Playful by Design

The 1st Annual Playful by Design Spring Symposium, was held on April 5th-7th, 2018 at the Armory Innovation Spaces

Human Interact Demos Starship Commander

Human Interact Website

CITL’s Armory Innovation Spaces

The Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning opened the newly renovated Armory Innovation Spaces in the Fall of 2017. Stop by to see the TechHub, Innovation Classroom, VR Lab, and Innovation Studio.

Visualizing the Protein Database

This prototype VR experience was created by Kishore Adimulam for demonstration in the VR Lab.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Professor Phillip Anderson brought his BADM 449 students to the TechHub to play Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. “Your team will have two chances to defuse a virtual explosive device. The key to the game is communication.”  

TV B Gone at the Innovation Studio

The Illinois MakerLab offered a workshop at the Innovation Spaces in March. Participants of all ages came to learn the basics of electronics, and how to make cool things! But most importantly, Mitch Altman showed how to use his invention: the TV-B-Gone universal remote control. Read more at the Makerlab Website.

Einstein Brothers Opens in the Armory

The Armory Innovation Spaces welcomes a new neighbor. It’s great to have an Einstein’s Bagels location right next door to the TechHub.

Using VR to Acquire Phrasal Verbs

“The main pillars of VR being built on are: immersion, sensory feedback, authenticity, and interaction. The first three features are dependent upon interaction to be able to be properly implemented (Dawley, 2007). These features make VR an ideal tool for second language acquisition as they can enhance immersion, promote interaction, and can provide a more […]

3D printing Terrain Maps

CITL Innovation Spaces is hosting a variety of hands-on emerging technology topics for beginners. Workshops are open to everyone. (Note: workshops can count towards the Certificate in Teaching-Enhanced Technology, but may require a short reflection paper.)

AIS featured in the Daily Illini

Music and visual art belong together

IEI students visit AIS

Professor Anna Kasten brought her students from Japan to visit the AIS spaces.

STEAM Students Visit AIS

Students from the Next Generation School returned to the Innovation Spaces to study the history of castles.  

MACS Course Visit

Professor C.L. Cole visited the ais to show her sports media students how VR is being used in sporting events.

VR Featured at Faculty Retreat 2018

Staff from CITL’s Innovation Spaces supported the annual faculty retreat and provided a brief VR demo. Watch the video below to hear Cory Pettijohn discuss his use of VR in the classroom.

Active Teaching and Learning with Virtual Reality

In this short video vignette Professor Cory Pettijohn discusses his use of virtual reality within his courses.

Journalism Documents AR Workshop

Journalism student Zacker Barakat had a blast recording the augmented and virtual reality tech at the TechHub for his Multimedia course!

Kathryn Anthony Guest Lecturer

Anshuman Prasad virtually visited Kathryn Anthony’s course at the Innovation Studio on February 8th

Lithophanes

TechHub staff explore the printing of lithophanes.

iVenture Seminar Course in the Innovation Studio

Once a week the iVenture Seminar course meets in the Armory Studio Classroom. The iVenture Accelerator enables student-led startups to create economic and social value by supporting student entrepreneurs with knowledge, funding, and access to world-class University of Illinois resources and alumni.

Spring 2018 Courses

CITL is partnering with Media & Cinema Studies this Spring to offer four MACS courses in the Innovation Studio. MACS 364 Sports, Interactive Media, and Information Economies taught by C.L. Cole MACS 199 Innovation Illinois taught by Anita Chan MACS 166 Contemporary Media Literacy co-taught by Jenny Oyallon-Koloski and Jim Wentworth MACS 323 Immersive Media […]

Build a PC Lan Workshop

Our own Lis Chapa participated in this workshop.

eSports RSO

eSports members return to the Armory Innovation spaces this Spring.  Join them Thursday afternoons from 4 – 9 in Armory 172 to learn more about this registered student organization.

Adobe Spark Workshop

Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning staff offered a hands-on workshop on January 24th for faculty interested in using Adobe Spark for student projects. Spark is a suite of free, cloud-based applications that allow anyone to easily incorporate multimodal assignments within a course. Whether you want students to work with text and imagery, build […]

VR Photo Tour of India

Kishore Adimulam visited India over the winter break and shot a series of 360º photos using the Ricoh Theta. This prototype virtual India tour was created by Kishore using Unity.

