Virtual Laboratories as a Teaching Environment

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Virtual Laboratories as a teaching environment

A tangible solution or a passing novelty?

Jamie RobinsonSouthampton University [email protected]

AbstractPractical science is currently taught in a labor intensive, hardware dependentfashion. Many of the traditional techniques could be embraced using existingmultimedia technologies, thus enabling self-paced, student driven learning. Herewe consider the role to be played by virtual laboratories. Virtual laboratoriesallow students to simulate experiments that may require expensive or dangeroushardware and materials from the safety of their PC. Virtual laboratories come ina number of guises, ranging from screen-shot based applications (J C Waller, NFoster 2000), to virtual reality systems driven by quantum mechanical theory (ASuzuki et Al, 1999). The former aimed at teaching the usage of a specific pieceof equipment, the latter being a serious research tool.

Recently virtual laboratories have gained press coverage (news.bbc.co.uk, 2001)here they are described as "bring(ing) science to life". In this paper we explorethe various aspects of virtual laboratories, and how they can be applied toteaching of undergraduates, Whether they can "bring science to life".

Classification of Virtual LaboratoriesI will classify virtual laboratories into two main categories, depending on how theygain their knowledge. One, has a limited set of facts inserted by theprogrammer, this is the way that the majority of systems currently work. Thesecond, base their knowledge around a piece of far reaching piece of theory, thisallows a far wider range of experiments to be performed.

The term Virtual Laboratory is also applied to projects that allow the remotecontrol of laboratory systems (K Keating et Al, 2000) but this is a topic moresuited to a discussion of network technologies. Online libraries of knowledge,such as that at Imperial College (H Rzepa, A Tonge, 1998) are sometimesreferred to as virtual laboratories, but usually only as a component of a larger tool

set.

Virtual Reality techniques have been used to create interfaces to existing onlineknowledge sources, an example of this ishttp://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~marciano a virtual environment that provideshyper-links through interacting with its objects.


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Fact Based Virtual Laboratories

Fact based virtual laboratories lend themselves best of supplementing traditionalexperimental work. In their 2000 paper, Waller and Foster describe a virtualinstrument designed as part of a learning experiment. Their goal was to create asystem to teach people to use the spectrometer in their lab. The software was

then used at part of their undergraduate laboratory course. It is based around acollection of web pages, which contain screen shots from the computer thatcontrols the spectrometer, along with still photos of the key steps of instrumentoperation. The screen shots are linked using the 'Image Map' technique. Thisallows different areas of the image to load different pages when clicked. Thisgives the impression of operating the software. The simulation allows students totake measurements of a number of samples, as if they were operating the realspectrometer. Some students were so convinced by the realism of the simulationthat they asked if the software "was somehow interfaced to the realinstrumentation" (Waller & Foster 2000). The simulator forms a safeenvironment, that allows their students to learn to operate the equipment, without

the usual fears of damage attached to operating the real spectrometer. It wasnoted anecdotally by faculty members, that equipment malfunctions, andinstances of useless data collection were considerably lower than in previousyears. The system they built was specific to that task, and as such is fairlylimited in what it can do.

D B Armitage, 1999, created a morewide ranging simulator for the sameexperiment. This provided a simulationwhose results were calculated partiallyon the fly. Waller and Fosters system

is limited to only those analysis thatthey captured. Armitage's softwarebases it results on data for a number ofcompounds, and then producessimulated output based on this. Thissystem also allows the user to adjustthe variables of the reaction in thesame way one would when running areal experiment. It does however lackthe realistic interface provided by thescreen-shot example, its interface was designed for this application. It's purpose

is to help student to understand the procedure of the analysis, not the operationof one specific spectrometer, and so it simplified interface is preferable,highlighting only the more important controls.

Oxford University produced a virtual laboratory to complement their first yearundergraduate teaching (http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/vrchemistry/). Their systemalso falls into the fact-based category, but tries to be a bit less specific, allowingmore user control. In their system, a number of reactions have been filmed, andyou can call them up by selecting two reactants. After viewing the video clip, the

Screen Shots of Armitage's work,(D B Armitage 1999)


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user is quizzed about the reaction they've just created. This is again limited tothe reactions that you can perform, but is closely matched to the experimentalwork performed in their lab, and is used as a re-enforcement tool. The use ofvideo clips gives the virtual situation a higher degree of realism. Video clips areassociated with reality, where as animations are perceived to be fake, although

they may be equally accurate. The use of this system benefits the user in thatthey can repeat the reaction a number of times. Similar repartitions in the lab areoften limited for reasons of safety and cost. Equally in a virtual environmentpotentially harmful reactions can be viewed many times, where as in a real labsituation the reaction may require additional safety procedures which areunavailable in a teaching environment.

