A teacher training workshop to promote the use of the VISIR Remote Laboratory for electrical circuits teaching

The learning of Physics involves building up and using lab experiments. In turn, teachers must be trained in experimenting and using several resources that enable them to design valuable teaching strategies and learning activities. Thanks to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), virtual and remote labs can provide a framework where physical experiments can be developed. Altough remote labs have been in use for over a decade now in several countries and levels of education, its use at secondary schools in Latin America has not been reported yet. The Virtual Instruments System in Reality (VISIR) is one of these remote labs, suitable to practice in the area of electrical circuits. This paper aims at describing how this remote lab was used in a training workshop for secondary school level teachers of Physics in Costa Rica.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Using remote lab network to provide support to public secondary school education level

The advantages of networking are widely known in many areas (from business to personal ones). One particular area where networks have also proved their benefits is education. Taking the secondary school education level into account, some successful cases can be found in literature. In this paper we describe a particular remote lab network supporting physical experiments accessible to students of institutions geographically separated. The network architecture and application examples of using some of the available remote experiments are illustrated in detail.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

FARLabs: Enhancing student engagement via remote laboratories

INTRODUCTION Engagement in practical experiments has long be considered central to science education.(Hofstein & Mamlok-Naaman, 2007) However, due to the high costs required, the implementation and maintenance of quality laboratory equipment is out of reach for many schools, in particular those in remote of low socioeconomic environments. The lack of engaging activities has been identified as contributing to the declining enrolment of Australian students in science subjects for Years 11-12.(Goodrum, Druhan, & Abbs, 2012) One possible solution to this problem is the use of remote access laboratories to complement science education. As the facilities at one centralised laboratory hub can be disseminated widely via the internet, this strategy has the potential to enhance student engagement at a national level while requiring minimal resources. Recent work indicates that remote laboratories can be highly beneficial in secondary school teaching.(Lowe, Newcombe, & Stumpers, 2012) APPROACH FARLabs (Freely Accessible Remote Laboratories) has been designed to provide engaging, yet cost-effective, practical experiments to a large population of secondary schools across the country. An online platform has been set up (www.FARLabs.edu.au) which allows high school students to control and interact with scientific equipment housed at three major Australian universities. Five remote experiments are currently available and they cover three key themes in physics and chemistry (Nuclear, Environment and Structure). Access is completely free for Australian high schools and can be achieved using standard web browsers. For example, students from anywhere in Australia can conduct experiments with radioactive materials by controlling robotic equipment whilst viewing live video feedback (see Figure 1). The FARLabs program has been designed in direct consultation with active high school teachers and all content is aligned with the relevant Australian state and national curriculums. Moreover, the modular nature of the system, allows it to be easily expanded as further pieces of scientific equipment become available. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION To date over 220 schools and 340 teachers have registered for the FARLabs program (Figure 2). These teachers have booked and run well over 1000 individual experiments. The registered schools are spread across 5 states, with many schools in isolated, rural environments, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest university. The remote-experiments are also being implemented in a number of tertiary level physics courses

Phyphox smartphone labs in physics education: Breaking the vicious circle of student disengagement

Since the late 1960s, there has been a consensus that rote science learning has long-range negative consequences for student learning. Across the Western world, a number of well-funded reforms attempted to address this problem. Yet, the vicious circle of student science disengagement has continued. We believe that one of the reasons for this phenomenon is that, by and large, science teaching hasn’t changed sufficiently to meet the changing needs of the 21st century students. While many novel science education technologies have emerged lately, few secondary teachers have taken full advantage of these innovative tools. Surprisingly, instead of using already available technology, such as phyphox smartphone app (Staacks et al., 2018), to alter how secondary students engage with physics learning, technology is too often used to support old ways of learning physics, such as passively watching videos of recorded experiments or doing cookbook labs with computer simulations. Even the COVID-19 school closures and remote teaching are yet to become catalysts for re-evaluating secondary student science engagement. Paradoxically, as students become more engaged with their new digital tools (e.g., smartphones) in their personal lives, they become more disengaged from their formal K-12 science learning. We discuss how smartphones, novel technologies that 21st century students already have in their pockets and use daily for social interactions, can help break the vicious circle of secondary science disengagement by inspiring students to do data-driven science at school and at home (Milner-Bolotin & Milner, 2022; Milner-Bolotin et al., 2021). First, we propose a pedagogical approach for using smartphones in a science classroom to conduct hands-on inquiry that focuses on experimental design, data collection, and analysis. Second, we describe our experience of using this approach in a secondary physics classroom, as well as during the province-wide annual Physics Olympics event that takes place at the University of British Columbia (Milner-Bolotin et al., 2019). Third, we discuss how science educators can support new and practicing teachers in implementing this novel smartphone technology – phyphox – in their classrooms through mentorship during the physics teacher education and professional communities of practice. REFERENCES Milner-Bolotin, M., Liao, T., & McKenna, J. (2019). UBC Physics Olympics: Forty-one years of province-wide physics outreach. International Newsletter on Physics Education: International Commission on Physics Education - International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, 70(November), 5-6. https://mailchi.mp/a448561565a8/icpe-newsletter-issue-70-november-2019?e=[UNIQID] Milner-Bolotin, M., & Milner, V. (2022). Smartphone applications as a catalyst for active learning in chemistry: Investigating the Ideal Gas Law. In Y. J. Dori, C. Ngai, & G. Szteinberg (Eds.), Digital tools for equitable in person and remote chemistry learning (pp. 20). Royal Society of Chemistry. Milner-Bolotin, M., Milner, V., Tasnadi, A. M., Weck, H. T., Gromas, I., & Ispanovity, P. D. (2021). Contemporary experiments and new devices in physics classrooms. GIREP - Physics Education Conference 2019 Proceedings. http://fiztan.phd.elte.hu/english/student/devices.pdf  Staacks, S., Hütz, S., Heinke, H., & Stampfer, C. (2018). Advanced tools for smartphone-based experiments: phyphox. Physics education, 53(4), 045009. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6552/aac05