Cupix Exploration

created a virtual tour of the CITL Innovation Spaces using the Beta version of Cupix

Counseling Center Relaxation Event on Reading Day

Paraprofessionals from the Counseling Center joined forces with the TechHub to host a relaxation event right before finals. Students could get some freebies and resources from the Counseling Center, as well as, make monogrammed ornaments, 360 scanned ornaments of themselves, or relax in virtual reality.

Journalism Course Visit

Professor Charles Ledford (Stretch) brought his multimedia journalism students to the Armory Innovation Spaces to experience Virtual Reality and 360 Video. Students had the chance to view 360 video narratives in the TechHub and VR Lab and also try out the Theta S and GoPro Fusion 360 cameras while visiting the Studio.    

Sports Media Course Visit

Professor John Lewis brought his sports media course to the Innovation Spaces to see how virtual reality is being used within a variety of sporting events. AIS staff created a YouTube playlist highlighting 360 videos and students also explored the Vive VR headset to view a variety of experiences.  

Future Freshmen Visit AIS

Professor Anna Kasten’s class of 15 ‘Future Freshman’ here on a STEM scholarship from Saudi Arabia, visited the Armory Innovation Spaces where they experimented with touch screen technology, virtual reality, 360 photography, 3d printing and more. Student teams also had the chance to defuse a virtual bomb playing Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes on the Vive […]

This Learning Life Photo Judging

Judges for the campus-wide This Learning Life photography contest met at the Innovation Studio to select final winners in each of five categories. Winners were announced and displayed at the Courtyard Cafe in the Union on December 8th. Attendees had the chance to vote on their favorite photo to earn the public choice award. The […]

Zhejiang University

As part of their recent visit to UIUC campus, traveling scholars from Zhejiang University toured the Armory Innovation Spaces to learn more about how digital textbooks, virtual reality and 3d scanning and printing technologies are being used within higher education.

Adobe Creative Cloud Workshop

CITL staff offered faculty from the UIUC department of Media and Cinema Studies a brief introduction to Adobe Creative Cloud. Creative Cloud is now available to all campus faculty and staff. We hope to ramp up student use of these great tools with small pilot programs being offered to MACS courses this Fall. View the […]

Visiting Scholars

  We have a variety of foreign scholars that visit our spaces throughout the semester. This semester we had a variety of Chinese, Malaysian, and Russian scholars learning more about our innovative learning spaces at the University of Illinois and what they ideas they might be able to take back to their home institutions.

i-STEM Article Features Armory Innovation Spaces

The i-STEM education initiative featured an article on the Armory Spaces supporting an after-school STEM program with the Next Generation School. “The Illinois VR Lab they visited is part of CITL’s (Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning)iFLEX initiative to build active learning classrooms around campus. In the case of the cave unit, the technology allowed the kids […]

Dental Dog

We’ve been exploring the possibility of bringing an existing 3D model of a dog skull into Unity for viewing through the HTC Vive headset. CITL partnered with the College of Vet Med to create the original interactive pdf for use by students within the online Dentistry Modules. VR Lab employee, Kishore Adimulam, made great progress […]

Experience theBlu for Extra Credit

At least one course has taken advantage of the VR Lab this semester by offering students an opportunity to earn extra credit by viewing and writing about the virtual experience titled theBlu.  

ESL Course Visit

Calen Gutwein, Teaching Assistant from the Intensive English Institute, brought her ESL class of about 20 students to see and experience VR as a class activity.  

Fusion 360 Workshop

Autodesk is an industry-leader in design software, and Fusion 360 is their premiere Computer-Aided Design product. It is cloud-based, and free for all educational purposes! Get hands-on experience designing in Fusion 360 and learn how it can help you collaborate on design projects of all kinds. Autodesk representatives offered a series of Fusion 360 workshops […]

International Scholar Visit

Visiting Scholar, Dr. Mohd Mursyid Arshad, came by the TechHub and VR Lab during his recent visit to campus.  He toured the Armory hoping to see some of our newest learning spaces and innovative programs.

Lorri Hopping Visit

On November 9th, 2017, The Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning co-hosted Lorri Hopping as a guest speaker as a part of the “Playful By Design: Gaming Pedagogies, Digital Literacies, and the Public Humanities” IPRH Research Cluster. Here’s a bit about Lorri and what she shared with campus: “Navigating Tech Revolutions: Confessions of a […]

Media Course Visit

Professor Veronica Paredes brought her media students to the VR Lab, Innovation Studio and TechHub to investigate the intersection of virtual reality and gaming.

