Breadcrumb Navigation:
Home > Featured Stories > Innovation and Discovery > December 2008 > Spotlight on Distance Education > Virtual Lab Enhances RealityVirtual Lab Enhances Reality
Technology affords students a new way to understand difficult concepts and keeps the learning exciting.
Amanda Robertson, DELTA senior multimedia specialist and art director
A "virtual" Dr. David Shew is your guide in an educational plant-pathology game he and his staff developed in conjunction with DELTA.
By Dave Pond, Web Communication
One of the greatest challenges facing distance education instructors is how to best replicate traditional hands-on lab work online. I mean, c'mon... there's just no way a virtual laboratory can offer students the same benefits and learning experiences – is there?
"Actually, we can often add to and enhance that experience," said Amanda Robertson, senior multimedia specialist and art director with Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications [DELTA] at NC State. "We're not trying to mimic or mirror what happens in the face-to-face classroom, rather we're looking at the learning objectives and finding ways to create the same learning experience.
"To this extent a distance education course can achieve the same learning experiences as the face-to-face course."
DELTA staff members assisted Dr. David Shew, whose Principles of Plant Pathology (PP315) course combines science and state-of-the-art Web technology to deliver an incredibly accurate version of a working plant pathology lab to his online students, and graduate student Courtney Gallup in developing a Flash-based game called Plant Pathology vLab: Disease Diagnosis, in which the user conducts tests on a diseased tomato plant in hopes of identifying the pathogen at the root – no pun intended – of the problem.
"It's remarkably close to doing the same experiment in the actual, physical lab," said Dr. Tom Miller, vice provost for distance education and learning technology applications. "We're pretty excited about this as an emerging technology to use in laboratory-based courses."
The Disease Diagnostics game is just one example of how NC State faculty can leverage different technologies to better teach lab content successfully in the online environment. Other options include 3D simulations, two-way, live video instruction and mail-order lab kits that allow distance education students to perform hands-on experiments alongside their on-campus classmates, and then share their findings over the 'Net.
"Part of being a research university means that we're responsible for staying abreast of new technologies and finding creative ways to apply these technologies to improve the learning experience for students," Robertson said. "What we're doing so far is working, and by tracking the user experience in Disease Diagnosis, we are seeing positive results.
"Student feedback tells us that they're enjoying this different way of learning," she said. "Whether face-to-face or in a distance education course, technology affords students a new way to understand difficult concepts and keeps the learning exciting."
