VALUE Virtual Labs invited to Maharaja’s Conference workshop

22^nd March 2012

Amrita's VALUE Virtual Labs team were extended a special invite to present Virtual Labs at Maharaja’s College, Ernakulum on the 22nd March. This was a two day Workshop on Innovations in Technology Enhanced Learnings (ITEL-2012) sponsored by Department of Collegiate Education and hosted by the Maharaja’s college’s Department of Physics.

The workshop's first day morning session was completely dedicated to Amrita’s VALUE virtual labs. After the small inauguration session, Kannan Surendran (Project co-ordinator), made a presentation on the history, scope and future of the virtual labs initiative. The presentation featured, MHRD’s vision for education, the partner institutes who are also developing virtual labs and the recent national launch of Virtual Labs on 23rd February 2012 held in New Delhi. Almost 100 students and 50 faculty members from various departments attended this workshop.

Following the introductory session, virtual lab physics faculty Dr.K Sreelatha, Dr. C O Sreekala, and Physics Research Associate Mr. Saneesh P F and Chemistry Research Associate Mr. Vysakh K K presented various virtual lab experiments.
In his inaugural speech Dr. Shaji said “Before I saw virtual labs I had so many doubts about it, like how it will give students the real lab experience? Now I agree that it may not give students the real feeling but it can provide a new perspective to students which they never would have thought of. E.g. in compound pendulum experiment students can do the experiment only in earth but using virtual lab they can do the experiment in various planets. So this can give students and teachers more knowledge in certain aspects”. He also added that “making these kinds of virtual labs is not a simple thing and is much appreciated.“

Students really enjoyed the labs demonstrations and some now expressed their interest in pursuing their M.Sc. project at Amrita under VALUE virtual labs.

The VALUE virtual labs team were congratulated and voiced the view that this would be great tool for students especially when in the absence of teachers. Maharaja’s College will hopefully joining the list of other colleges who look forward to enjoying the benefits of virtual labs.