In the era of virtualization the use of virtual laboratory practices is increasing, and in many cases to the detriment of those identified as real practices.
I believe that web laboratories serve as a fantastic complementary teaching resource. As an example, I recommend to have a play with Myscope, a virtual laboratory for microanalytical equipment developed in Australia. This website provides both theoretical training and virtual instruments. Check out their SEM: http://www.ammrf.org.au/myscope/sem/practice/virtualsem/
Cheers
Hands on is still better. But if it is not possible, then virtual is next best. The main thing in both cases is avoiding the black box syndrome. Students should always know what's going on inside the box. If possible they should learn how to calibrate or test any measuring instrument.
its reaaly good for the students since it include the practicals and provides knowledge to them. Sometimes its not possible to conduct the labs in the lab classes and i think in that situation virtual labs will be good for them.
I believe that web laboratories serve as a fantastic complementary teaching resource. As an example, I recommend to have a play with Myscope, a virtual laboratory for microanalytical equipment developed in Australia. This website provides both theoretical training and virtual instruments. Check out their SEM: http://www.ammrf.org.au/myscope/sem/practice/virtualsem/
Cheers
I agree with most respondents. Virtual lab can not be a substitute for the hands on but complementery. Excessive use of virtual lab becomes a practice especially at some high schools where most science teachers find little time to run regular lab experiments. Simple hands on activity is more valuable than a complicated multistep virtual lab.
A real lab is - to my opinion -better.
However, consider two points:
- how immersive is your virtual environment? The more it gets, to better the user acceptance is. (consider a flight simulator with all sounds, some movements of a cabin, shaking etc...)
- can you dynamically influence the environement, so you could provoke reactions you want the students to feel (consider a flight simulator that crashes an airplane)
@Rolando, a scientist said "Virtual Laboratories as a teaching environment -A tangible solution or a passing novelty?". It is a good paper about the issue.My opinion is that real laboratory work can not be substituted by virtual lab!
http://sumaserver.gotdns.com/infoeduquimica/pdf/virtual%20laboratories%20as%20a%20teaching%20enviroment%20%20%20a%20tanglible%20solution%20or%20a%20passing%20novelty.pdf
I totally agree with @Walter Kuhn, personally I think that right now, 2014, real and a virtual lab practices have to go together…. but, in some time, with fully immersive (tact-sound-smell-vision) or mixed techs, virtual labs will be most common-easy to setup than a physical-real practices (level of immersion is the key). I can say that the advances on augmented and virtual reality in the last years has been incredible, highly immersive-cooperative virtual environments are been develop, the techs goes from 360 virtual reality visors, real time multiuser interactivity, to smell and tact simulators, this is a time where the border between science fiction and reality is almost gone. Another point of view is: why to make the real-virtual border? the other day I saw (on a movie but 100% possible) something very interesting, a real time virtual tutor system were the person was doing something (fixing a circuit) for the first time and using an augmented reality device he can see a video overlapping the real world image of what he needed to do, how to put the tools, hands, etc.
Returning to the topic and hoping not have go to deep into techno dreamer mode (I love the VR-AR topic sorry), virtual labs allows us to fully control the environment and let the student to test his own theories (build his own knowledge based on experiences) letting student make questions as what if? and provide low resources-easy repeatable experiments that on other way will be impossible.
Virtual laboratory as a concept is excellent. However one thing that we should remember is that it will never be able replace the actual laboratory. Having said that the use virtual reality makes for an excellent option that can help in virtual laboratories. A case in point is Lincoln Electric Virtual Reality Arc Welding Trainer.
http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us/equipment/training-equipment/Pages/vrtex.aspx
Using this equipment students can learn arc welding techniques without spending any consumables and minimizing the energy used. Once they get sufficient proficiency using the VR equipment, they can then use the actual welding machine for a final practice.
Similarly other laboratories can be developed using excellent simulation techniques they can be used. Particularly now because of the power of the computers and the low cost it is now possible to have reasonable virtual labs be developed.
Agree. As a personal experience, web laboratories are mostly useful specially in the case of language learning.
In my opinion, virtual labs are only complementarity to hands-on experience (though excellent and helpful) and not an alternative to real experience. Imagine that you are sitting as the first live patient in the dentist's chair, which has had hundreds (even if successful) virtual drilling, imagine you are lying opened before the surgeon who virtually completed (successfully, of course) hundreds of operations and you are his first (still alive :-P) patient. Or imagin, you go by plane whose pilot has flown thousands hours on the simulator and now flies for the first time with a real plane and with real people. Or simply - you take a young lady for the first time to dinner in restaurant where waiter have his first real service and he served you the first real meal cooked by the cook who cooked yet virtually. What kind of chemist you want in your lab? Not too much virtuality? It is not true that virtual labs are cheaper and therefore desirable?
