Unveiling the Future with XR: A Dive into the New £5.7 Million Training Facility

Courtesy of the pool.UKAt the edge of the education arteries in the east of England, a new £5.7 million XR (Extended Reality) skills training facility is opening its doors. The new XR Lab is produced by a collaboration between three UK innovators: Extended Reality Peterborough (XRP); Igloo Vision, a UK leader in transformation technology, both based in Peterborough; and ARU education group based in Cambridge. So, what’s this lab all about and how will it change the landscape of learning and training? Why is it the talk of the tech town? Let’s venture to the edge of innovation that it promises to deliver.

The Genesis of the XR EDGE

Multi-million pounds injections from Office for Students, the new sponsor and supervisor of universities, enabling the XR Lab in its capital-intensive grand opening, is more than a financial support for simulated learning opportunities to scale-up from its freshly established site in Peterborough to the two ARU campuses in Cambridge and Chelmsford areas.

The Heart of Innovation: Peterborough’s Centre of Excellence

Excitement abounds at the other end of the three-storey building where the XR Lab will be housed, including its broader educational possibilities. A further, more recent £13.78 million investment from the Cambridgeshire Peterborough Combined Authority Business Board’s ‘Get Building Fund’ means that the Centre of Excellence and Innovation Research Centre will be so much more than a teaching facility, it will become a hub for immersive learning and innovation.

XR Lab: Redefining Learning Paradigms

The XR Lab, as its creators edge towards its formal opening, is not just about getting state-of-the-art tech into classrooms. The collaborative effort of Anglia Ruskin University, Peterborough City Council and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, together with Igloo Vision, the company behind the realities that will populate the lab, is a statement of ambition about the future of learning, immersive and otherwise.

Spearheading Inclusive Learning Experiences

The XR Lab was officially opened by their newest patron, the hugely impressive Sandi Toksvig OBE. Her involvement adds a new layer of edgy interest – as well as being a stand-up comic, Toksvig has a strong track record in LGBTQ+ research projects, all of which chime with the intention to disrupt the conventional pattern of learning. Toksvig’s own aspirations for changing education for the better are clearly stated on her website: I passionately believe in education. I want young people to be able to read and write and spell and do sums and create… I want to support them to explore and find their own voice and tell their own stories. I want them to be able to draw their own conclusions and to be able to think for themselves. They must not become puppets, chattering machines devoid of real creativity operating purely by rote. I want to see more story-led, data-driven, outward-facing education.I want everyone to have access to that form of education, and I believe that it should never be tainted by the profit motive. The XR Lab has exactly the right direction in its sights.

A Playground for Skills of Tomorrow

The XR Lab does not position itself as a space where students learn about virtual reality, but rather as one that empowers them to gain real-world skills in high-demand sectors, through immersive, skills-centred learning in various contexts – from hospital wards to engineering workshops. Here, education combines the best of technical knowhow and digital practices, while preparing students for contemporary workplaces of the present.

The EDGE of Igloo Vision’s Technology

At the centre of the XR Lab is Igloo Vision’s Immersive Technology, which transforms pedagogy into experiential learning in a multitude of ways. For instance, the Igloo Core Engine allows researchers to rapidly turn traditional learning experiences into interactive learned journeys where experiences become the focus.

Pioneering Workforce Skills Enhancement

Beside all the dazzle of the immersive technology, it is this exchange with the wider business community that makes the XR Lab such a doubling success. Not only will its students profit from the insight of business specialists, but the professional development encouraged by the XR Lab will improve the knowledge base of local business organisations. Rather than a black-box centre, the XR Lab becomes a hub for knowledge exchange, networking and skills enhancement.

Deciphering the EDGE of XR

And because of the extraordinary design of its campus and its partnerships with industry, the XR Lab is far more than a building: it is a harbinger of the virtual and ambient worlds of tomorrow’s schooling and workplace, offering students a type of immersed learning that is unparalleled, both in content and context, breaking new ground in the applications of virtual reality and augmented reality.

FAQs about Selling Edge with Gizmogo

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