A new partnership between the Eastern Iowa Community Colleges and EON Reality will bring cutting-edge teaching techniques to students and professionals. The virtual and augmented reality programs will help students with job opportunities and give those in the work-force a chance to perfect their skills. In addition, the new program will allow the college district to buy new software and equipment, hire teachers and utilize experts.

The new educational training center in Davenport is one of only four in the nation. Jim Noord, Department Coordinator for IT at Scott Community College, said it’s a program he’s worked towards for over 15 years.

“The modeling is creating three-dimensional objects based on real world things and then the virtual reality is taking those objects and putting them into the virtual world that you’ve created.”

Verlee Washington, a student at Scott Community College, has worked with the technology for over a year and said it’s something she believes will extend into younger classrooms.

“I’d like to think that someday we’ll be using this everyday in the classroom, grade school through college I think it’s very fascinating the way students can learn today and I think that’s going to be really big it’s going to kind of snow ball.”

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