• Sarat Chandra Babu N

      Articles written in Resonance – Journal of Science Education

    • Virtual Chemistry Lab to Virtual Reality Chemistry Lab

      N S Sreekanth Nobby Varghese Sarat Chandra Babu N

      More Details Abstract Fulltext PDF

      The recent Covid-19 pandemic has brought about drastic changes in the teaching-learning process. We witnessed a paradigm shift from conventional classrooms to virtual on­line learning. Although online learning is not a new con­cept, the covid-19 pandemic situation came with subsequent restrictions that shook the entire school educational system. Education has become highly uncertain for the time being, especially in India. This has been more evident in rural and village areas where the teaching-learning process does not in­clude technology-enabled methods. Over one year, we have observed that conducting theory classes through online con­ferencing and virtual classroom software systems has become very common, and students are coping with it. However, in an online environment, students miss out on the practical aspects, i.e., laboratory experiments which are an essential part of science and engineering education. Software-based virtual labs are available, but they lack the real feel of per­forming an experiment, especially getting familiar with the laboratory apparatus. In this context, the present article pro­poses an innovative teaching-learning system that helps con­duct chemistry volumetric experiments through a hardware­enabled platform named avatar-shell. The proposed system helps students develop titration skills using the actual ap­paratus. However, while performing experiments with the $avatar-shell$, we don't need to use real chemicals; instead, we use ordinary water. The proposed virtual reality chem­istry laboratory system comprises two units-the adminis­trator module for teachers to configure the experiment with appropriate molarity associated with a solution and the simu­lator module for students to perform the volumetric analysis. The simulator module $avatar-shell$ comprises a high sensitive weight sensor, which communicates with the administrator module and verifies the correctness during every instance of titration. $avatar-shell$ can connect to the administrator mod­ule via the internet, and teachers can monitor the experiment through a mobile-based application.

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