Disampaikan Pada: International Seminar VET, 18 May 2010, YSU/ Hendra Jaya

VIRTUAL LABORATORY TO SUPPORT PRAXIS AND EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS STUDENT OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Hendra Jaya*)

hendramisi@yahoo.com , robotika04@yahoo.com /Phone: +6281328540086

ABSTRACT

Active learning is usually used as a method for improving the effectiveness of lerning by employing different mode of learning, including multi media. The advance of ICT enable the online enrichment of learning materials through the availability of tutorial, modules, solved problem and even online virtual laboratory. Virtual laboratory usually combined visual and audio mode, and threrefore need the active participation of the students to enhance the understanding of the learning materials. The software for building virtual laboratory is written by using Macromedia Flash MX, 3-D Max, PHP, MySQL and HTML where animation was used to raise the users’ interest. The development of virtual laboratory was involved in development of instructional designing model (ID model). The development of the virtual laboratory will used the theory of constructive, cognitive and contextual for Student in Vocational Education by the cognitive domain in Bloom Taxonomy to strengthen cognitive skill. The V-lab focus on: 1) Contents to achieve the objective, 2) Result to be achieved and measured, 3) Delivery content strategy, 4) The ability of student vocational Education to evaluate performance, 5) Student of vocational education ability to refer and apply knowledge through the virtual laboratory. The effectiveness in virtual laboratory will be study after the student used the lab itself :1) Ability to access in various form of question regarding to the topics, 2) Ability to used the topics itself to execute practical work in Engineering learning.

1. Introduction

Information Technology (IT) one of the branch of science in the field of

contemporary give many alternative solution to development manegement process and

outomation of data traffic in the various field of work. One of the implementation on

information technology needs by students, teachers, laboratory, and employess of

educational institution use virtual laboratory for manage the vocational students labs

and practicum.

Research in virtual laboratory is more than virtual learning approach. Virtual

practicum environment used the animation and simulation in the form of 2D and 3D.

Student can explore the virtual Engineering laboratory, do their experiment and get the

output from that experiment. Students also need to keep their experiment information

1* Staff Pengajar Jurusan Elektronika, FT -Universitas Negeri Makassar

Disampaikan Pada: International Seminar VET, 18 May 2010, YSU/ Hendra Jaya

such as inference and observation in the electronic experiment report and worksheet as

soon as the information recorded, student are allowed to edit and print the report.

Operation Research Virtual Laboratory (V-Lab) is a virtual laboratory specially

designed for supporting the practice of operations research laborarory for the student

that take the course of operations research. The aims of this virtual laboratory is to

provide an assistance for the students to improve their skill in laboratory practice

without direct help from assistants and can be carried out without concerning time and

place contraints. OR Virtual Lab has following featutes: pre test, post test, tutotial,

simulation and practice materials.

2. Electronic Learning

According to Brown (2000), Feasey (2001), electronic learning can be defined

as learning activities using electronic networks for delivering, interaction and

facilitating that supported by many types of learning services. The electronic learning

may have at least one of the following functions, as supllement/optional to the delivered

teaching materials, complement and substitution (Siahaan, 2002).

Many research reveals that the use of active instructional strategy could improve

the capability of the students in understanding the learning materials. Active learning is

usually used as a method for improving the effectiveness of lerning by employing

different mode of learning, including multi media. The advance of ICT enable the

online enrichment of learning materials through the availability of tutorial, modules,

solved problem and even online virtual laboratory. Virtual laboratory usually combined

visual and audio mode, and threrefore need the active participation of the students to

enhance the understanding of the learning materials.