Google Story Sphere

  Everyone has a story to tell and a place they’d like to tell it. Story Spheres are used by journalists, documentary makers, wildlife activists, artists, educators, and small businesses to tell stories that truly revolve around their audiences. Take your stories as far as your imagination and your camera will go. Story Spheres Jackson […]

MakerGirl Workshops Come to the Armory

The MakerGirl RSO began using the Innovation Studio for some of their events in the Fall of 2017. They offer workshops to teach young girls the basics of 3D printing. Due to our strong partnership with Makergirl, we are lucky to house 9 of their Ultimaker printers in the TechHub and Innovation Studio.

Design for America

Design for America students began using the Innovation Studio for some of their meetings starting in November 2017. We look forward to a long partnership with this RSO including offering workshops from DFA members in 2018.  

Research Expo at the College of Law

We took PlaystationVR on the road to the Law Building during their Research Expo to share a United Nations 360 video production about a Syrian refugee in Clouds Over Sidra. Many attendees hadn’t experience VR before and were interested in learning more about how it might be used in their field.

UIUC Librarians Visit the Armory

Staff affiliated with the UIUC Library were among many of the scheduled visits from interested parties across campus.

Speech Practice and Office Hours

Professor Grace Georgio held office hours for her Communications 111 in the TechHub where students could either practice their speeches standing in front of a high resolution photo of their actual class audience or step in front of a virtual audience using the Speech Trainer app in the HTC Vive headset.

Next Generation School STEAM program

Grade schoolers from the Next Generation School visited the Innovation Studio and TechHub to learn more about caves. They spent time in the Vive VR headset touring virtual cave sites, and they research caves using google maps in the Innovation Studio.

Mersive Solstice Demo

Representatives from Mersive demonstrated their wireless presentation technology to Tech Services, CITL and other UIUC tech support personal in the TechHub. The Solstice application runs on many of the new displays within the Armory Innovation Spaces. Solstice enables multiple users to connect simultaneously to a shared display using a range of devices over a WiFi […]

Education Course Visit

Illini eSports

Illini Esports began using the Innovation Studio in October 2017. New to esports and want to learn? They’ll teach you. A long-time veteran of your favorite game? They’ll challenge you! eSports has events every month from viewing parties to meet ups, to tournaments. During Fall term 2017, they offer open hours in the Studio from noon […]

Linquistics Course Visit

Randy Sadler, Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, brought his course to visit the TechHub, VR Lab and Innovation Studio to learn more about how emerging technology is being used in higher education.

Street View & Google Maps

Innovation spaces staff have been experimenting with using the Google maps platform to add traditional images and 360 photos to the map database. You can see out contributions here – https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/100744652570239518200/photos/ We hope to eventually be able to view these images on Google Earth using the HTC Vive headset. You can currently search for 505 E. […]

Testing the Theta 360

The TechHub has been experimenting with 360 photography using the Theta 360. With this camera you can capture your entire surroundings with the simple press of the shutter button. See this Innovation Studio image in 360 in our Google Photo album   We’ve also begun testing the Theta for shooting 360 video.  Here is an example […]

Five Labs to Love at UIUC

The Technology Entrepreneur Center was kind enough to include the new Armory Innovation Spaces in their review of labs to love at UIUC. “The Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning has now opened their new Armory Innovation Spaces! These high-tech, interactive hubs are designed to give students AND faculty a place to foster their […]

Playful by Design Visit the Armory

Playful by Design is a IPRH supported research cluster that focuses on games, platforms and pedagogies designed to foster empathy, to facilitate the attainment of cultural, digital, and linguistic fluencies, and to promote collaborative authorship and digital inclusion through the Public Humanities. They also hope to generate creativity, energy, and excitement around the possible development of […]

Pygmalion Tech Demo

DEMO is a full evening of the latest developments from local companies and student developers showcasing everything from wearables, 3D printing, virtual reality, video games, robotics, and more. See a list of participants at www.thepygmalionfestival.com/tech/demo.

