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One-room magic: UFS' immersive classrooms redefine learning

29 August 2025 | Story Igno van Niekerk | Photo Stephen Collett

The university is transforming education across its Bloemfontein, Qwaqwa, and South campuses with its pioneering one-room spaces, mirrored across all three locations to deliver cutting-edge, immersive learning. Research for these innovative spaces began in 2023, sparked by a photo from the University of Leuven in Belgium, which the university identified as showcasing Leuven’s advanced classroom setup. Prof Philippe Burger, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, leveraging a connection there, led a team to explore this technology globally, collaborating with Canada’s X2O OneRoom to make the UFS the first in South Africa – and one of (as far as we know) two in Africa, alongside Kenya – to offer such immersive classrooms.

Unlike Zoom or Blackboard, where online students were often overlooked as small icons, one-room spaces ensure that everyone feels included. Designed for postgraduate training and PhD interactions, these rooms accommodate up to 40 in-person and 40 online participants, with large video camera feeds on screens, reminiscent of the TV programme Small Talk, where children’s faces lined the wall for engagement. Directional audio and personal cameras create a sensory experience, with sound coming from the speaker’s direction and eye contact feeling natural. Angelique Carson-Porter from the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics shared her excitement about a postgraduate session led by Prof Aletta Olivier, Lecturer in the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies: “It feels like you’re right there, even from Pretoria or Ghana. You see everyone, interact, and never miss a beat.”

Gavin Coetzer at ICT Services, a key project leader, highlighted how lecturers struggled with older platforms’ limitations, often only addressing online questions at the end, disrupting the flow. The UFS’ one-room spaces, implemented in the UFS Business School, the Clinical Skills Unit, South Campus teacher training, and Qwaqwa, solve this with breakout sessions and global conference support. While other universities rely on Teams, the UFS’ user-friendly tech, with around 24 screens and ceiling microphones, allows lecturers to focus on teaching.

Staying ahead of tech trends is challenging, but the university is excelling, making education inclusive, engaging, and truly global.

News Archive

Another award proves quality of Architecture

2012-04-13

Jurie Swart with Mrs Martie Bitzer, Head of the Department of Architecture.
Photo: Supplied
13 April 2012

The Department of Architecture can be proud of its students. Recently, Jurie Swart was honoured as regional winner of the Corobrik Architectural Student of the Year Award. He was also placed second nationally.

Jurie is an architect at the The Roodt Partnership in Bloemfontein.

Corobrik says in a media release: “Tomorrow’s architects set new standards at 25th Corobrik Architectural Student of the Year Awards. Achieving sustainable built environments with low impacts on the natural environment is becoming a universal goal. Energy usage in buildings is under the spotlight. Water-wise projects are most likely to get the go ahead. That is why an in-depth understanding of the environmental constraints and impacts of technologies on architectural solutions is becoming so important for students of architecture. It is the resolution of environmental issues that can be expected to drive architectural expression that will shape tomorrow’s buildings and the creation, extension and redevelopment of our towns and cities.”

Jurie Swart’s project, Borderline – mediated landscape, a Water Research Centre for the University of the Free State (Qwaqwa Campus), explores whether nature and architecture can amalgamate to become a hybrid solution in a vast landscape which has lost its reference to place and time.

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