Derivation based Virtual Labs

Derivation based labs allow the user to extend the experiments beyond thoseenvisaged by the programmer. The results derived are based on solution of amathematical model of the situation. By producing results in this way theyextend their usefulness over fact based systems as they can be used to explorenew idea in a research situation. Work by Suzuki et Al (1999) proposed asystem that allows manipulation of virtualmaterials at an atomic level. In real worldsituations Eigler and Schweizer (1990)

produced the first documented evidence of this(by spelling their sponsors name using xenonatoms on a nickel surface) It is however a timeconsuming work, limited to very small scales.Hence the benefits of the virtual material labare obvious. In the VR environment, atomscan be manipulated in much the same way asmacroscopic objects. However when the atoms are positioned, molecular

Screen Shot from the Oxford Virtual Laboratory(http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/vrchemistry/complex/default.html)

The result of Eigler and Schweizerswork moving atoms.

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/vis/stm/atomo.html


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dynamics theory steps in, and make the atoms behave like real atoms, in termsof interatomic forces and interactions. This view of molecular manipulation waspopularized in the film Jurassic Park (Universal Studios, 1993) that showsmanipulation of a DNA strand in much the same was as Suzuki describes themanipulation of atoms.

Heermann and Fuhrmann (2000) usea similar approach in their teaching ofclassical mechanics. Their system isbased around a differential equationsolving engine. Users define objectsin their 'experiment' in terms of thephysical characteristics (mass, shape,position) and their inter-connections,either chosen from the library, orcreated using simple java classes.The use of this class based system,

allows the user much more freedomto extend the calculations possible.Once the system has been definedthe software calculates thebehavious of the system, then returns graphical schematic(s) of the system, andresults of the calculations either as text or graphical output. Previous software inthe same field (examples available from physicsweb.org) limits itself to specificexamples, with limited variables. By concentrating on specific systems, previoussimulators could use optimized, simplified equations to get results, but thesimplification limits their usefulness. It was noted that "the possibility toinvestigate situations not foreseen by the teacher greatly boosts (student)

motivation" (Heermann and Fuhrmann, 2000) hence their work is at a clearadvantage. Their calculation system makes no attempt to run in real-time, henceisn't limited to powerful workstation computers in the way that Suzuki's work is.This opens the possibility for students to use the software from their owncomputers as extension activities, which was found to further boost theirmotivation.

Assessment of teaching"Without assessment, there is no quantitative measure of student performance oreffectiveness of teaching" (R Allen, 1998) and here virtual laboratories borrow

techniques from Computer Based Teaching (CBT) Packages. By the use ofcontinuous assessment students and staff can be constantly updated with thestatus of learning, if a topic isn't grasped then it can be repeated, or alternativereferences provided. The benefits of repetition in the virtual environment havealready been mentioned. The Oxford University Virtual Chemistry Laboratory isan example of this, after performing each reaction, users are taken through a fewmultiple choice questions that prompt thought about the underlying theory, a step

The Physics Modeling EnvironmentHeermann and Fuhrmann 2000.


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this marking could be moved onto the web server, however this may causeexcessive processor load, when compared to serving static pages. It was notedthat the quality of some of the video clips detracts from their view-ability, howeverthe questions that follow each clip often include detail of what was seen. This ispartly indicative of the sites age and the current technology when it was

produced, however the task of updating the video file to use a more loss-lesscompression technique would be a significant task, with relatively little gain.

The Virtual Material Laboratory (VML), employs a distributed computationalsystem, but for reasons of performance, as opposed to multiple user access.The VML is split across 3 servers, with a 4th system providing overall control.The reason for this being that it was realized that the molecular dynamicscalculation were very intensive, and that the 3-D graphical representationcalculations being similarly intensive. Henceas their goal was to provide a near real-timeinterface these two processes were splitbetween two dedicated systems, one

dedicated to the theory calculation, and agraphics workstation to render the interface.User control of the system was providedusing a force-feedback system, which allowsthe user to manipulate the simulated atomsin a virtual 3-D space. As additionaladvantage of such a system, advances insay graphics performance can be handled byreplacing only the graphics server. Likewisemore complex simulations can be handled by the use of different serverhardware. In the test performed by Suzuki et Al, they limited the simulation to a

small atom set, and disabled the force-feedback system. This allowed thesimulation to be run from a single workstation. It was noted, that under theseconditions they produced adequate real-time output, but that for a moresignificant number of atoms or real-time force feedback greater computer powerwas required, and it was planned to extend the software so the simulation servercould be run on a parallel supercomputer.

