Like La Trobe University in Australia, Colorado State University has recently decided to take advantage of immersive virtual reality (VR) learning. More specifically, Colorado State has created a VR lab for biomedical learning—dubbed “the Immersive Reality Training Lab”—that can be used by 100 students at a time. Each student has access and can share the same virtual space with up to four people total. This means that three students and an instructor could work together while examining the same virtual image. The new VR lab continues in the trend at the university of seeking out technological innovations for student learning.
The VR lab is housed in a new Colorado State facility for the health sciences, the Health Education Outreach Center. The lab utilises 100 HP PC’s and 100 Samsung Odyssey+ headsets. Chad Eitel, a researcher at Colorado State, developed the headsets’ custom “BananaVision” software.
“The BananaVision software used in the immersive lab was developed specifically for our anatomy curriculum at CSU. The multiplayer software allows groups of students to collaborate around the same virtual entity at the same time, while the instructor can join any group’s virtual room from the front of the classroom (coined ‘pod hopping’),” said Jordan Nelson, one of the new VR lab’s operators. “Students can dissect a virtual cadaver, create cross-sectional images, and study a variety of volumized medical imaging in the immersive lab any day of the school week. We’ve worked hard to create an anatomy curriculum that is not only hands-on and exciting but is accessible and impactful.”
Tod Clapp, a biomedical sciences professor at the university and the leader of the VR lab initiative, has high hopes for the program and the “BananaVision” software. “What we’re hearing back from people in the industry is that they’re amazed we’ve programmed this in multiplayer, which means I could put the headset on and be in the exact same room as someone in another state or country, in real time.”
