Virtual Laboratories as Interactive E-Learning Resources: Benefits and Limitations

Laboratories are integral part of the curriculum. With the advancement of technologies especially information and communication technology there is a pace for the designing and development of virtual labs. There are different types of online labs which are accessible through digital devices over internet. Virtual labs based upon 3D simulations are very close to the traditional or physical laboratories. Due to interactivity, such labs can give a pre-lab hand-on practice of experiments in a safe, secure and self pace environment. Purpose of the study is to investigate advantages and disadvantages of the virtual labs with the emphasis on their limitations. Keywords: Virtual Labs, 3D labs, Interactive Labs, e-learning, distance learning, remote labs

An Approach to Convert Conventional Laboratories Into IoT-Enabled Laboratories

Practical learning methodologies have become the need of the hour in the education sector, in particular in engineering education, to achieve technical competencies and skills. Advancements in web-based learning strategies have evolved over the years, and technology has played a major role in creating e-learning resources, among which remote labs are the ones transforming engineering laboratory delivery structure. In the present work, the methodology of improvising an existing traditional automation laboratory into an internet of things (IoT)-enabled laboratory with remote operation is presented. The implementation process of industrial internet of things (IIoT) for enabling remote operation of automation laboratory at the NIE, India is described in this paper. This paper describes the implementation of novel learning platform for programmable logic controllers (PLC), industrial PC (IPC), and hydraulic laboratories using a common IIoT architecture and framework. Additionally, user-level web-based application is created to control the use of all laboratory equipment from remote locations.

MostaLab: Performance Evaluation of Simultaneous Access in Analog Remote Laboratories

A service oriented architecture for simultaneous access in the field of remote labs has been proposed and validated using stress load testing. The innovation of this work lies on the use of the parameters collected for the typical student and tested with the Artillery.io tool. Then, we have evaluated the performance of the laboratory by defining 5s the maximum waiting time that a request cannot be exceeded. This article also describes a use case showing how this architecture was designed and developed with 109 students.

THE TEACHER TRAINING DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ABOUT ONLINE LABORATORIES QUALITY

The spread of novel Corona Virus and the resulting Covid-19 Pandemic has had a profound impact in our lives and most of daily activities have been upset. Negative effects crushed education and all around the world schools, universities and tertiary institutions had to shut down moving to Distance Learning. Distance Learning was in fact the global answer to continue educational activities and preserve students’ right to education. The United Nations Organization for Culture and Education (UNESCO) reports that ten months after rising pandemic, more than 331 million students worldwide are affected by the Pandemic and in 28 countries the schools are still closed (updated 09.12.2020). During the months of the first contagion curve, only 15% of teaching activities were delivered remotely, globally, thanks to Distance Learning. More than 1.5 billion students worldwide are or have been touched by the closure of schools and universities due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. Teachers and instructors world-wide had to find the best solution to fix the pedagogical challenge. For this reason, teaching strategies, methods and materials have been adapted to the online learning environment. Distance Learning refers to an electronic learning environment; generally, it is used if time and/or geographic conditions do not allow a direct contact between educators and students (King, Young, Drivere-Richmond & Schrader, 2001). UNESCO (2002) asserts that Distance Learning includes learning process carried out separately in time and space, through artificial electronic or print media; this holds also for a part of the educational process. Distance Learning requires specific evaluation procedures throughout qualitative and quantitative methodologies, focusing the performance assessment and the learning process (Benigno & Trentin, 1999). This article is a part of a wider research that wants to investigate the students’ experience about online Laboratory classes during Pandemic crisis. Based on a quantitative, non- experimental and ex-post-facto research, this article specifically investigates the strategies used during remote Labs students attended during the sanitary emergency. Data was collected through a no-tested research survey administered with an online free app. A voluntary response sample from 749 Single-cycle Primary Teacher Education students, from first year course to the fifth, attending university in one of the most important athenaeums in Southern Italy, at the end of their last second semester. Results from the closed-response questions show the use of a variety of strategies whose effectiveness should be assessed based on empirical evidence.

A LAB TASK GROUP FOR REVIEW AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT OF THIRD AND FOURTH-YEAR LABORATORY COURSES

Since the mid-1980’s, the mechanical engineering program at the University of Saskatchewan has included three core third and fourth-year lab courses, each of which consists of 9-10 individual labs. In 2015 a task group was set up to review these courses, including deliverables, scheduling and links to material in corecourses. Since this time, the task group has taken on the major responsibility for continuous improvement of the lab program, including reviewing student evaluations, making changes to labs, and recommending equipment purchases. The task group has also been responsible for a major redesign of the lab program, which will improve delivery and scheduling of labs, alignment with core courses, workload of students, and experience gained by graduate teaching assistants. Smaller apparatus have been designed and built in-house to allow students to gain additional hands-on experience. Labs have been designed to build on one another in order to systematically improve students’ general laboratory skills, including the use of data acquisition systems and experimental design. This new approach was used for the first time in ME 328 in 2019-20. This paper will focus primarily on the role of the task group in continuous improvement, and the lab program redesign. The new ME 328 course is described, along with lessons learned from the first offering. The task group’s role in moving to remote labs during COVID-19 is also discussed.