HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank, who has been actively tweeting about digital learning resources and initiatives, today tweeted about the MHRD's 'Virtual Lab' initiative. The initiative was launched under the National Mission on Education through ICT. As is evident with the name, the platform allows students to improve their experimental skills virtually, without any physical laboratory setup.
"Experiment with experiments from the comfort of your home with 'Virtual Labs'," wrote HRD Minister.
Experiment with experiments from the comfort of your home with 'Virtual Labs'. As the name suggests, it offers you scientific tools to enhance your experimental skills even without a physical laboratory setup. Interesting? Watch the video for more info! https://t.co/MCdwryze8k pic.twitter.com/e5pMRDLTs4
— Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank (@DrRPNishank) April 29, 2020
On this platform, students will be able to access labs remotely in various disciplines of Science and Engineering and conduct simulation-based experiments. The virtual labs cater to students of all levels of higher education - undergraduate, postgraduate, and research.
Virtual Labs will provide to the students the result of an experiment by one of the following methods (or possibly a combination):
- Modeling the physical phenomenon by a set of equations and carrying out simulations to yield the result of the particular experiment. This can, at-the-best, provide an approximate version of the 'real-world' experiment.
- Providing measured data for virtual lab experiments corresponding to the data previously obtained by measurements on an actual system.
- Remotely triggering an experiment in an actual lab and providing the student the result of the experiment through the computer interface. This would entail carrying out the actual lab experiment remotely.
The virtual lab project was a consortium activity of 12 participating institutes including 7 IITs (IIT Kharagpur, IIT Roorkee, IIT Guwahati, IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur, and IIT Madras). Under Virtual Labs project, over 100 Virtual Labs consisting of approximately 700+ web-enabled experiments were designed for remote-operation and viewing.
At a time when classes in Universities and colleges have been suspended with no clear sign of m=normalcy returning anytime soon, students with required setup are shifting more and more to virtual learning resources. Virtual Labs will prove to be a valuable asset not just for students but also for teachers and professors.
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