.
There are no windows in the lab, and when you close the door, you feel isolated from the rest of the campus. Educators can play videos from their computer or display selected content on the wall.
A trip to the human body surrounds the student with blood cells. Videos that go deep underwater create the feeling that students are in an aquarium with sea creatures. Ordinary text and photos displayed in 360-degree format also become more engaging as students walk around and look around.
The project was approved by the COD Board in summer 2021, with lab construction completed in spring 2022.
According to Joseph Dalsanto, the idea for the project came from a faculty committee formed to explore innovative ways to enhance education at the university. After researching different technologies and visiting different facilities, DalSanto said the decision to set up Igloo’s immersive reality lab was based on what the experience would be for professors and students. I was.
DalSanto said: “Students can come here to not only hear about things and see pictures, but to experience them.”
Cory DiCarlo, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, said showing the class a 360-degree video tour of the CERN particle accelerator increased student insight and engagement in a way that traditional teaching methods are difficult to achieve. I’m here.
“It gave them the insight that we could only fly them to France and offer a tour,” DiCarlo said.
When it’s hard to keep students’ attention and engagement, finding ways to teach in an immersive reality lab can help students make sense of ideas they might otherwise have difficulty understanding.
The university also has virtual and augmented reality labs where students can work on learning materials. DiCarlo uses virtual reality labs to let students experience interactions with molecules and atoms.
“We’re working with 30,000 to 40,000 atoms in size. We can pull the molecules we need from our database of six million molecules available,” DiCarlo said. This is not possible with other formats. ”
The Immersive Reality Lab was made available in August. It is used by faculty who can find ways to integrate the lab into their course instruction. Simultaneous presentations are possible in the lab, and her 360-degree format of multiple projectors can be used for students to collaborate in ways that she finds useful in class.
Among US universities, COD is an early adopter of this technology.
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