The Physics Modeling Environment, is a standalone java application, henceshould run on a wide range of platforms with little modification. The software canbe extended by writing part classes, 'the user simply has to define theparameters, and the number of connectors for the new part class' 'thus the user

benefits from a ready-made piece of software with an intuitive GUI that can beextended rather easily beyond the predefined scope' (Heermann & Fuhrmann,2000). The greatest strength of this implementation, its generalization, is also it'sweakness, in that in all bar the simplest cases the time taken to solve thedifferential equations is significant, and hence the software makes no attempt todo this in real-time.


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SummaryVirtual Laboratories borrow technologies from a wide range of fields. Theyextend to include a wide range of systems, from simple textual interfaces throughto 3-D virtual reality environments, which try to mimic real-life. The exact designof a particular system is dictated by its target audience. If one is designing a

system to teach the operation of a particular piece of equipment, then the closerthat the simulation can mimic the real-life device the better. In the modern worldof computer-controlled laboratories, these will typically mimic the lab computer,and provide instrument feedback both through the usual interface software, andalso through the use of video clips and animations. Virtual systems allowstudents to perform repeated experiments, which they may be unable to performin real life. In this way these systems can form an important part of a traditionalcourse, but shouldn't be seen to replace real-life laboratory work. They canprecede real work, and in these cases it has been seen that the preview theyprovide can improve safety and the quality of results returned. Virtuallaboratories are also used to perform experiments that aren't currently practical,

and return results based on theoretical calculation. Providing a virtual realityinterface to these calculations allows then to be visualized in a way that mayexpose other ideas or facets that hadn't previously been realized. Thesevisualizations can also be used to explain theories in a teaching environment;most lecturers find it hard to represent 3-D space on a blackboard, however 3-Dcomputer environments provide a representation that can be explored in real-time.

Current virtual laboratories provide a important extension to current learning, butas such they should not be expected to replace the learning experience of real-life laboratory work. It is likely that virtual environments in general, will become

an important part of teaching as stricter safety controls are placed on the rangeof experiments that can be carried out.

ThanksD Bruce Armitage (Thiel College, Greenville, PA), Natalie Foster (LehighUniversity, Bethlehem, PA) for making their software available to me.


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ReferencesR Allen,

The Web: interactive and multimedia education.Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 30, 1998, 1717-1727

D B Armitage,A GC Instrument SimulatorJournal of Chemical Education, 76.2, February 1999, 287

D.M. Eigler, E.K. Schweizer.Positioning single atoms with a scanning tunneling microscope.Nature 344, 1990, 524-526

D W Heermann, T T FuhrmannTeaching physics in the virtual university: the Mechanics toolkitComputer Physics Communications, 127, 2000, 11-15

K Keating, J Myers, J Pelton, R Bair, D Wemmer, P Ellis,Development and User of a virtual NMR Facility,Journal of Magnetic Resonance, 143.1, March 2000, 172-183

H Rzepa, A TongeVChemlab: A virtual chemistry laboratory.Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Science, 38, 1998, 1048-1053

A Suzuki, M Kamiko, R Yamamoto, Y Tateizumi, M HashimotoMolecular simulations in the virtual material laboratory,Computational Materials Science, 14, 1999, 227-231

J C Waller, N Foster,Training via the web: a virtual instrument,Computers and Education, 35, March 2000, 161-167

Internet References

www.chem.ox.ac.uk/vrchemistryOxford University Virtual Chemistry Lab

news.bbc.co.uk 2001BBC News Article - Virtual Lab brings Science To Life

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1111654.stm

physicsweb.orgVirtual Interactive Experimentshttp://physicsweb.org/resources/Education/Interactive_experiments/

www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~marcianoVirtual Multi-Media Internet LaboratoriesAccess to web pages through a 3D, VRML environment

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Virtual Laboratories as a Teaching Environment