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Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic saw physical therapist (PT) education programs in 2020 add virtual options to prepare students for hands-on clinical skills. The purpose of this research was to investigate student confidence, preparation, and clinical performance based on their choice of virtual or in-person laboratory immersion. Secondary analysis compared 2020 cohort outcomes with the previous cohort in 2019 (prepandemic). Review of literature: Virtual skill acquisition has been studied with support for effectiveness in didactic and psychomotor skill acquisition. The impact on clinical education performance is unknown. Subjects: Student records from an accelerated hybrid, PT education program in 2020 (n = 91) and 2019 (n = 86). Methods: :In this mixed-method observational study, researchers analyzed a Qualtrics survey and the PT Clinical Performance Instrument (CPI) to compare student outcomes. Statistical analyses included chi-square, two-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and Mann-Whitney U test. MAXQDA software was used to code student and clinical instructor narrative responses from the CPI related to strengths and areas for further development. Results: All students in 2020 attended laboratory virtually for 9 full days, and 24% of students chose virtual laboratory for the remaining 8.5 days;97% of students reported feeling confident going into their clinical experience (66% inpatient). No statistically significant differences were found based on instructional method (virtual or in-person) or clinical practice setting (inpatient or outpatient) for confidence, preparation, or CPI performance. Themes of wanting more time to prepare and more confidence in clinical decision making emerged from the qualitative analysis. Discussion: and Conclusion: Results indicate no statistically significant difference for virtual versus in-person laboratory and no difference compared with the 2019 cohort. Virtual instruction effectively prepared students for their clinical experiences across all settings. Although an in-person laboratory experience may be preferred, it is possible to deliver effective experiences in a virtual setting without compromising student performance. Further research is needed to confirm findings. Copyright © 2023 Academy of Physical Therapy Education, APTA.
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Our practice programs have changed drastically after the appearance of COVID-19. The practical sessions designed for all Automation subjects until 2019 were face-to-face. But the arrival of the pandemic and health restrictions resulted in the closure of our university facilities, which forced us to redo the laboratory experiences. It is in this context that simulation and gamification helped us to move forward, since the solution we followed was the virtualization of the laboratory. Although the degree of satisfaction of the students with the new practical sessions is quite good, the purpose of this paper is not to present a detailed analysis of all the simulation and gamification tools we studied, but to explain what our situation was like before COVID-19, how we faced the change, what we learned in the process, what the new practice programs we are currently following are like, what tools have helped us, and what goals we still have to achieve. We hope that our experience can be useful to other teachers. Copyright © 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
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During the first months of 2020, the world was surprised by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Educational institutions were partially or fully closed. Social distancing and restrictive movement policies significantly disturbed traditional educational practices. In Mexico, Tecnologico de Monterrey faced one of the most sudden changes in its history, teaching all its courses 100% digitally. Its teachers had to search for alternative tools that would allow students to take practical classes, for example, laboratory, preserving the experience of being in a specialized laboratory even from home. This research evaluated two innovative tools designed and implemented for the Microbiology Laboratory subject. The first one is the Virtual BioLabs (VBL) application for using and managing specialized laboratory equipment. The second is Virtual Journey (VJ), a 360-degree interactive video to explain a foodborne bacterial infection [1]. We used qualitative and quantitative evaluation instruments to measure the impact of these tools during the pandemic. Results showed that the mean grade from pandemic groups using VBL was 93.5 vs. SS.5 obtained from those who did not use the app. Additionally, the grade average from pandemic groups before watching the VJ video was 63.5 vs. 93.5 after watching it. These results indicate that these strategies improved student performance, reflected in the increase in their averages. Finally, in the satisfaction survey, the students commented that using VBL and Virtual Journey made them feel more immersed in the laboratory, even at home. They enjoyed and liked both technical strategies. However, 93% of the students agreed that, although the virtual tools have excellent potential, their preference for face-To-face learning in practical laboratory subjects remains indisputable. © 2023 IEEE.
