| Description: | Practical science is currently taught in a labor intensive, hardware dependent fashion. Many of the traditional techniques could be embraced using existing multimedia technologies, thus enabling self-paced, student driven learning. Here we consider the role to be played by virtual laboratories. Virtual laboratories allow students to simulate experiments that may require expensive or dangerous hardware and materials from the safety of their PC. Virtual laboratories come in a number of guises, ranging from screen-shot based applications (J C Waller, N Foster 2000), to virtual reality systems driven by quantum mechanical theory (A Suzuki et Al, 1999). The former aimed at teaching the usage of a specific piece of equipment, the latter being a serious research tool. |
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