Designing remote labs for broader adoption

Abstract

If learning technologies such as remote online labs are to achieve broad adoption, it is imperative that we take seriously the needs of the instructor and the real world context in which he or she will use these resources. Here we describe efforts to address the many barriers to successful adoption of remote lab technologies in secondary school settings. An iterative, design-based research process that includes close collaboration with classroom teachers has produced a more robust and user-friendly platform with several unique new capabilities.

Learning outcome achievement in non-traditional (virtual and remote) versus traditional (hands-on) laboratories: A review of the empirical research

“…Instructional articles related to the development of remote, online, or virtual labs that focused on design, hardware, architecture, software, implementation/delivery, media, quality assurance, feasibility, etc., rather than empirical measurement of their effectiveness, were removed (e.g. Schauer, Ozvoldova, & Lustig, 2008;Gustavsson et al, 2009;Abdulwahed & Nagy, 2013;Jona, Walter, & Pradhan, 2015;Kalyan 4 The 2005 date was chosen in an attempt to include studies that were possibly not accessible at the time of the publication of Ma and Nickerson's (2006) review. 5 As mentioned above, the "learning AND (objective OR objectives OR outcome OR outcomes) search was a full-text search, while all other search parameters were within the title, subject/keyword, and abstract areas.…”

MELODY: A Platform-Agnostic Model for Building and Evaluating Remote Labs of Software-Defined Radio Technology

“…Despite these advancements, remote labs have not gained widespread adoption as a substitute or supplementary tool in classrooms, potentially due to persisting practical limitations [45]- [48]. Addressing and mitigating these limitations is essential to promote greater utilization of remote labs.…”