TIMES PHOTO BY ANDREW HARDY
Here are some of the crew members responsible for guiding the attendees VR experiences.
TIMES PHOTO BY ANDREW HARDY
Merced College faculty and instrumental supporters from the community gather to cut the ceremonial ribbon.
Times Photo by Brittany Miller
Members of the Merced College Board of Trustees, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, and former State Assemblyman Adam Gray were some of the many who came out in support of Merced College’s newest venture..
Times Photo by Brittany Miller
Despite being cutting edge technology, it takes only a brief primer before being able to use the VR lab.
TIMES PHOTO BY ANDREW HARDY
Garrick Grace (left), the Merced College Dean of Innovation, standing with Chris Huff (right), Senior Vice President of Academic Partnerships for Dreamscape Learn.
TIMES PHOTO BY BRITTANY MILLER
Merced College Trustee Joe G. Gutierrez and Community Foundation of Merced County Executive Director Stephanie Dietz hold hands as they experience the virtual reality technology for the first time.
TIMES PHOTO BY ANDREW HARDY
These Mercedians were incredibly excited to finally get a hand on experience with Dreamscape Learn.
TIMES PHOTO BY ANDREW HARDY
These Mercedians were incredibly excited to finally get a hand on experience with Dreamscape Learn.
By ANDREW HARDY & BRITTANY MILLER
Thanks to the hard work of numerous dedicated faculty members, mixed with a good deal of luck, Merced College has finally launched Dreamscape Learn — a state-of-the-art virtual reality classroom and development facilities. Notably, this makes Merced College the first community college in California to have a dedicated facility for this technology.
The immersive learning lab is now open to students enrolled in biology classes for the Fall 2024 semester, which began this week. Course offerings in other subjects will be expanded as curriculum is developed in the coming semesters.
This landmark development for Merced College was celebrated with a public ribbon-cutting ceremony on Aug. 9. The event attracted swaths of excited faculty members, local dignitaries, and people from the community. These excited guests were also invited to dive into the new technology and experience what’s in store for many students this coming semester.
“Merced College is committed to being one of the most innovative community colleges in the nation, and to providing equitable educational opportunities for all of our students,” said MC President Chris Vitelli. “Through this partnership with Dreamscape Learn, we are bringing a unique, one-of-a-kind interactive and dynamic new learning experience to students that will transform how we approach teaching and learning moving forward.”
Dreamscape Learn was created in collaboration with Dreamworks Motion Pictures co-founder Walter Parkes and Arizona State University President Michael Crow with the goal of utilizing the power of emotional engagement and storytelling, and combining it with the incredible potential of VR technology to create experiences that most students could only previously imagine.
“Studies have shown that student learning is substantially increased through the use of the Dreamscape Learn VR platform,” said Garrick Grace, Merced College Dean of Innovation. “Unfamiliar concepts become more clear, and lessons from the classroom are understood in greater depth after students have experienced and explored them in the virtual environment.”
The facility, which boast a completely renovated and modernized space, consists of two major sections: the Immersive classroom and the Free Roam experience area.
The Immersive classroom is essentially what it sounds like; a room filled with rows of desks that are equipped with VR headsets and controllers at every seat. Here, students will be given story-focused supplement lessons for their courses. The first students that will be able to make use of the classroom will be Biology 1 students, who can take part of a multiple-stage adventure on an Alien Zoo, where they will be able to mimic the work of real-life scientists while helping to diagnose and aid a population of fantastical creatures. While this will be the only class integrated at the start, there are already plans for expanding material to offer courses for Art History as well as Chemistry.
The Free Roam experience section of the facility offers a more robust virtual reality experience, as it is not limited to a desk space. In this space, users are equipped with hand and feet sensors in addition to the headset, and they utilize a spacious room full of sensors and environmental effects, such as wind, spray, and vibrating floors. This allows for deeper immersion and unique group activities. Those who attended the ribbon cutting were able to take a fun journey into an ancient temple and retrieve a valuable relic, akin to something you would expect from an Indiana Jones film. Participants were amazed by the detail and depth of the experience and were all left wanting more. Additionally, the Free Roam area was given numerous computer stations for the students to use to develop their very own VR experiences.
The Dreamscape Learn launch last week also brought in a number of notable dignitaries and top educators — including State Superintendent Tony Thurmond. They were all treated to a preview of the new technology before it was unveiled to students and the public.
Almost everyone attending the special event opted to try out the cutting edge technology first hand, and it didn’t take long for even the most serious among them to reach a state of all-out play while immersed.
It was clear to many that the lab was a sign of Merced College’s strength, and the potential for its future.
“I think what we saw tonight speaks for itself,” Thurmond said. “This is incredible technology. I’m grateful to say that Merced College is leading the nation with this type of learning.”
Carmen Ramirez, a member of the Merced College Board of Trustees, was equally impressed.
“We’re not just a community college that gets people through. We’re a community college that’s going to get people excited about our future,” she said. “We’re going to show them that Merced isn’t a place that you just sort of fall into. It’s a place where you want to invest.”
President Vitelli was visibly pleased by the presentation and the reactions to it.
“We want to be a model where others can come visit and experience this amazing technology,” he said. “Our students deserve that, very much. So to bring this type of technology to Merced, and Merced College, is exactly what they deserve, and I couldn’t be more proud of our institution.”