Illuminated learning lands at Girton

STUDENTS and faculty at Girton Grammar welcomed the launch of their new Lumination learning lab at the senior campus on Wednesday.  

The school is one of the first in Victoria to implement the new technology that combines augmented and virtual reality learning experiences.  

Shai Coggins, learning design lead at Lumination, said the new facility can be life-changing for students.  

“I think it’s very powerful especially for regional schools, who don’t have access to the same things as schools in the city,” she said. “It just opens up their concepts.” 

Ms Coggins said that one application for the technology was to help language other the English, or LOTE, students connect via experiences with the language they are learning.  

Another was the chance for students to learn and create in an immersive, three-dimensional space.  

“Studies have shown that improved 3D thinking in students actually improved a lot of their logical thinking and their mathematical skills,” Ms Coggins said.   

“It gets those additional neural connections that our brain needs, and those connections cannot be made using the traditional ways.” 

One year 7 student described a simulation where he went into an Egyptian tomb and was able to examine and learn the meanings of hieroglyphics.  

“History is one of my main interests so going in there, learning about all sorts of stuff on that was very, very fascinating to me,” he said.  

Principal of Girton Grammar, Emma O’Rielly, said she was excited to open the lab.  

“The thing I love about it is that you cannot be passive in that space, you have to be actively participating” she said.  

“In a normal classroom, you can choose to be passive but this, you’re in it, you’re there.”