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Extensive research has demonstrated the importance of e-learning during COVID-19. However, a study to check whether the virus has caused a trend change in educational research lines is lacking. This paper reviews the temporal evolution of publications on virtual laboratories (VLs) in education, analyzing the relationship between its recent boom and the advent of COVID-19. For this purpose, a bibliographic study was carried out in the Scopus database seeking different VLs synonyms in the title, , and keywords of articles published between 1990 and 2022. The analysis results determine that the logistical needs imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have been found to magnify the use of VLs, increasing scientific production by more than 90% in 2021 compared to the average obtained between 2011-2020. It has also been estimated that with the return to face-to-face teaching, production has decreased by 20% in 2022 compared to 2021. © 2023 IEEE.
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Virtual laboratories have been increasingly used in tertiary education for natural and applied sciences, especially due to the COVID pandemic, generating a substantial investment in corresponding software applications, including simulation experiments and procedures. However, it is expensive and time-consuming to analyze, understand, model and implement the virtual experiments, especially when it is necessary to create new ones from scratch, but also when they must be redesigned and addressed to an audience in a different educational setting. We use UML Activity Diagrams and Petri nets to model experimental procedures and then apply conformance checking to detect possible nonconformities between expected model behavior and actual model execution. As a result, we provide an estimation of the conceptual proximity between experiments performed in different educational settings using the same virtual laboratory software, assisting educators and developers in making informed decisions about software reuse and redesign by providing a systematic and formal way of evaluating software applicability. A virtual microscoping experiment was used as a case study for validation purposes. The results revealed that the specific virtual lab software can be ported, without modifications, from tertiary to secondary education, to achieve learning outcomes relevant to that education level, even though it was originally designed for a distance education university. The proposed framework has potential applications beyond virtual laboratories, as a general approach to process modeling and conformance checking to evaluate the similarity between the specification of experimental procedures and actual execution logs can be applied to various domains. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Mathematics (2227-7390) is the property of MDPI and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
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The training of an engineer at a technical university involves not only the mastering the theoretical knowledge by students, but also the acquisition of the ability to conduct the experimental research. The performance of laboratory work is the basis of such skills. Necessary social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic forced educational institutions to switch to a distant form for all kinds of classes, including physics labs.Conducting laboratory physics classes in synchronous distance learning mode requires the availability of computer programs that adequately model real laboratory equipment, materials for preparing and monitoring students' readiness to perform laboratory research, as well as methodic for conducting online laboratory classes.In this article we analyze the types of labs, the requirements for computer models of real physics labs and justify the use of the HTML5 and Java Script language to create virtual laboratories (VL) in physics for first-year students of all technical specialties studying under the bachelor's training program at the National Technical University of Ukraine 'Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute >>. The expert evaluation showed the correspondence of the created VL to real prototypes. It is important for bringing the students' perception of virtual objects closer to the perception of real ones. We also briefly describes the procedure for developing VL, created didactic materials (methodological guidelines, videos, test items) and the methodology laboratory classes in synchronous distance learning mode.The use of the created VL and the developed methodology for conducting online laboratory exercises made it possible to overcome successfully the difficulties of organizing the educational process during the forced transition of students to distance learning.
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Distance education programs have grown rapidly in recent years and have become even more massive because of the restrictions on movement due to the covid 19 pandemic. The development of information technologies has helped this teaching modality to have good results due to its autonomy and flexibility, however, it has some points of improvement especially in activities of practical nature. Virtual laboratories appear as a tool to support this type of activities. The success of these laboratories depends on several factors, not only imitating a face-to-face laboratory. This article proposes a methodology to guide the process of design and development of immersive experiences that allow the realization of laboratory activities in distance education mode. The objective is to ensure that the development of this type of experience becomes a resource to help the teaching-learning process, ensuring its contribution to the achievement of learning outcomes, allowing the validation of the knowledge acquired by students and helping the professor in the teaching of the course. The proposed methodology considers the opinion of the coordinating committee of the distance education program, students and professors. Its application is presented through a case study of a distance education program of an industrial engineering school in a Chilean university. © 2022 IEEE.
