The university built the immersive room into the existing parameters of the central library building on campus. With three enveloping screens and an open-fronted design, it allows students to engage with the content in different ways, blending traditional and immersive learning.
The walls to the left and right flank span 4.5m with a longer, forward facing main screen totalling 7m, leading to a total footprint of 30 square meters, allowing for classroom sized sessions of up to 18 students.
Adjacent to the immersive room is the ‘FabLab’, an open lab that students can use to design, analyse, and 3D print materials for use in the immersive space. It also has the software capability to allow for photogrammetry and equirectangular tools for digital resources for the Igloo to be made.
“The Igloo Model Viewer where you can travel into 3D objects, this is really, really nice. I like it a lot because you can give the iPad to the student and the student can travel into the model. It’s fun for the class and students are really involved.”
Phillippe Goncalves
Professor in Earth Science
The newly transformed building and learning centre provides an incredible backdrop for students of the university, with the FabLab and immersive space combining to create a totally unique learning environment.
Igloo Core Engine, Igloo’s software platform for immersive spaces, has been essential to the project. The university deploys several integrations and tools within Igloo Core Engine as part of its immersive learning programme. One such built-in feature is Igloo Model Viewer, which allows for the easy import of 3D models, either designed in-house or downloaded online, into the space. Students can these use a variety of compatible devices to manipulate and navigate the models in real time for deeper, immersive analysis of subject material.
The university also developed its own virtual microscope using KR Pano, allowing for deep analysis of microorganisms and biological tissue. This allows for students to engage in group analysis of subject matter with a single source of truth, as opposed to using individual microscopes which can only be adjusted and viewed by one student at a time, which has led to students gaining a much quicker and more visceral understanding of the subject matter.
At the request of, and working closely with Marie and Louis Pasteur University, Igloo have integrated GaiaSky natively into Igloo Core Engine. GaiaSky is a unique programme that maps essentially the entire universe, using a live satellite in the sky. This can then be traversed by the user, who sees the real locations, orbits, and movements of various planets and systems, allowing for live analysis of the universe by astrophysics students.
Igloo Core Engine has also contributed extensively to the general usability and daily function of the space. By using our software, teachers at the university can create unique immersive lessons from scratch in just one hour. Additionally, by taking advantage of its Sessions feature, lessons can be stored on the cloud and loaded on the fly, ensuring minimal downtime between them.
There have also been some unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome, additional use cases. The Sports Science department found that to help students around stressful exam periods, the immersive space has been a space for students to have yoga sessions, relax, and manage their emotions by projecting calming content on the walls.
“I think students will remember this experience. I think they will remember because the type of content you use is very different to the classic content we usually use in classroom, like annotated figures. This is something that students are used to.
They have seen thousands of figures and text, but when they come here and they see, for instance, a 3D model of something or a virtual microscope, it's very different from what they are used to.”
Phillippe Goncalves
Professor in Earth Science
The university is planning to increase the student involvement in using the immersive space, with the short-term goal of having students create and operate the system independently.
This would include the use of student-made presentations for oral feedback and formative assessment on various topic areas, utilising the full capabilities of the immersive room to present in an interactive and dynamic way.
Students at the university have been given access to 360° cameras and drones, which can then be used to create impactful mixed-media sessions alongside the existing photogrammetry software used to create 3D meshes and models.
Ultimately, the university views the immersive space as one inclusive to everyone regardless of subject matter. Though primarily used by the Earth Science department, teaching is being expanded to include Archaeology, Law, Sports Science, Engineering, and more as it becomes a multi-faceted teaching and research tool.
“We are using Igloo Core Engine and I would say in less than one hour you can create your own lesson without any problem.
If you have prepared beforehand the content you need, just then locating that on Igloo Core Engine is very easy, it’s very easy to use.”
Phillippe Goncalves
Professor in Earth Science
“The students create the content in the lab and then bring it in. We’ve had students, create their own virtual field tour. For instance, we take students to the Alps, to the Pyrenees, or elsewhere.
We want to use the immersive room to create virtual field trips that we can use to introduce the basic concepts that we will see in the field.
Such that then when we take students to the field, for instance, in the alps, the students are already aware about what is going on, what we are expecting to see. This way, we can focus on more complex geological processes.”
Phillippe Goncalves
Professor in Earth Science
“I used to run a lab for several years using microscopes. I decided to turn my lab into something different using the immersive room and I really saw very quickly the benefit, because in the lab every student is just sitting behind their microscope looking at their own stuff and sometimes they don't know what they have to do, what they have to look for.
While here we are using the virtual microscope with all the students together and they interact, they really understand very quickly what is the goal of the session.”
Phillippe Goncalves
Professor in Earth Science
