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The scientists, working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have devised a new theory of online laboratories or so called iLabs, which can be used by the high school students to conduct various experiments online. For it, you only need to have a webcam.
Such type of experiments will have all of the high equipment needed for the experiment and will yield accurate information like that of common experiments.
“Students are always online and very tech-savvy now,” Kemi Jona, director of the Office of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education Partnerships (OSEP) at Northwestern University and the project’s lead author, said. “So the fact that they don’t get to touch the device doesn’t faze them at all.”
Kemi Jona, the director of the online education project, efforts is on the way to incorporate this type of iLabs to the mainstream education, which can be shared like that of eBay. Right now, the users can find some of the instruments like a microelectronics device characterization lab, a dynamic signal analyzer, an educational laboratory virtual instrumentation suite, a polymer crystallization experiment, a shake table, a heat exchanger, a force on a dipole lab, and neutron spectroscopy labs.
Soon, Northwestern University will undertake a pilot test of this iLab to see the expediency of this concept.
Kemi Jona has started his experiment in Mark Vondracek’ physics class in Illionis to understand the response of the students as well.
“The fact that you can control it from 8,000 miles away is cool,” Vondracek said. “You can’t do true science within a classroom environment anyhow. Nowadays people don’t have the time or the facilities.” The researcher hopes that once iLabs are made a permanent part of the classroom, they will help students learn to think more like scientists.
Kemi Jona is very much optimistic about his concept and wants to start this iLab model from the Chicago Public School. With this the students will have access to online information. They will also be able to access the resources which are shared by other students, from across the world.
“My vision is to level the playing field in terms of providing better and more equal access for students regardless of where they live. There’s already some work going on with iLabs in Africa where there really are few resources available,” Kemi added. “Ultimately, I hope to create a worldwide resource that brings more students into science and scientific careers”.