3. On-line Practicum

According to several studies presented that the pilot study seems to suggest that

engineering students perceive online technologies as falling largely within two spaces –

private and learning. Clearly, engineering students spend a substantial amount of time

online and are active everyday users of a variety of technologies including social

networking services, word processing, and the Internet. However, in the context of

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Disampaikan Pada: International Seminar VET, 18 May 2010, YSU/ Hendra Jaya

experimenting with virtual laboratories for their learning, it seems that they would much

rather not adopt these technologies at a fast rate. In particular, we hypothesize that this

negative perception of virtual laboratories may be rooted in the social contract that

exists between students and faculty. They expect face-to-face interactions with faculty

and associate this with better learning. Also, their lack of experience with virtual

laboratories seems to make them pre-disposed to viewing this modality as largely

negative. Given that most students do not have the choice of selecting technologies that

may be used for their curriculum, it seems faculty have to pay a lot more attention to

what perceptions students bring into the learning environment. Clearly, as budgets and

cost concerns become critical, newer technologies will be employed in the engineering

curriculum. Our study suggests that perhaps using a well-planned phase-in approach to

provide students with a wider range of choices when it comes to learning technologies

may lead to more positive experiences for students. Also, all students participating in

this study valued teamwork highly, and indicated by a significant amount that a virtual

laboratory environment would not promote this critical attribute. The traditional

laboratory may require less effort on the part of students to stay on task, and is a place

where students are not connected to all of the other services that they may already use

while they are online. Not having all of these connections may help them stay more

focused in the traditional face to face laboratory, leading to a perception of a better

learning environment.

4. Virtual Laboratory

A virtual laboratory is a tool for distance learning and/or experimentation that

allows people to share knowledge, data, voice, video, tools, and many other resources. It

provides a suitable environment to extend, improve, integrate, refine, and assist the

learning and/or experimentation process of many subjects, thus contributing to an

increase of the effectiveness of scientific research and widening the use of scarce or

costly equipments.

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Disampaikan Pada: International Seminar VET, 18 May 2010, YSU/ Hendra Jaya

Fig. Virtual Laboratory In the Lab

4.1 Configuration of Virtual Lab

4.1.1 Hardware

The remote experiment is located in one of the laboratory where needs nobody

to attend. The Web is the gateway for the system to exchange the necessary information

between the client machine and the server. The Web browser is a platform providing an

environment to run the necessary program including the Java applets, Java Script and

Flash used in the development of the laboratory. Once a login is successful, a WebCam

is connected for broadcasting the environment of the hardware rig to the Internet. A

typical display of the WebCam is where we can see the whole setup of the power

electronics experiment. It also gives the student a feel of the actual setup. Also the light

will also be switched on to increase the visibility. It is also to give a signal for any one

in the remote lab that the machine is being used and no disconnection or movement are

allowed. DAQ cards control the signals from the WWW server through a TCP/IP

channel.

4.1.2 Software

The software for building virtual laboratory is written by using Macromedia

Flash MX, 3-D Max, PHP, MySQL and HTML where animation was used to raise the

users’ interest. Also can use Joomla and Moodle for virtual laboratory if access by

internetworking. The LabView Internet Developer Tool-kit was used for the Internet

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Disampaikan Pada: International Seminar VET, 18 May 2010, YSU/ Hendra Jaya

control. Also Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and Transmission Control Protocol

(TCP) are used for the communications between the client and the Web server. The CGI

is written for the program involved with the HTML on the Web pages whereas the

HTML is a popular form of access for sending data across the Internet.

4.2 Operation of Virtual Lab

The system administrator creates a template virtual workstation for each class,

installing and configuring the required software as per the specifications of the

instructor. The instructor is then given a number of student accounts, which are replicas

of this template. Students are then provided with the virtual machine name, and given a

login ID and password. Unlike with a shared server, the names of the virtual machines

are different for each account, and this account has full administrator rights. Students

can connect to their VWS either from conventional teaching lab workstations (that by

themselves do not have IIS running), or from home, as long as they have remote

desktop connectivity. This allows students to develop, host, and test their web

applications directly without being constraint by the settings of the local machine.

