New generation virtual and remote laboratories : integration into web environments 2.0 with learning management systems

Torre Cubillo, Luis de la. New generation virtual and remote laboratories : integration into web environments 2.0 with learning management systems . 2013. Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (España). Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Informática. Departamento de Informática y Automática

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Título New generation virtual and remote laboratories : integration into web environments 2.0 with learning management systems
Autor(es) Torre Cubillo, Luis de la
Abstract Learning Management Systems (LMS) are software for web applications oriented for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of e-learning programs. Moodle is a free source LMS with more than 63 million users, which makes it the most used LMS around the world. Like some other LMS, the stated philosophy of Moodle includes a constructivist and social constructionist approach to education, emphasizing that learners (and not just teachers) can contribute to the educational experience. This is the web 2.0 applied to education. Easy Java Simulations (EJS) is an authoring tool written in Java that helps to create interactive simulations in Java, mainly for teaching and learning purposes. By means of this tool, instructors can easily create virtual and/or (if they also use the appropriate additional software) remote laboratories. While virtual laboratories are based on mathematical models, remote ones use real equipment and so, the experiments are carried out in the reality. Virtual and remote laboratories (created with EJS, for example) as well as LMS (Moodle, for example) offer different but fundamental educational tools to both teachers and students. Since these resources are complementary (and not mutually exclusive), e-learning programs should offer both kinds of tools to be considered a complete experience for students. However, the integration between these two different resources is still an open issue that must be addressed. This thesis gathers together the two previous resources and provides the necessary tools and methodology for developing web experimentation portals (such as UNEDLabs, also presented here) that can offer e-learning programs based on: 1) experimentation (thanks to the use of the virtual and remote laboratories) and 2) theory documentation provision, social interactivity and easy management (thanks to the use of a LMS). Moreover, the presented tools and methodology allow people not specialized in these particular topics (such as they are the vast majority of the teachers) to easily create these kind of experimentation portals and populate them with virtual and/or remote laboratories (VRLs). Four new Moodle plug-ins facilitate this task: EJSApp, EJSApp Booking System, EJSApp Files Browser and EJSApp Collab Sessions. Nowadays, UNEDLabs holds two courses (among others); one in Control Engineering and another one in Physics. Both of them offer three experiments which are all available in the two possible versions: virtual and remote. The Physics course is still growing and new experiments are added every year. Right now, the three available ones are a motorized rotatory laser for studying the light in isotropic media, a motorized optical bench for determining the focal length of a thin lens, and an experiment with three springs and related to Hookes law. Thanks to the tools presented in this work, not only all the EJS laboratories in UNEDLabs are added and integrated into the Moodle web portal in a very easy and natural way, but they also acquire several special functionalities they lack when they are used outside this LMS. The first of these functionalities is the capability of saving and/or loading files to/from the private files repository in Moodle. The second one is the possibility to create collaborative experimental sessions with other users of Moodle who are enrolled to the course the EJS lab belongs to. The third one is an automatic integration with a booking system specifically designed for managing users access to the remote laboratories. Finally, EJS labs in Moodle can be administrated exactly in the same way as any other Moodle resource or activity, meaning they can be updated or deleted; their access can be restricted to a certain group of users or to users that have previously fulfilled some steps or conditions; security copies are automatically performed during Moodles system backups, etc.
Materia(s) Ingeniería Informática
Editor(es) Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (España). Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Informática. Departamento de Informática y Automática
Director de tesis Sánchez Moreno, José (Director de Tesis)
Dormido Bencomo, Sebastián (Director de Tesis)
Fecha 2013-06-27
Formato application/pdf
Identificador tesisuned:IngInf-Ltorre
http://e-spacio.uned.es/fez/view/tesisuned:IngInf-Ltorre
Idioma eng
Versión de la publicación acceptedVersion
Nivel de acceso y licencia http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Tipo de recurso Thesis
Tipo de acceso Acceso abierto

 
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Creado: Fri, 12 Jul 2013, 10:04:46 CET