Armory Innovation Spaces Open House

Join the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning as we celebrate the completion of our new open-air office and innovation spaces in the northeast corner of the Armory.  Spaces will be open for tours and hands-on activities. Stop by to enjoy free beverages and snacks throughout the day from 10am-4pm on September 12th, 13th and […]

Augmented Reality Exhibit with Mew

Lingjun Jiang aka “Mew” worked with the us at the TechHub to create an Augmented reality exhibit ultimately entitled “The Hidden Friends and the Hidden Places”. This is going on it’s second semester on display. Here’s her Artist’s Statement: TechHub Aurasma Exhibit MEW3 Presents With Mew ~My Imaginary Friends~ Armory 151A CITL TechHub 11am, September […]

Volition Speaker Series

  The local game development company, Volition, partnered with the Innovation Spaces to offer a series of lectures in the Fall of 2017. Meet the Minds Behind the Mayhem features the following events: VOLITION PANEL DISCUSSION & GAMEPLAY September 12th, 4:30 – 7:30pm @ The Armory Building room 101 GAME ENGINEERING October 12th, 5 – […]

Studio RSO in the Innovation Studio

Studio, a newly registered student organization, takes advantage of the video wall in the Innovation Studio.  

iVenture Seminar Course

The iVenture Accelerator is the educational accelerator for top student startups at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It is a capstone entrepreneurship experience for our campus’ most ambitious student startups – and provides them the knowledge, funding, mentorship, peer support, and resources necessary to grow and scale. Their Wednesday evening seminar course began using the […]

Daily Illini Recognizes the new Armory Innovation Spaces

The Daily Illini published an article titled Armory Innovation Spaces reimagine the classroom experience. “The Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning worked with different disciplines across campus to help develop these innovative classrooms that focus on enabling faculty to teach more effectively, and to give students an outlet to engage in more productive learning.” […]

Open Hours Begin at the VR Lab

Beginning on September 5, 2017, the new CITL Virtual Reality Lab begin offering 30 minute HTC Vive sessions for anyone interested. Reserve your 30 session in the VR Lab at go.illinois.edu/vrlab

CocoaNuts iOS Development Workshop

CocoaNuts helped to introduce more students to the Innovation Studio offering two workshops to their members at the beginning of the Fall term.  

Classes Begin in the Innovation Studio

Three courses were scheduled to use the new Innovation Studio for the Fall 2017. ADV 492 – Tech and Advertising Campaigns with professor Mike Yao CWL 461 – Design & Prog Text Based Games with professor Judith Pintar ISL 351A – Design Info Interfaces with professor Jeff Ginger

Illini Drone Club

The Illini Drone Club doing demonstrations in the Innovation Studio for the open house. They also offered their first club meeting of the Fall semester in the new Innovation Studio on August 28th.  

YoungLife Takes Over the New Innovation Classroom

Even before the first classes were offered in the new Innovation Classroom, YoungLife held their first event of the fall semester in this general assignment classroom.

Video Wall Up and Running

The six-screen video wall was installed and ready for use in the Innovation Studio just in time for the total solar eclipse on August 21st. A TOTAL ECLIPSE happens when the moon completely covers the sun. Here, the observer is standing under the umbral shadow of the moon. In a total solar eclipse, the sun’s outer […]

Innovation TechHub Completed

Work was completed on the TechHub in August 2017, the space was photographed by the LCM photographers and ready for move in. By September 7th, the space was open and ready for visitors.

LCM Photographers On Site

LCM, the architectural firm from Chicago responsible for the design of the new Armory spaces sent had their photographer on site to capture professional photos of our new rooms.

New Armory Spaces in the News

The News Gazette mentions the coming improvements to the Armory in their July 17, article titled UI constructions: New everything for a golden oldie. Local TV Station WCIA also picked up the story.

ESRI Story Maps

We began exploring the use of Storymaps in 2016 with the help of a small team of interns. Our work resulted in the creation of this small prototype focusing on the new Siebel Design Center coming to campus in 2020. go.illinois.edu/storymap-example Esri Story Maps let you combine authoritative maps with narrative text, images, and multimedia […]

YouVisit Virtual Tour

We created a virtual tour of the Illinois Flexible Learning Experience (iFLEX) including 360 views of the flexible classrooms. We used YouVisit as the content platform which was free and served the purpose fairly well. Please check it out: http://go.illinois.edu/iflex360

Architecture Students Create Rendered View of the Studio

http://pano.autodesk.com/pano.html?url=jpgs/be824de4-7bd9-4668-adc5-7f5681cf7dd1