The major advantages of this setup are: (1) It becomes possible to support in-

class web development exercises using conventional computer labs, (2) Students don’t

have to install and configure IIS and necessary software development, (3) environments

like Visual Studio at home, (4) Students don’t have to submit projects,sine the instructor

has access to all their virtual accounts, (5) Once a VWS is created, each

student/instructor can install their own personal software, (6) Special software that

requires individual licenses can now be installed on the right number of virtual

machines, (7) System administration is made much easier: (a) Each semester, the

original template is used to re-create the class accounts by simply cloning it, (b)Both the

students and the instructor have full administrative rights and therefore do

not have to wait for tech support, (c) Should an account become corrupted, only the

project files need to be saved while the workstation is re-cloned

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Disampaikan Pada: International Seminar VET, 18 May 2010, YSU/ Hendra Jaya

5. Evaluation Of The Virtual Lab

The virtual lab was installed and tested during the one semester, and two faculty

members were given access to a small number of VWS to allow them to learn the

system, configure “template” workstations for their respective courses, and write inc

structions for students. To address this question, we administered a survey based on the

theory of TAM’s (Technology Acceptance Model) key efficacy constructs: “ease of

use” and “usefulness” (Gallivan, 2001; Chircu et a., 2000; Straub et al., 1997).

6. Virtual Laboratory Development In Vocational Education To Strengthen

Cognitive Skill

The development of virtual laboratory was involved in development of

instructional designing model (ID model). The development of the virtual laboratory

will used the theory of constructive, cognitive and contextual for Student in Vocational

Education by the cognitive domain in Bloom Taxonomy to strengthen cognitive skill. It

will also join the conventional approach using information technology approach and

exercise approach that is modules and exercise question. Virtual laboratory for learning

will follow the learning objectives as in Technical subject curriculum. It will also focus

on:

Contents to achieve the objective

Result to be achieved and measured

Delivery content strategy

The ability of student vocational Education to evaluate performance

Student of vocational education ability to refer and apply knowledge through the

virtual laboratory

7. The Effectiveness Virtual Laboratory In Vocational Education To Strengthen

Cognitive Skill

The effectiveness in virtual laboratory will be study after the student used the

lab itself. The aspect as shown below:

a. Ability to access in various form of question regarding to the topics.

b. Ability to used the topics itself to execute practical work in Engineering learning.

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Disampaikan Pada: International Seminar VET, 18 May 2010, YSU/ Hendra Jaya

8. Virtual Laboratories As Tools For Supporting Teaching, Learning, and

Practicum Activities

Virtual Laboratories to Support teaching, Learning, and practicum Activities

The virtual environments, named virtual laboratories, vary from static Web pages with

didatic videos and texts, to dynamic pages with sophisticated environments,

collaborative authoring (Emigh & Herring, 2005), videos on demand, virtual meetings,

and many other features. These virtual laboratories may also allow remote access to

measurement instruments, video cameras.

Virtual laboratory need an interesting grafik design to keep the student stay

consistent to use the electronic learning, the figure bellow shown a design of virtual

laboratory in Digital Electronic and Microcontroller

Fig. V-Lab in Digital Electronics

Fig. V-Lab in Microcontroller

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Disampaikan Pada: International Seminar VET, 18 May 2010, YSU/ Hendra Jaya

The diversity of models and structures for virtual laboratories is large and varies

according to the nature of the project under investigation, the goals, and the

technologies involved. The motivations for the implementation of virtual laboratories

include, but are not restricted to: (Leandro, 2006)

The limitation on the resources and space in the real-world laboratories. This type

of limitation may cause delay in the learning activities of the students, who may

face the situation in which they have to compete or wait for the availability of a

given resource, in addition to the fact that one’s experiment may be interrupted

before it is concluded, due to the need of sharing resources.

The possibility of sharing usually expensive equipment.

The stimulus for the collaboration of research or work in groups independentlyof

their physical distance.

