AR Metaverse

How 3D and VR make learning more fun and more effective at Zone.college

ZONE.COLLEGE | AR AND VR TRAINING

Zone.college is at the forefront when it comes to digital learning opportunities and interactive education. Not only to keep up with the digitization of the world and education, but also because their students are visually oriented and often have to understand complex processes. It started with a pasteurizer that the school has for its food & technology training programme. The young students had to learn how the pasteurization process works, from merely an image, flow chart and plain text on paper. Zone.college rightly wondered if this could be done in a more effective, interactive and fun way.

About Zone.college

Zone.college provides green vocational education courses and courses for young people, adults and companies. It’s the school for green education. Zone.college has several locations where students can follow a variety of programmes: from Veterinary Assistant to Green & Culture Technology, and from Cultivation & Technology to Nutrition & Technology.

“The interactive 3D models bring reality closer to the student. That is important because nowadays it is difficult for students to enter industrial areas.”

– Björn Boers, teacher at Zone.college

The solution

Een interactief dashboard waarin verschillende processen binnen de levensmiddelenindustrie op een interactieve en beeldende manier worden weergegeven. Denk bijvoorbeeld aan de stromingen en de onderdelen van een pasteur. Studenten hebben zo een beter beeld van de werking van de machine en kunnen zo in een eigen tempo de stof eigen maken.

Om de student zo goed mogelijk voor te bereiden voor wat ze in het bedrijfsleven kunnen verwachten hebben we tevens de verschillende processen omgezet in Virtual Reality. Dit geeft de student een ervaring die zo dicht mogelijk bij de werkelijkheid ligt. Zo kunnen ze zelf parameters aanpassen om zelf te ervaren wat het effect is op het eindproduct. Deze manier van leren is bewezen 4x sneller dan traditionele leermethoden.

The 3D greenhouse

The Cultivation & Technology department also managed to find MetaChef. They wanted a virtual 3D greenhouse to recruit new students, because it is difficult to convey the beauty and specialness of the profession of greenhouse horticulture through a paper brochure.

We got to work for them and developed three greenhouses in 3D. In an interactive way, you can walk through the greenhouses, learn what a grower does and, for example, open and close windows or change the colour of the light. It’s a great way to introduce future students to the subject and the study programme.

The 3D cow

Seeing these successes, more departments at Zone.college soon contacted us. For example, the school's Agriculture department wanted to show the anatomy of a cow in 3D, so students could see where various organs are located and how those organs work. This challenge was right up our alley. The students can now use VR to look inside a cow in a very cool way. Not only is this interactive way of learning very effective, it is also a lot of fun.

“Everyone is enthusiastic, students and teachers. The 3D models increase the independence of our students and they remember better what they have learned. Thanks to MetaChef, we can prepare our educational programmes for the future.”

– Björn Boers, teacher at Zone.college