Abstract
This paper describes an innovative virtual laboratory for students of Hydraulic Engineering at an Italian university that shows water discharge measurement techniques applied in open-channel flows. Such new technology, which supports traditional practical classes, has the potential to increase students’ motivation and improve their skills, as well as simultaneously reducing the costs, time, and possible dangers that continuous field experiments would involve. Thanks to this immersive and interactive experience that is carried out indoors, students learn to move around a fluvial environment, as well as work more safely and with reduced risks of accidents. Besides, the virtual lab can boost learners’ interest by combining education with pleasure and making knowledge more fun. Collaboration with a group of students enrolled in the Master’s degree course of the Civil and Environmental Engineering program at Basilicata University at the early stages of developing the educational tool led to improvements in its performance and features. Also, a preliminary testing procedure carried out on a student sample, verified the achievement of the students’ learning objectives in terms of knowledge and skills. Such analysis indicated that students took more active role in the teaching/learning process and they showed greater interest in the topic dealt with through the new technology compared to the involvement of students observed during traditional lessons in previous years. The architecture and operational modes of the virtual laboratory as well as the results of the preliminary analysis are discussed.
Highlights
The rapid transformations in the workforce and technological innovations due to a global knowledge-driven economy are changing the nature of engineering practice, and demand extensive expertise that can simplify the mastery of scientific and technical disciplines
This paper describes an innovative virtual laboratory for students of Hydraulic Engineering at an Italian university that shows water discharge measurement techniques applied in open-channel flows
A preliminary testing procedure carried out on a student sample, verified the achievement of the students’ learning objectives in terms of knowledge and skills. Such analysis indicated that students took more active role in the teaching/learning process and they showed greater interest in the topic dealt with through the new technology compared to the involvement of students observed during traditional lessons in previous years
Summary
The rapid transformations in the workforce and technological innovations due to a global knowledge-driven economy are changing the nature of engineering practice, and demand extensive expertise that can simplify the mastery of scientific and technical disciplines. In the last few years, many engineering universities have tried to solve these issues by integrating information and communication technologies (ICTs) with traditional teaching methods to improve the learning experience and students’ level of expertise This has led to the creation of virtual learning environments (VLEs), virtual classrooms that allow teachers and students to communicate with each other online through interactive systems (computer animations, audio and video devices, 3D graphics, on-line databases) and e-learning systems with Internet-based features (e-mail, instant messaging facilities, cyber-platforms). Cápková et al [36] designed an interactive simulation tool for students in control engineering courses at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava that is able to control a nonlinear hydraulic plant in different configurations using a graphical user interface developed in Matlab/Simulink These virtual experiments allow for changing the plant configuration and applying various control structures, switching between simulations and real conditions, and implementing the control locally or via the Internet. The paper is organised as follows: the importance of field studies in Hydraulics Engineering courses for graduated students is discussed in Section 2; the traditional approach to teaching the water discharge measurement procedure in open-channel cross-sections is presented in Section 3; the features, the conceptual design, and learning objectives of the proposed virtual laboratory are described in Section 4; the preliminary test results of a student’s sample are highlighted in Section 5; a comparison with the traditional learning approach is detailed in Section 6; and the conclusion and future work plan complete Section 7
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