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One of the critical features of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) education is learning by doing. The rapid upsurge in the use of Internet has drawn attention to the importance of online laboratory-based learning in CSE education. However, bringing such experiences online is challenging. Contextually, enabling online virtual lab-based learning is a modern trend in many educational institutions in India. So, online laboratory-based learning has emerged as a popular area of research among educational-technology researchers. In an online laboratory learning environment, the instructor has a significantly reduced role, and students take increased responsibility for their learning. This shows that in online lab-based learning, the involvement of students is higher. Traditional classroom-based laboratory learning has many limitations. The necessity to engage students in self-learning through online laboratory learning is imminent, as the students get an opportunity to perform their laboratory experiments beyond the classrooms as well, such as at home or when on vacation. In this paper we present the design, architecture, database schema, related technologies, user activities, and the use/reuse aspects of the software engineering virtual laboratory (SE VLab) that we have designed and developed. We also provide the details of each experiment in the SE VLab with examples and the assessment results obtained using the SE VLab. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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In this paper, through the use of laptop/desktop, web-portal, and internet, we have developed and created an environment for implementation of a virtual BEE laboratory and their effectiveness for our 1st year engineering students during Covid-19. The development of a virtual BEE laboratory is not intended to replace the existing physical laboratory rather it is a supplement to it during this pandemic and also proper exploration of the ICT tool. The student's outcome of this virtual lab is elaborated in terms of assessment and examination marks. It is observed from the outcome that the student's performance is enhanced in terms of efficiency and efficacy, when they are taught through the virtual laboratory during the pandemic. © 2022 IEEE.
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Laboratory work is essential in forensic science degree courses. They provide students with an opportunity to put theory into practice, as well as develop relevant professional laboratory skills through a case-based learning framework. Traditional laboratory instruction involves the use of a written laboratory script or manual that details the laboratory procedures and techniques for an experiment. Occasionally, instructors may provide a brief in-person demonstration of a critical aspect of the experimental procedure during the session. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the use of virtual laboratory (vLab) resources, such as video demonstrations, in teaching science practical skills has increased. These resources may be used alone or in combination with in-person laboratory sessions in a flipped learning model. Previous research has shown that vLab resources could enhance students' knowledge, confidence, and experience inside the laboratory. This study aimed to explore the perceptions and attitudes of forensic science students toward the use of a vLab module. Three videos were created in which procedures for carrying out presumptive tests, screening exhibits, and recording examinations were demonstrated. Seven undergraduate students enrolled at different stages of a forensic science degree programme were introduced to the vLab module and interviewed using a semi-structured interview approach. Through a thematic synthesis of the interview transcripts, we found that the implementation of an inclusive vLab module could enhance students' knowledge, confidence, and independence in carrying out forensic science laboratory procedures.
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Forensic Sciences , Laboratories , Forensic Sciences/educationABSTRACT
There is a great interest in online learning systems, especially due to COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are a lot of limitations and challenges of online laboratory learning systems. This paper presents an efficient technique that provides an intelligent virtual tutor for online laboratory environment, as in engineering and science sectors. Based on the analysis of the student's mouse activities, the AI virtual Assistant or virtual tutor will automatically estimate the difficulties that the student stuck during conducting the steps of lab's experiment. Hence, the virtual tutor can assist the student, accordingly. The technique is based on multi-threshold that are used to discriminate different levels of difficulties. The values of these thresholds are estimated and optimized via the genetic algorithm. The experimental results show that discrimination between different student behaviors can be achieved accurately and efficiently. © 2022 IEEE.
