Web-based Virtual Labs A Cosmos – Evidence – Ideas as a Design Framework Leading to Good Practice

摘要

This paper presents three novel open, web-based, virtual laboratories for Physics. The labs are open, meaning they embody a complete Physics micro-world that implements all necessary Physics laws in algorithmic format. They run in real time and are deployed as Java applets, in order to be accessible via the World Wide Web, with minimum requirements on the client side. Additionally, the labs present a number of features, highly desirable for virtual labs, such as photorealistic graphics, direct manipulation, user friendliness, multiple visualizations of the experiments and the corresponding phenomena and multiple measuring instruments. Finally we present the main design principles on which the development of the labs were based and we propose good practices that can help the acceptance from the science teachers' community and the more effective way of implementation into the class situation.