The existence of a learning environment outside the school, allowing the students to

participate or develop their own projects together with other students in their spare

time.

The possibility of developing different parts of an experiment at different locations.

The remote supervision and intervention in potentially dangerous experiments, thus

helping to prevent accidents.

The remote access and control of precision equipment.

Facilitate the learning of a subject by allowing the distance experimentation with

Engineering process, chemical reactions, biological mechanisms, physical

simulations, or other subjects.

Allow for the creation of virtual communities about a central subject, and thus

result in the convergence of people with similar interests to the same virtual

environment.

Bring together resources and information related to a specific subject matter.

Provide guidelines for the use, teaching, and learning of the subject, together with

means for its assessment.

This special issue presents a set of papers that explore the use of virtual laboratories

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Disampaikan Pada: International Seminar VET, 18 May 2010, YSU/ Hendra Jaya

and/or their specific technologies for the support of teaching and learning activities.

The next section makes a brief overview of the contributions.

CONCLUSSION

virtual laboratory is a tool for distance learning and/or experimentation that

allows people to share knowledge, data, voice, video, tools, and many other resources.

Virtual laboratory specially designed for supporting the practice of operations research

laborarory for the student that take the course of operations research. The aims of this

virtual laboratory is to provide an assistance for the students to improve their skill in

laboratory practice without direct help from assistants and can be carried out without

concerning time and place contraints. OR Virtual Lab has following featutes: pre test,

post test, tutotial, simulation and practice materials.

The development of the virtual laboratory will used the theory of constructive,

cognitive and contextual for Student in Vocational Education by the cognitive domain

in Bloom Taxonomy to strengthen cognitive skill. The V-lab focus on: 1) Contents to

achieve the objective, 2) Result to be achieved and measured, 3) Delivery content

strategy, 4) The ability of student vocational Education to evaluate performance, 5)

Student of vocational education ability to refer and apply knowledge through the virtual

laboratory. The effectiveness in virtual laboratory will be study after the student used

the lab itself :1) Ability to access in various form of question regarding to the topics, 2)

Ability to used the topics itself to execute practical work in Engineering learning.

References

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Anonim. (2009). Patterns Of Technology Adoption And Perceptions Of Virtual Laboratories Among Undergraduate Engineering Students. Proceedings of the Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2009, Palm Cove, QLD.

Bogdan A. GALWAS.2002. Virtual Laboratory - A Future Part Of The New Web-Based Model Of Undergraduate Engineering Studies Developed By Warsaw University Of Technology. IMEKO TC-1 & XXXIV MKM Conference, Wrocław

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Disampaikan Pada: International Seminar VET, 18 May 2010, YSU/ Hendra Jaya

Brown, Mary Daniels, Education World: Technology in the Classroom: Virtual High Schools, Part 1, The Voices of Experience, Di Akses Tanggal : 16 September 2002: http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/ tech052.shtml).

Feasey, Dave, E-Learning: Eyepoppingraphics, Inc. 2001, Di akses pada tanggal 20 Agustus 2002. http://eyepopping.manilasites.com/ profiles

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Kiayati Yusriyah (2009). The Perception Of The Students Towards The Usefulness And Easy Of Use Of An Operations Research Virtual Laboratory. Proceeding, International Seminar on Industrial Engineering and Management. ISSN : 1978-774X. Bali, Kuta.

Liana Rãzmeritã.Virtual Laboratory for Simulation and Control Engineering- A Design Perspective.University of Galati, Romania

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Nurrozat, Azwar. 2009. Penerapan Joomla dan Moodle pada system Virtual Laboratorium Online PSD III Teknik Elektro. Tugas Akhir. Fakultas Teknik, Jurusan Elektro. Universitas Diponegoro Semarang.

Peeyush Bhargava.2005.Web-Based Virtual Torsion Laboratory.Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853

Prabath K. Andleigh, dll, (1996) .“Multimedia System Design”, Prentice Hall PTR, New Jersey

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