Dear Christoph, Mark, Ziad, Xavier, Ljubomir, Walter, José Carlos, Gloria, Nageswara, Hossein and Lukáš, thank you very much for the important contributions!!.
@Rolando, I have found very good initiative in India regarding virtual labs! Very respectful! Many labs available in different areas such as:
Electronics & Communications
Computer Science & Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Physical Sciences
Chemical Sciences....
http://www.vlab.co.in/
The concept of virtual lab , in general, is given in following picture!
http://online-labs.eu/virtual-labs/
Dear @Rolando, dear followers, this is good opportunity.
Call for Papers: Special Issue
Current trends in Virtual Labs – remote or simulated experimentation.
"Engineering education has always relied strongly on hands-on laboratory classes to allow students to apply theoretical knowledge and acquire operational skills. However, during the last decade a new concept of ‘virtual lab’ work that can take place outside the physical and temporal constraints of the traditional lab class has emerged. This has taken both the form of remote (internet-based) interaction with real-world setups and of simulated experimentation using realistic interfaces. The advantages of these approaches are advocated by many, but the debate is still on-going. Virtual labs are generally accepted as a meaningful complement, but not a replacement, to hands-on labs..."
http://communications.elsevier.com/nl/jsp/m.jsp?c=%40OZyrkjsx5Lg6VK%2FcY%2BNmHNjPvXasytFgDl%2BdqJONZZM%3D
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/education-for-chemical-engineers/
Virtual labs and many other virtual learning environments are indirect learning experience which is not enough to master targeted skills. However, virtual lab could be the optimum learning context when the real-world contains dangerous learning experience that require training in the beginning. Although, virtual labs might overcome shortages in materials and resources. In addition, it is an effective method to extend the time and the possibility of doing experiments beyond limited time learning sessions in university.
Dear @Rolando, this is the latest news about the issue that you have raised.
Virtual reality: could it revolutionise higher education?
With truly immersive headsets now on the market, academics are beginning to explore how to use the technology for teaching...
"...The most obvious use of VR is in subjects such as engineering or architecture, where headset-wearing students can design and manipulate virtual structures. Conrad Tucker, an assistant professor of engineering at Pennsylvania State University, has received funding to build a virtual engineering lab where students hold, rotate and fit together virtual parts as they would with their real hands.
“What we want to do now is get down to the nuts and bolts,” he tells Times Higher Education, and allow students to do things such as use screws and hammers in VR as they would in real life.
Technology to simulate physically realistic environments – where objects drop and bounce as you would expect them to – has already been developed, he explains. “You have the gaming industry to thank for this,” he adds...
It is even possible to build a car out of virtual components and have it run based on laws of physics modelled into the environment, Tucker adds.
One question his project aims to answer is whether students learn as well in VR as they do in real classrooms, or whether without being physically present with their classmates, they miss out on developing intangible skills such as teamwork. “We really don’t know what level of immersion can be achieved in this virtual environment,” he says...."
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/virtual-reality-could-it-revolutionise-higher-education
In practical welding processes, special requirements are needed. Welding metals, electrodes, welding machine and fume suction machine…etc are needed to train welders. The attached work suggests building a soft or virtual training laboratory that can simulate most of the conditions of practical welding processes.
The current study allows the operator to simulate and experience most of the conditions found in welding. It teaches the hand-eye coordination skills necessary in welding, provides immediate feedback so the trainee knows if the arc length effect, welding angles, or the correct travel speed, welding electrode burn-off, and records all mistakes, which lead in general to minimize the training cost and reducing the training period.
In the current project, a training of welders for Shielded Metal Arc Welding (SMAW) can be performed close to reality. To keep the information about the experiments on virtual welding simulator and the users who performed the experiments, a database management and reporting system has been built. With this software the results can be shown as graphics and scoring.
I think that it depends on the content that is being presented. I am currently building a set of virtual labs for a university for their mechanical engineering program. The downside is that students don't get hands-on experience using certain tools and equipment. To make up for this, we are focusing on techniques that students would need to use in order to analyze data and gain some sort of actionable insight from it. We complement this with video demonstrations so that students are still exposed to experimental and machining techniques. The idea is to mimic the type of work that students would need to use in their jobs in the future. This lets us focus on material that students might not ever see in a typical lab class.
It is better in situations where there are no such resources available to have physical hands on practical. In situations where such is available, real physical lab is better.
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