Science Education at High School: a VISIR Remote Lab Implementation

Experimentation is crucial in science teaching at any education level. Students’ motivation and collaborative work are also essential in order to achieve positive learning outcomes. This article portrays the implementation of remote experimentation using VISIR in a Physics subject at high-school level. Qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed for this particular case study in order to shed light on the influence of VISIR on students’ motivation. Results showed that VISIR remote lab is a powerful tool to arouse interest in electronic circuit topics.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The VISIR+ Project – Helping Contextualize Math in an Engineering Course

The long-term goal of engineering education is to prepare students to work as engineers. Being a practical profession, laboratories play a crucial role in illustrating concepts and principles as well as improving technical skills. In the last decades the use of online resources (simulators and remote labs) has been growing, either as a complementary and/or as an alternative way of developing experimental competences. In the scope of the VISIR+ Project, this work presents the first results of a didactical implementation using simultaneously the remote laboratory VISIR (Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality), simulation and calculus in a Math Course at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC). The preliminary results indicate that the use of several resources increases students’ performance, boosting their learning and competence development.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Using a 3-tier Training Model for Effective Exchange of Good Practices in as ERASMUS+ Project

VISIR+ is an Erasmus+ project that aims to develop educational modules for electric and electronic circuits theory and practice following an enquiry-based teaching and learning methodology. The project has installed five new VISIR remote labs in Higher Education Institutions located in Argentina and Brazil, to allow students doing more experiments and hence acquire better experimental skills, through a combination of traditional (hands-on), remote and virtual laboratories. A key aspect for the success of this project was to motivate and train teachers in the underpinning educational methodology. As such, VISIR+ adopted a 3-tier training process to effectively support the use of VISIR in the Institutions that received it. This process is based on the “train the trainer” approach, which required the participating partner institutions to identify and engage a number of associated partners, interested in using their newly installed remote lab. To measure the quality of the training process, the same satisfaction questionnaire was used in all training actions. This paper presents a detailed description of the training actions along with the analysis of the satisfaction questionnaire results. Major conclusions are that the quality level of the training process remained practically the same across all training actions and that trainees sometimes considered the practical use of the VISIR remote lab as difficult, irrespectively of where and when the training action took place.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The VISIR+ Project – Preliminary results of the training actions

Experimental competences allow engineering students to consolidate knowledge and skills. Remote labs are a powerful tool to aid students in those developments. The VISIR remote lab was considered the best remote lab in the world in 2015. The VISIR+ project main goal is to spread VISIR usage in Brazil and Argentina, providing technical and didactical sup- port. This paper presents an analysis of the already prosecuted actions regarding this project and an assessment of their impact in terms of conditioning factors. The overall outcomes are highly positive since, in each Latin American Higher Education Institution, all training actions were successful, the first didactical implementations were designed and ongoing in the current semester. In some cases, instead of one foreseen implementation, there are several. The most statistically conditioning factors which affected the outcomes were the pre-experience with re- mote labs, the pre-experience with VISIR and the training actions duration. The teachers’ per- ceptions that most conditioned their enrollment in implementing VISIR in their courses were related to their consciousness of the VISIR effectiveness to teach and learn. The lack of time to practice and discuss their doubts and the fulfillment of their expectations in the training actions, also affected how comfortable in modifying their course curricula teachers were.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Chapter 1

Experimenting is fundamental to the training process of all scientists and engineers. While experiments have been traditionally done inside laboratories, the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies added two alter-natives accessible anytime, anywhere. These two alternatives are known as virtual and remote labs, and are sometimes indistinguishably referred as online labs. Sim-ilarly to other instructional technologies, virtual and remote labs require some ef-fort from teachers in integrating them into curricula, taking into consideration sev-eral factors that affect their adoption (i.e. cost) and their educational effectiveness (i.e. benefit). This chapter analyses these two dimensions and sustains the case where only through international cooperation it is possible to serve the large num-ber of teachers and students involved in engineering education. It presents an ex-ample in the area of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, based on a remote lab named Virtual Instruments System in Reality, and it then describes how a number of European and Latin-American institutions have been cooperating under the scope of an Erasmus+ project2, for spreading its use in Brazil and Argentina.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Spreading the VISIR remote lab along Argentina. The experience in Patagonia

The learning of technical and science disciplines requires experimental and practical training. Hands-on labs are the natural scenarios where practical skills can be developed but, thanks to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), virtual and remote labs can provide a framework where Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines can also be developed. One of these remote labs is the Virtual Instruments System in Reality (VISIR), specially designed to practice in the area of analog electronics. This paper aims at describing how this remote lab is being used in the Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco (UNPSJB - Argentina), in the framework of the VISIR+ project funded by the Erasmus+ Program, one institution without previous experiences with remote labs.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Active learning of DC circuits: spreading the use of the VISIR remote lab in Argentina

The VISIR+ Project was launched in 2015 with the objective of spreading the use of the VISIR remote laboratory in Latin America, promoting an enquiry-based approach to teaching and learning on electric and electronic circuits. Within the scope of this project, several didactical implementations were achieved both in Argentina and in Brazil. This article describes the latest implementation of VISIR in a pre-university technical school in Argentina (associated partner of the VISIR+ team) in three Physics courses with students having different background knowledge and interests. A set of activities comprising simulations, remote and hands-on experiments were designed in order to engage students in the learning process. The implementation was assessed in terms of the learning objectives and outcomes. Results showed that VISIR is an effective tool to promote active learning. Moreover, this experience seems highly valuable to encourage the dissemination of VISIR in Argentinainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Educational Scenarios Using Remote Laboratory VISIR for Electrical/Electronic Experimentation

In 2015, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (DIEEC) of the Spanish University for Distance Education (UNED) in Spain started to- gether with the Santiago del Rosario National University (UNSE, Argentina) and with the support of the Research Institute of Education Sciences of Ro- sario (IRICE-CONICET, Argentina) under the Coordination of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (IPP, Portugal) the new development and deployment of the VISIR system inside the UNSE University as part of the VISIR+ Project. The main objective of the VISIR+ Project is to extend the current VISIR net- work in South America, mainly in Argentina and Brazil, with the support and patronage of the European Union Erasmus Plus program inside the Capacity Building program and as part of an excellence network future development in- tegration framework. This extension of VISIR nodes reconfigure in 2016 a new project, PILAR, that as part of the Erasmus Plus projects will allow the Strategic Partnership to develop a new federation umbrella over the existing nodes and network.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio