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When a procedure involves physical acts, they have to be mimicked by the user: a pipette must be picked up and a tip added, and then used and thrown away, each step performed with the click of a mouse or trackpad.
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A robotic voiceover guides users through the tasks, from putting on a lab coat to operating a DNA sequencer.
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Labster’s simulations have shadow and light, and allow users to ‘walk around’ - I spent much of my first few minutes in their sim orienting myself, working out where the doors were and how to navigate the space. Labster and other similar products, including Late Nite Labs from Macmillan Learning, try to make users feel as if they are really in a lab. But there is still debate about whether they really enhance learning over what a textbook can provide whether fancy graphics are helpful or just a flashy distraction and whether simulations really can (or should) replace real lab experience. The inventors of virtual labs extol the benefits of technology for improving education, and emerging data suggest they are right: virtual labs do improve some test scores and help students to prepare for real-life scientific investigations. Woodfield’s Virtual ChemLab, for example, lets students choose chemicals from a store-room shelf and use them however they want.
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Some provide students with an objective and step-by-step instructions, guiding them through the technical steps for carrying out complex procedures. Virtual labs range from stripped-down 2D video games, which use simple toggles to control a handful of variables, to 3D simulations that aim to provide a more immersive experience.
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We have limited time, and there are safety issues all over the place.” The virtual world, by contrast, is free of such restrictions. “The real lab is actually very limiting,” says Brian Woodfield, a physical chemist at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, who has been developing virtual labs for decades. For example, edX - the world’s largest non-profit platform for free, online university courses - is due to launch its own lab simulations later this year in a project called LabXchange. The idea of ‘virtual labs’ is gaining traction as companies and institutions try to expand their reach, cut costs, enhance student understanding, and provide a different kind of hands-on training for future scientists. Labster has collaborated with Google Daydream to provide 30 three-dimensional (3D) lab simulations for the course, and says that more universities are likely to follow, including the University of Texas at San Antonio. Part of Nature Outlook: Science and technology educationĪrizona State University (ASU) has launched its first fully online biology degree course that uses simulations instead of actual lab work.