ASP Gather.town
The Abbe School of Photonics offers an opportunity for remote students and lecturers in a digital twin environment of our real-world Abbe School of Photonics in Jena: Gather.town!
Virtual copy of the ACP Plaza.
Gather.town is a video chat platform designed to make virtual connections in a more interactive and engaging way. Abbe School of Photonics offers its students and academic staff the opportunity to come together in our tailor-made Gather.town environment called Abbe School of Photonics Gather.town.
The ASP Gather.town was designed as a digital twin of the ground floor of the ACP building with all of the corresponding rooms, labs, and common areas. This gives our students abroad a comprehensive impression of how the school looks in real life. They are able to enter the environment with the avatars they have customized for themselves, walk around, communicate with their peers and lecturers through their webcams and microphones, and access essential information about the ASP and the Photonics Master's program. In ASP Gather.town, one can screen the most recent job announcements in the Jena region and apply for a job in industry.
The lecturers hold online seminars on Abbe School of Photonics Gather.town. They can share their screen with the students, work collaboratively on the whiteboard, and have office hours with the students – just like in real life!
A typical lecture in the ASP Gather.town environment
Screenshot: Falko SojkaGather.town served as a key tool during the Covid-19 restrictions and in the digitalization of the Photonics Master’s program. It has cleared the way for digital teaching and learning regardless of the location, family, health, or other personal circumstances of the students.
In the long run, we will continue to work on the creation of other digital areas that represent different sites of the ASP campus as well as the Department of Physics and Astronomy, which the students will encounter as soon as they come to Jena personally. Watch our video to learn more about the Abbe School of Photonics Gather.town: