Cube 360 Immersive Room is shaping the future of lesson delivery at York College

Housed in a former second-floor classroom, the innovative space can propel inhabitants into infinite settings and scenarios by projecting 360-degree images or videos on to its four bare walls and floor.

Having opened its doors for the first time during the current academic year, the Cube 360 Immersive Room has already been used by a variety of different curriculum areas in innovative ways, including:

• The Construction department taking 360-degree shots of a live building site and then conducting Health & Safety inspections away from the potentially dangerous environment of a real-life setting and in a non-intrusive manner

• The Law department using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create a true-to-life court setting for students to stage a mock trial, including a talking judge

• The Esports department placing students directly into video game scenarios where they can plot tactics for their Development Centre fixtures

• The Languages department using images to submerge learners into the culture of the countries they are studying

• The Art department bringing to life a lesson on colour wheels  

The possibilities are limitless with plans to even incorporate Google Street View and deposit users into any location around the world.

Audio, text and QR codes can also be spliced in to aid tuition, with a small hand-held tablet device making the cutting-edge facility as user-friendly as a PowerPoint presentation.

With the support of the Government’s Local Skills Improvement Fund (LSIF), College has invested in 360-degree cameras and five projectors that point at all four walls and the floor.

Teaching staff can enlist the help of College’s Digital Innovation Team, meanwhile, to help bring their Cube 360 Immersive Room lesson plans to fruition.

Construction tutor Ian Walker has already embraced the technology with his first-year Design, Surveying and Planning T Level students.

Using one of College’s 360-degree cameras, Ian captured photographs and recorded video footage of a site visit to the GMI Construction Group’s student accommodation scheme in York.

He then projected those images onto the walls and posed questions to the group regarding what could be seen, specifically in relation to Health & Safety.

Matters up for discussion included identifying potential hazards and considering equipment placement, worker behaviour and environmental conditions to establish best practices for working on a construction site.

“When we were on site, we had a lot to see and didn’t want to get in the way of those carrying out work so we couldn’t linger too long in one spot,” he explained. “However, in the Immersive Room, we could spend as long as we needed viewing the images.”

Equally, with number limits normally imposed for site visits, this lesson could be repeated multiple times to students who did not get the opportunity to attend in person with Ian also noting the enthusiastic response to such an inventive method of learning.

“Using the Immersive Room really helped to engage the students, as they were stood in the centre of the room actively participating in the discussion, rather than being sat passively looking at a projector screen in a classroom environment,” he reasoned. “This was a much more effective way of capturing their interest and gave me, as their tutor, some different strategies for delivering the curriculum.”

The Construction Department are now planning to compile a library of images and video from different sites to demonstrate the process of building projects.

“We could freeze moments in time so that students could interrogate the method of construction and see, in a 360-degree virtual environment, how a particular process had been carried out,” he explained.

Second-year Esports – Business & Digital Innovation Extended Diploma student Yigit Kaan Sensoy also believes the Cube 360 Immersive Room has had a transformative impact on his studies and the tactical nous of the Development Centre team York Vikings.

The Vikings have won through to the national final of this year’s British Esports Rocket League Student Champs, with Yigit pointing out: “As coaches and players, we’ve used it to put on physical maps and look at the different tactics we could use against different players.

“The Immersive Room allows you to visualise and understand that better because you can imagine yourself in the game. Being physically there helps you understand a map lay-out more and what we would do and wouldn’t do in specific situations.”

Course leader Joe Hopper agrees that the Cube 360 Immersive Room has improved players’ performance and the analytical skills of the teams’ student coaches.

It has been used for strategic purposes relating to all the games Vikings play against other colleges and has also been converted into a space to conduct post-match interviews with the team’s logo projected behind. 

“One thing we were struggling with without the Immersive Room was timings and sight lines,” Joe added. “We had never been able to stand people in positions as if they were in the game, but you can put the map on the floor and the players can look around and see who they can see from that position.

“The students are also beginning to understand that they can use the room in any way they want. The first time they were in there they stayed for two to three hours and they have taken to it well.”

