Shenandoah Center for Immersive Learning
The SCIL lab incorporates AR and VR solutions using three interacting components:
- Augmented Reality Chamber (ARC)
- Emergency Preparedness Instructional Center (EPIC)
- Role-Player Workforce (RPW)
Using a massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) approach, participants live inside virtual worlds, and these gaming modules can be transformed into a training university with learning modules.
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J.J. Ruscella
Executive Director of the Shenandoah Center for Immersive Learning (SCIL)
Shenandoah University leaders tapped Associate Professor of Theatre J.J. Ruscella, M.F.A., to pull existing academic and technological components together under the auspices of the Shenandoah Center for Immersive Learning (SCIL), with Ruscella at the helm as executive director.
SCIL News & Announcements
Center Directors Make Their Mark
J.J. Ruscella, M.F.A., director of the Shenandoah Center for Immersive Learning (SCIL) and associate professor of theatre (above, right), received the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges' H. Hiter Harris III Excellence in Instructional ... Continue Reading Center Directors Make Their Mark
‘A Different Animal’
Across the state’s higher-ed landscape, Shenandoah University stands apart because of what it does not profess to be. “Shenandoah is a different animal in higher education in Virginia,” says Tracy Fitzsimmons, president for the past decade at the ... Continue Reading ‘A Different Animal’
Exploring A New Academic Dimension
Shenandoah University is taking a global leap in experiential learning with the rollout of two new virtual reality degrees and an exciting partnership with a leading creator in virtual reality education. Shenandoah is the first higher ... Continue Reading Exploring A New Academic Dimension
SCIL Virtual Reality Experience
MLK Virtual Reality Experience
Experience SCIL's latest project honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Immerse yourself in the “Atmosphere of Hate,” felt by African-Americans as they engaged in nonviolent protest to challenge segregation by sitting at a whites-only lunch counter in the late 1950s through Virtual Reality. As soon as you don the virtual reality viewer, you’ll feel as if you’re sitting with a group of young African-Americans as they work to integrate a lunch counter, against the jeers and verbal abuse of white patrons. Shenandoah University acting students, staff and local community members, including local high school students, act out the scene, which sparks immediate reactions for anyone who steps through the virtual reality portal.
The Atmosphere Of Hate: Experiencing A Civil Rights Era Sit-In
Fantastic!! Being in the middle of the confrontation brought tears to my eyes. It took those sterile news reports and articles I remember as a kid growing up in Boston, MA, where I wondered why couldn't these people get a sandwich like anybody else and turned them into a gut wrenching reality. Congratulations to the team that put this incredibly powerful experience together!"
—Jeremy Becker-Welts
I wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU for the excellent display and interaction that we were able to host at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. The compliments have been pouring in and the experience was one that I personally found outstanding and immersive. What an amazing opportunity! Any other opportunity like this—consider me already sold, just let me know when! BRAVO, and thank you for thinking of the Alamo Drafthouse!
—Andy Gyurisin, Programming & Promotions Manager for the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema-Winchester
Because he’s given thought to the action from beginning to end from each direction, you have a story to follow. These things are intuitive for our students. They’re thinking in multiple dimensions, in ways that we’re not. We’re linear thinking.”
—SCIL Director J.J. Ruscella says about Student Director John Oross '19, History major
The Augmented Reality Chamber (ARC)
The Augmented Reality Chamber (ARC) is made up of three primary technology components: the Chamber (which focuses on the limitations of a room where a potential learner exists); the Portal (which is the live transportation of participants into shared learning spaces); and the Online Platform (which is the repository of online training modules which would live in a connected virtual universe). These three components allow for virtual training that can take place anywhere and at any time. The sensors in the Chamber transport participants through the VR portal into shared learning spaces allowing both trainer and trainee to co-occupy multiple locations. These training modules are then stored in the Online Platform which are then available predominantly, open sourced. The immersive training applications that are created through the ARC have profound potential impact across countless industries from corporate to governmental. This Massive Multi-participant Online Training Universe (MMOTU), offers numerous benefits including: global accessibility, standardization of learning, reduced development cycles, review and archiving ability, time flexibility, scalability, and approved learning effectiveness.
The immersive training applications created through the ARC have profound potential impact across countless industries from corporate to governmental and offer global accessibility, standardization of learning, reduced development cycles, review and archiving ability, time flexibility and approved learning effectiveness."
—J.J. Ruscella
Emergency Preparedness Instructional Center (EPIC)
With Active Shooter incidents on the rise, there is a growing need for first responders to gain the necessary training for active shooter scenarios. Emergency Preparedness Instructional Center (EPIC) will provide best in class experts who will offer the latest techniques for active shooter training for law enforcement, EMS, school systems, hospital systems, and government agencies. Tactical medic training and seminars for rescue task force programs will also be provided in order to be properly prepared for natural disaster/active shooter incidents. EPIC will use the ARC to train first responders, utilizing its VR capabilities to train anywhere, even in locations that it might not be safe to send a trainer. EPIC will also use the RPW in both their live and virtual scenarios when training first responders. EPIC is the first of its kind training program focusing on medical deployment during active shooter and disaster scenarios.
EPIC will use live and virtual scenarios and is the first-of-its-kind training program focusing on medical deployment during active shooter and disaster scenarios."
—J.J. Ruscella
The Role-Player Workforce (RPW)
The Role-Player Workforce (RPW) will develop to meet the needs of immersive learning. A by-product of immersive learning will be the growth of a national workforce in role-players. This trend is already happening in reaction to the medical industry’s need for standardized patients, OSCE, and other human based training. The impact of Virtual Training upon the development of this workforce creates expanding opportunities for economically disadvantaged groups such as the elderly, veterans, and ESOL citizens, not to mention the thousands of out-of-work actors with college degrees. The RPW will build new techniques and best practices for professional role-players to engage learners in immersive world experiences. Shenandoah University has more than 5 years’ experience in training and deploying role-players at the highest level, working with entities including multiple divisions of the State Department, the United Nations, various hospitals, law enforcement, and regional fire departments.
Creating Hands-On Learning Opportunities through Simulation for Nursing and Health Professions Students
Role players, trained as actors in Shenandoah University's world-renowned Shenandoah Conservatory, through the Shenandoah Center for Immersive Learning (SCIL), help make medical simulation experiences unique. While the medical programs use mannequins in state-of-the-art and easily reconfigured simulation spaces, students also learn by working with acting students who role-play simulated patients. This arrangement allows medical students to interact with live patients before ever stepping foot on the job, and provides acting students with opportunities to practice their craft while still honing their skills. In addition to the role-player workforce, SCIL enhances the university's academic programs with 360 VR, augmented, and virtual reality technologies.
Law enforcement and healthcare communities need role-players who represent different ethnicities, backgrounds and perspectives. Role playing can be a vibrant source of income for actors.”
—J.J. Ruscella