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- A sustainable approach to let students do more real experiments with electrical and electronic circuitsPublication . Alves, Gustavo R.; Pester, Andreas; Kulesza, Wlodek; Silva, Juarez Bento; Pavani, Ana; Pozzo, María Isabel; Marchisio, Susana; Fernandez, Ruben; Oliveira, Vanderli; Schlichting, Luis C. M.; Felgueiras, Carlos; Viegas, Clara; Fidalgo, André; Marques, Maria Arcelina; Costa, Ricardo; Lima, Natércia; Castro, Manuel; García-Zubía, JavierThe present paper focus on the use of remote laboratories in higher education from a sustainability viewpoint. The particular case of engineering education, and, within it, the more specific subject of experiments with electrical and electronic circuits is presented first, to then discuss the benefits of using remote labs, while considering the three dimensions of sustainable development, i.e.: economic practice, environmental protection, and social integration. The paper debates how remote labs address each dimension.
- Students' perception about using VISIRPublication . Lima, Natércia; Viegas, Clara; Alves, Gustavo R.; Marques, Maria Arcelina; Fidalgo, AndréRemote Labs allows students a complementary way to learn. While working upon their experimental skills, they can practice their autonomy. VISIR is one of the remote labs more used in the field of Electricity and Electronics. This study was conducted in three countries and 14 educational institutions and gathered 952 students' opinions while using VISIR along with other experimental resources. Its goal was to perceive students' opinion about VISIR. Several advantages and disadvantages were identified, regardless the focus of the course or students' level of usage. Positively: “the potential of the equipment”, “access from anywhere/anytime” and “better/more complete understanding”; Negatively: “operating issues”, “problems in understanding” and “poor interface/old fashionable/too simple”.
- Práticas remotas abertas do VISIR com circuitos elétricos e eletrónicosPublication . Fidalgo, André; Alves, Gustavo; Marques, Maria Arcelina; Lima, Natércia; Castro, Manuel; Castro, Manuel; García-Loro, FelixThis document describes the access to a defined set of open remote VISIR practices developed during the PILAR project. These practices are available at EU level through a federation of remote labs openly available on Internet, via a Moodle accessible set of lessons and experiments, i.e. practices [1]. The federation policies were developed during the project and allow any EU interested institution (universities, schools, content providers) to provide and access its services [2]. Presently the available content is intended for learning basic (and complex) electrical and electronics circuits, for different subjects at school/high school and at grade and master university levels, but can be expanded in the future, as seen fit by the federation. As a remote lab, VISIR presents several advantages to students with educational difficulties and geographical obstacles: it allows such students to carry out experiments the number of times they need, without having to be in the lab. These are two of the main advantages presented by remote labs over hand-on labs. In addition, and because remote labs imply real experiments with real components, they also present an additional advantage over virtual labs (simulations). The only problem, addressed by the PILAR project, is supporting all the experiments that are done, in a single semester, in all the courses that involve electrical and electronics circuits (implementable in VISIR), in a single institution. Although quite powerful, one VISIR platform has limitations regarding the total number of different components it can have, while also allowing for all possible interconnections. The VISIR federation and the developed PILAR Moodle repository allows for a structured and combined service benefiting from the individual offer of each VISIR node, making all of them available through the federation of those same nodes.
- International Cooperation for Remote Laboratory UsePublication . Alves, Gustavo R.; Fidalgo, André; Marques, Maria Arcelina; Viegas, Clara; Felgueiras, Carlos; Costa, Ricardo J.; Lima, Natércia; Castro, Manuel; Díaz-Orueta, Gabriel; SanCristóbal-Ruiz, Elio; García-Loro, Felix; García-Zubía, Javier; Hernández-Jayo, Unai; Kulesza, Wlodek J.; Gustavsson, Ingvar; Nilsson, Kristian; Zackrisson, Johan; Pester, Andreas; Zutin, Danilo G.; Schlichting, Luis C.; Ferreira, Golberi; de Bona, Daniel D.; Pacheco, Fernando S.; da Silva, Juarez B.; Alves, João B.; Biléssimo, Simone; Pavani, Ana M.; Lima, Delberis A.; Temporão, Guilherme; Marchisio, Susana; Concari, Sonia B.; Lerro, Federico; de Arregui, Gaston S.; Merendino, Claudio; Plano, Miguel; Fernández, Rubén A.; Paz, Héctor R.; Soria, Mario F.; Gómez, Mario J.; de Almeida, Nival N.; de Oliveira, Vanderli F.; Pozzo, María I.; Dobboletta, Elsa; Bertramo, BrendaExperimenting is fundamental to the training process of all scientists and engineers. While experiments have been traditionally done inside laboratories, the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies added two alter-natives accessible anytime, anywhere. These two alternatives are known as virtual and remote labs, and are sometimes indistinguishably referred as online labs. Sim-ilarly to other instructional technologies, virtual and remote labs require some ef-fort from teachers in integrating them into curricula, taking into consideration sev-eral factors that affect their adoption (i.e. cost) and their educational effectiveness (i.e. benefit). This chapter analyses these two dimensions and sustains the case where only through international cooperation it is possible to serve the large num-ber of teachers and students involved in engineering education. It presents an ex-ample in the area of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, based on a remote lab named Virtual Instruments System in Reality, and it then describes how a number of European and Latin-American institutions have been cooperating under the scope of an Erasmus+ project2, for spreading its use in Brazil and Argentina.