The room has hosted some student-planned lessons, meanwhile, to fulfil the course’s coaching unit and post-match video reviews are being considered.

Ahead of the launch of our new Level 4 HNC in Esports (Athlete Support and Development Pathway) in September, Joe has also been looking at the multitude of ways the Cube 360 Immersive Room can aid his lesson delivery of the different modules.

He has already conducted classes on health and nutrition and the ethical implications of violence in video games and he enthused: “We are getting some fantastic comments on LinkedIn from other colleges that are seeing the work we are doing in the Immersive Room.

“It’s an incredible space that we get incredible value from and hope to use even more going forward, because you can put anything on those walls.”

For our Spanish students, the Cube 360 Immersive Room helped bring to life a project on architect Antoni Gaudi, renowned for his strikingly original work, such as the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

With Gaudi’s work lending itself to great photography, the Cube 360 Immersive Room was filled with images of majestic columns and stained glass, with students walking into the room to the accompaniment of Spanish choral music. 

Text on the walls, meanwhile, gave background information on the images, as did an audio file, with QR codes linking to an online quiz to check the students’ understanding of the lesson. 

College tutors have been familiarising themselves with the Cube 360 Immersive Room during training days, departmental tuition and ad-hoc sessions, with York College & University Centre Senior Digital Skills Coach Sarah Hargreaves impressed by the level of buy-in from staff across Campus.

“It’s been great seeing so many people using the room,” Sarah declared. “We are demoing it to different departments and, once teachers go in and see what the possibilities are, it sparks ideas in them. 

“We’ve shown them general imagery from around the world and lessons that we’ve run already and they quickly realise there’s something for everyone. Putting big imagery on walls brings all subjects to life and the people who have started using it are coming back, having seen the potential of it.”

York College & University Centre Head of Digital Innovation Abby Parkin is equally encouraged by the readiness of teaching members to embrace a new form of technology to aid lesson delivery. 

“The Immersive Room provides us with an opportunity to place students in environments that we can’t normally place them in due to it being a little too dangerous or expensive,” Abby said. “I thought, in general, we would be having to generate ideas and showing departments how they could use the room, but more ideas are now coming from staff. 

“At the moment, a lot of the content is created by us, but I think, in the future, with all the support from AI and other technology, staff will rely on us less and less. We’re waiting for the golden moment when somebody says, ‘Can I book the room?’ and, when we say, ‘Yes, what do you need?’ they say, ‘Nothing, just open the room, please’.”

Word is spreading beyond Sim Balk Lane, too, regarding the potential of our Cube 360 Immersive Room.

Initial discussions have been held to take 360-degree images of the Theatre Royal, which could help the directors of play productions when they are planning the placement of characters and props on stage, with the Cube 360 Immersive Room able, in theory, to provide a view from every seat in the auditorium.

Prospective students and their parents, meanwhile, are proving to be just as excited by the room at College Open Events with Abby adding: “They have been absolutely amazed by it. The most common comment you hear from parents is, ‘Well, this wasn’t around when I was at college’.

“You can see the students getting engaged as well and saying, ‘Wow, look at this!’ We have content for pretty much every subject area now, so we can ask them what they are coming to do and, then, show them the kind of things they might be doing in the room. It’s been quite joyful.”

Sarah went on to stress how, with AI advancements, the Cube 360 Immersive Room’s educational capacity could prove endless 

“We are building a bank of images from staff members who have been on holiday, but the AI potential is very exciting, because that can take you to any place in the world in theory,” she explained. “For the Law department’s mock trial, we knew that you can’t take photographs in court rooms, but AI was able to create a generic 360-degree court for us.

“That meant the students could get a flavour of the atmosphere of a courtroom and we also experimented with adding in and managed to drop in an AI image of a judge, who could speak as well, so he could deliver the decision that the court made. That was great, because it gave us the potential for live action, rather than it just being a static room.”

To view our Cube 360 Immersive Room for yourself, please come along to our next Open Event on Thursday 19th June (5.30pm-7.30pm). Register your place here