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Virtual Laboratories
What is it? 
A virtual laboratory is an interactive environment for creating and conducting simulated experiments.
Virtual Laboratories
What are the educational uses and benefits?
Critical Thinking:
- To provide students with hands on materials and activities.
- To encourage higher order thinking skills.
Simulations:
- To simulate physical laboratory experiments.
- To allow students the opportunity to perform a task or conduct an experiment.
Virtual Laboratories
Can I see an example?
View an example of a physics-based Virtual Laboratory:
- Learning is Phun: View a video of a phsyics-based sandbox game in which students create their own physics scenarios.
- Learning is Phun Download: Download the Learning is Phun sandbox.
Virtual Laboratories
How do I get started?
There are many simulations available for free on the internet at sites such as The Virtual Chemistry Lab at the University of Oxford.
There are many ways to build custom learning games using software and tools such as:
Virtual Laboratories can also be built using simple web design tools and the inclusion of well structured activities. For an example of how to design effective virtual laboratories visit The Instructional Design tutorials that were developed for the Partnership in Global Learning at the University of Florida.Virtual Laboratories
Where can I learn more?
- Building Virtual Laboratories: A project framework for building virtual laboratories for computational science.
- Virtual Laboratory Examples: An example of virtual laboratories in probability and statistics.
- Virtual Laboratory Examples: An example of virtual laboratories in chemistry.
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