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CONTEXT In wake of the COVID-19 situation in 2020, when universities were faced with the transition from face-to-face learning to online delivery, many educators found themselves tasked with having to convert previously classroom-based teaching material to an equivalent online adaption. The transition was particularly challenging in a first-year engineering subject where hands-on laboratory experiments play an important part in the learning of basic mechanics principles as a foundation in engineering. Adaptation of physical hands-on experiments into the form of interactive virtual simulations was necessary to ensure students had an equally comprehensive laboratory experience in the online delivery mode. PURPOSE This paper describes the development and implementation of a virtual laboratory for a set of mechanics experiments as an alternative to the physical hands-on laboratory. The interactive simulation application replicates the procedures of a physical mass-spring system investigation that applies two fundamental mechanics concepts, resultant forces and principle of moments. APPROACH The virtual laboratory application is a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) integrated with a program code that models a physical spring system, developed in MATLAB App Designer. Key features of the application include animated outputs and virtual measurement tools that emulates the procedures of the actual experiment and MATLAB modelling that takes into account inconsistencies that may arise in real measurements. For deployment purposes, the simulation program in App Designer was compiled into a standalone executable and run using the MATLAB runtime environment. OUTCOMES The virtual laboratory activity was successfully conducted during the online workshop classes in the first-year engineering subject at the University of Melbourne across a cohort of over 600 students. The simulation application in the virtual setting achieved similar learning outcomes as the experiments in the physical setting, but the activity was completed in significantly shorter times as compared to the expected physical hands-on. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The virtual experiments offered efficiencies over physical experiments in terms of minimising experimental procedure delays and allowing more focus on concepts and theories but unavoidably compromising other hands-on experience such as equipment set-up, calibration, real-world experimental observation, and troubleshooting. For a more comprehensive virtual laboratory experience, future work to model the virtual environment more accurately to represent real world behaviour is recommended. Copyright © Huey Yee Chan, 2021.
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At present, the world has experienced great and serious problems with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and, of course, among the sectors that present the most inconveniences is face-to-face university education;therefore, higher education centers seek teaching methodologies to put students into practice. For this reason, the creation and implementation of the virtual laboratory is an alternative solution to this problem;For this, technical criteria were proposed that were evaluated through weighted factors and the analysis of three alternatives that can contribute to the design of the virtual laboratory was carried out;these are Second life, Unity 3D and Virtual plant, selecting the most appropriate tool that responds to the needs of use. Unity 3D is the tool that best contributes to each of the proposed criteria, obtaining a virtual environment for practical learning of students through a virtual tour of a simulated industrial company for the artisan manufacture of chocolates with the SKETCHUP tool, during their journey through an avatar in the company the student interacts and finds questions based on the actual exposure of the avatar to occupational hazards and the environmental management that must be fulfilled within the company with response options based on knowledge learned in class, thus achieving content feedback and decision-making in the face of physical and environmental occupational risks. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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The educational level of technical high schools has been affected by the current state of emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, due to the lack of educational resources for subjects that require laboratory practice. The objective of the research is to describe a pedagogical strategy using interactive support material focused on augmented reality for equipment installations and electrical machines learning, in order to supply the lack of laboratories. The research carried out surveys to seven teachers, who teach practical subjects, and evaluations to 60 students who underwent the intervention with the application of augmented reality. The results of the pre-test and post-test were analyzed to verify the stated objectives, demonstrating that there are motivating results with the application of two tools Mywebar and Assemblr in the performance of the classes, affirming that the augmented reality tool impacts and motivates the teaching-learning process in the technical area in the professional figure of installations, equipment and electrical machines in a favorable way. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Inspired by the inaccessibility of laboratory experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, we designed an at-home experiment on diet and diabetes for a high school (9th grade) life science course. It promotes active learning through an affordable experiment, embedded hyperlinks, and video content to make virtual learning exciting and accessible.