Remote laboratories in teaching and learning – issues impinging on widespread adoption in science and engineering education

This paper discusses the major issues that impinge on the widespread adoption of remote controlled laboratories in science and engineering education. This discussion largely emerges from the work of the PEARL project and is illustrated with examples and evaluation data from the project. Firstly the rationale for wanting to offer students remote experiments is outlined. The paper deliberately avoids discussion of technical implementation issues of remote experiments but instead focuses on issues that impinge on the specification and design of such facilities. This includes pedagogic, usability and accessibility issues. It compares remote experiments to software simulations. It also considers remote experiments in the wider context for educational institutions and outlines issues that will affect their decisions as to whether to adopt this approach. In conclusion it argues that there are significant challenges to be met if remote laboratories are to achieve a widespread presence in education but expresses the hope that this delineation of the issues is a contribution towards meeting these challenges

The LAB@FUTURE Project - Moving Towards the Future of E-Learning

This paper presents Lab@Future, an advanced e-learning platform that uses novel Information and Communication Technologies to support and expand laboratory teaching practices. For this purpose, Lab@Future uses real and computer-generated objects that are interfaced using mechatronic systems, augmented reality, mobile technologies and 3D multi user environments. The main aim is to develop and demonstrate technological support for practical experiments in the following focused subjects namely: Fluid Dynamics - Science subject in Germany, Geometry - Mathematics subject in Austria, History and Environmental Awareness – Arts and Humanities subjects in Greece and Slovenia. In order to pedagogically enhance the design and functional aspects of this e-learning technology, we are investigating the dialogical operationalisation of learning theories so as to leverage our understanding of teaching and learning practices in the targeted context of deployment

Large-scale educational telecommunications systems for the US: An analysis of educational needs and technological opportunities

The needs to be served, the subsectors in which the system might be used, the technology employed, and the prospects for future utilization of an educational telecommunications delivery system are described and analyzed. Educational subsectors are analyzed with emphasis on the current status and trends within each subsector. Issues which affect future development, and prospects for future use of media, technology, and large-scale electronic delivery within each subsector are included. Information on technology utilization is presented. Educational telecommunications services are identified and grouped into categories: public television and radio, instructional television, computer aided instruction, computer resource sharing, and information resource sharing. Technology based services, their current utilization, and factors which affect future development are stressed. The role of communications satellites in providing these services is discussed. Efforts to analyze and estimate future utilization of large-scale educational telecommunications are summarized. Factors which affect future utilization are identified. Conclusions are presented

Innovating Pedagogy 2015: Open University Innovation Report 4

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fourth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. We proposed a long list of new educational terms, theories, and practices. We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised below in an approximate order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation

Open Science Happens Somewhere: Exploring the use of Science OER in Schools

This paper concerns a pilot exploring the use of openly licensed content in secondary schools. Specifically it looks at the use of the Open University’s (OU) OpenScienceLab (OSL) in two remote rural schools in the West Highlands of Scotland. OSL is a series of online experiments openly licensed for anyone to use, they are about learning through experimentation, and are part of a wider OU interest in how to support and develop inquiry based learning at a distance (Scanlon 2012). This area is of particular relevance to Scottish schools, as the underlying pedagogy of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) promotes interdisciplinary thinking and learning through inquiry (Macintyre 2014). The idea of the pilot was to work on how “open content” might be used in schools to understand what openness might mean in and for educational practice. While our initial intention was simply to run these in schools after the first workshops it became apparent while the technical and licences were open and it was relatively clear how to do the experiments, people were uncertain how to use them in their educational practice. Emphasising the need to attend to Educational Practice as well as Openness in OEP. The pilot took a participatory design approach (Sanders and Westerlund 2011; Mor et.al 2012), to developing and support practices around the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) in classroom. Through a series of workshops and schools visits we looked to solve these problems from the classroom out, using the teachers experience to develop learning journeys that worked for teachers and pupils. With teachers we created a learning journey using the OU’s free platform OpenLearnWorks to wrap the experiments in a mixture of existing and newly developed OER. Two journeys were created, these will be run in two locations with with two sets of teachers in December 2014. The paper will report on the outcomes for pupils and teachers of this final stage. In doing so it will reflect on the participatory design process, highlighting the practices developed to support the use of open content, drawing out broader conclusions might support the use open materials in the classroom