UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The ways Penn State is applying immersive technology in the classroom and how it can enhance learning will be discussed by President Eric Barron and a pair of University guests during the next episode of WPSU’s “Digging Deeper” on Sunday, Oct. 31.

Barron will be joined by Patrick Dudas, interim director of the Penn State Center of Immersive Experiences, and Jennifer Sparrow, deputy chief information officer and associate vice president for Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT).

WPSU’s “Digging Deeper: Immersive Technology" will air at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. on WPSU-TV and can be streamed on live.wpsu.org. WPSU is a Penn State Outreach service.

Sparrow said TLT is looking broadly at three different immersive technologies at Penn State: 360-degree video, augmented reality and virtual reality. 

“Throughout the pandemic, we may not have had the opportunity to get students physically into particular spaces, so we're able to do that through this 360 video,” she said. “There are places we can't take students. We can't take them to Mars today, we can't take them to the inside of a volcano. We are utilizing that within the classroom today so that students can get access to experiences, and experience places that they wouldn't be able to otherwise do.”

Dudas said immersive technology lets students and researchers tackle problems they may not have been able to before.

“It's allowing somebody to do a lot of the maybe more expensive or more difficult to put into a physical space, and allowing students and researchers to apply this to engineering problems, mechanic-type problems, physics space problems,” he said.

WPSU’s “Digging Deeper” explores how work being done at the University impacts the broader community. Penn State senior Andrew Destin serves as co-host and rounds out each episode by asking Barron questions that are on the minds of students, faculty, staff and community members.

Visit the WPSU website for more information on central Pennsylvania’s public media station.