- Impact of a remote lab on teaching practices and student learningPublication . Viegas, Clara; Pavani, Ana; Lima, Natércia; Marques, Maria Arcelina; Pozzo, Isabel; Dobboletta, Elsa; Atencia, Vanessa; Barreto, Daniel; Calliari, Felipe; Fidalgo, André; Lima, Delberis; Temporão, Guilherme; Alves, Gustavo R.Remote Laboratories have become part of current teaching and learning, particularly in engineering. Their potential to aid students beyond their hands-on lab classes has been a matter of discussion in literature. Teachers and researchers are aware that the thorough analysis of both strengths and shortcomings of remote labs in didactical implementations may not only lead to the improvement of these resources but also of the pedagogical implications in engineering classes. The present study was carried out in a Higher Education Institution in Brazil in two different courses during three consecutive semesters where a remote lab (VISIR) addressing electric and electronic topics was implemented, yielding 471 students' academic results and opinions. These students' results (while using VISIR) cross-analysed with the course characteristics, reveal some factors teachers may tackle to foster student learning and motivation. The conclusions point to the need for VISIR interface modernization and showed it is more useful in basic courses than in more advanced ones, when dealing with classic lab experiments. Results also show that teachers' involvement plus their ability to brief students on VISIR's usefulness have a significant influence not only on students' performance but also on their perception of learning and satisfaction with the tool. In the analysed cases, the students with more learning needs seemed to be the ones who could benefit more from VISIR.
- VISIR+ project follow-up after four years: Educational and research impactPublication . Pavani, Ana M.B.; Viegas, Clara; Lima, Natércia; Alves, Gustavo R.; Marques, Arcelina; Fidalgo, André; Jacob, Frederico; Silva, Juarez B.; Marchisio, Susana; Schlichting, Luís; Soria, Fernando; Lerro, Federico; Barbosa, William de S.; Steinbach, Reginaldo; Mafra, PauloThis full paper addresses an innovative practice in the experimental teaching/learning in Engineering courses. Engineering is a practical profession where doing is the key. Experimental work and the immersing in the lab environment (hands-on, simulations, remote labs) helps students to construct and strengthen their knowledge. The VISIR+ Project (ERASMUS+), launched in November 2015 and concluded in Abril 2018, intended to disseminate VISIR – Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality (the most used remote lab in electric and electronics area of expertise) in Latin American countries (Argentina and Brazil) by installing a system in five Higher Educational Institutions. It involved 13 educational institutions, 25 different courses, several of them with successive didactical implementations. It comprised 49 teachers and 1,595 students. During the project about 27 research papers were published disseminating the projects’ results. At the end of the project, the expectations were that the impact could remain in the long-term promoting VISIR remote lab and the dissemination of good practices. The project ended four years ago, and each installed VISIR system continued to promote teaching diversification using different experimental resources (including VISIR) then contributing to student learning. The aim of this work is to understand the impact of these didactical practices while using VISIR in these last years. This study was based on a questionnaire complemented with an interview with each person of contact. The results point to an increase of VISIR’s usage in almost all institutions, particularly during the pandemic period. Overall, the educational impact involved more than 23 different institutions, 45 courses (most of them with several editions), 118 teachers and 4,866 students. The impact in the scientific community implied additional 31 publications with VISIR as its main core. These numbers support the sustainability of the VISIR+ project over the years, positively contributing to a more diversified engineering education of these students and their experimental competences development.
- How may teaching contribute to sustainability in a small scale but with wide use?Publication . Viegas, Clara; Lima, Natércia; Felgueiras, Carlos; Marques, Maria Arcelina; Alves, Gustavo R.; Costa, Ricardo; Fidalgo, AndréThe use of technology in Education helped teaching plans reach students almost anywhere during the COVID Pandemic and some positive effects regarding the planet sustainability were also reported during this phase. A questionnaire was conducted in order to assess if students felt any resource productive in their learning and would like to keep it, contributing to lesser their ecological footprint. The more advantages to sustainability they recognize, the more educational resources they would like to keep using and the more favorable they are for a hybrid educational regime.