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Distance education had existed for a long time, then it has undergone a renaissance with the advent of computers and the Internet. Distance education relied on physically delivered material and assessments to students, who worked off-line at home. More recently, on-line learning or e-learning introduced virtual classrooms, assessments, on-line tests and transformed the classroom into an interactive on-line classroom. Despite the large number of on-line degrees offered, face-to-face remained the dominant mode and e-learning was just used to complement the classroom. The Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact higher education, and on-line learning is a forgone conclusion. However, the digital divide hindered the disadvantaged schools and students' efforts to transition to on-line learning. As the pandemic continues to change the education landscape, many challenges arise and prevent the students from realising the full potential of e-learning. One of those is the access to physical laboratories in science, engineering and computer science programmes. This study evaluates practical solutions for virtual laboratories to be used in teaching information security and ethical hacking. The course ran over five semesters, and 164 students were surveyed. The survey measured perceptions, enjoyment, experiences and attitudes towards virtual laboratories, and the results were supporting adoption and acceptance of virtual laboratories. © 2022 World Institute for Engineering and Technology Education. All rights reserved.
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Virtual Reality (VR) has became a significant element of education throughout the years. To understand the quality and advantages of these techniques, it's important to understand how they were developed and evaluated. Since COVID-19, the education system has drastically changed a lot. It has shifted from being in a classroom with a whiteboard and projectors to having your own room in front of your laptop in a virtual meeting. In this respect, virtual reality in the laboratory or Virtual Laboratory is the main focus of this research, which is intended to comprehend the work done in quality education from a distance using VR. As per the findings of the study, adopting virtual reality in education can help students learn more effectively and also help them increase perspective, enthusiasm, and knowledge of complex notions by offering them with an interactive experience in which they can engage and learn more effectively. This highlights the importance for a significant expansion of VR use in learning, the majority of which employ scientific comparison approaches to compare students who use VR to those who use the traditional method for learning. © 2022 ACM.
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Pandemic COVID-19 in 2020-2021 led to the largest disruption in education systems in history. Universities, institutes, and other institutions of higher education changed their students to study by using distance learning technologies. The greatest difficulties for educational organizations were caused by the implementation of a laboratory workshop in a distance form. In this work, we share the experience of leading laboratory classes in a remote form, using virtual laboratory installations. © 2022 SPIE.
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In March 2020, due to the pandemic linked to the COVID-19 virus spreading, all in-person teaching activities planned at the University of Salerno were suspended. This sudden suspension has forced the academic world to rethink in a short time the didactics and to modify teaching styles and approaches, especially in those courses in which laboratory activities were planned. This article will be presented the experiences made in the Computer Networks and Protocols for the Internet of Things (IoT) course. The course includes a significant laboratory component where students must put into practice what they learned during the theoretical lessons. In particular, the laboratory exercises involve using specific equipment and devices that can build digital ecosystems for the control and management of well-defined operational contexts difficult to reproduce virtually. Therefore, to give continuity to the didactic activity, it was necessary to redesign the entire exercise system preserving the original educational objectives.
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The social distancing policy as the basis for implementing learning from home makes it difficult for some teachers and students to adapt due to sudden changes. Online practicum learning at SMK is more challenging to implement. Students must possess the demands cognitive, affective, and psychomotor competencies. The main challenge for online learning in vocational education is how to expand traditional practice laboratories to the internet. This article synthesizes the study of virtual laboratories for online practicum learning. Articles published in the last five years are systemically reviewed. The existence of a laboratory that is fundamental to the experimentation of an object needs to be confirmed for its existence. Initially, virtual laboratories were developed to manipulate the presentation of difficult-to-handle materials in natural laboratories and overview concepts. Opportunities to manage content that resembles actual conditions, visualization of complex materials, limited resources that can be overcome, personalization of learning, the minimal possibility of work accidents, the flexibility of time are the advantages of a virtual laboratory. Students are assumed to experience real-life education in the laboratory. Pre-practicum demonstrations in natural laboratories provide an opportunity to increase the achievement of learning objectives. Types of virtual laboratories that can be developed in online practicum learning are video-based laboratories, web-based laboratories, and remote-based laboratories. With the existence of a comprehensive study, the research results can be a reference for the development of virtual laboratory media for vocational learning. © 2022, Rajarambapu Institute Of Technology. All rights reserved.