RDI - e-Laboratories for Chemistry Education

The overall objective of this project is to establish a virtual internet-based laboratory for Chemistry Education for the university level. This will be achieved through developing a set of simulated Chemistry experiments in electronic format that can be accessed over the internet. Within the project, a side yet important product is to build the human resource capacity to continue developing experiments in other fields of Science. This project will introduce a new teaching technology to Chemistry education at Ain Shams University that can then be generalized for other universities and high schools in Egypt. This will be done by establishing electronic laboratories where students will be able to perform the experiments remotely and will be able to interact with their teachers using mixed reality techniques.

E-Learning enhances learning and academic rigor through provision, training, and support of learning systems and tools, supports assessment of student performance, including testing and e-Portfolios, supports academic applications of web and portal technologies, and provides system administration and programming for academic systems. Currently millions of students are participating in on-line learning programs at institutions of higher education all over the world. Many higher education institutions now are offering on-line classes.

Interactive learning environment by using animations and simulations for abstract topic, where students become active in their learning, provide opportunities for students to construct and understand difficult concepts more easily. In this content, appropriate simulations and applications based on simulations generally increase learning speed by allowing students to express their real reactions easily. Such opportunities allow students to develop their own hypothesis about the topic and develop their own problem solving methods; complex information given to the students is simplified by technology and provides them opportunities learning by doing. Therefore, use of virtual laboratory or simulation programs, overcomes some of the problems faced in traditional laboratory applications and make positive contributions in reaching the objectives of an educational system.

The partners of this project are:

  1. Faculty of Engineering - Ain Shams University.
  2. Faculty of Science - Ain Shams University.
  3. Faculty of Medicine - Ain Shams University.
  4. Faculty of Pharmacy - Ain Shams University.
  5. Faculty of Agriculture - Ain Shams University.
  6. Faculty of Education - Ain Shams University.
  7. University of Nottingham.