Olabs -- online labs for schools

It was a few years back that we (CDAC Mumbai and Amrita Univ) got together with this idea of building virtual labs for schools. We wrote a proposal and presented to the working group in e-learning at Dept of Electronics and Information Technology, Govt of India. The working group suggested a pilot phase with a small target. At the end of about 18 months, we had 30+ labs covering Physics and Chemistry. The labs were offered free to schools. It was getting received well, with growing number of hits on the page. We presented this to CBSE. The then CBSE Chairman, Shri Vineet Joshi, issued a circular to schools recommending use of Olabs, as we called the set of labs. Based on the positive reception, we got a follow up phase II. Today, we have over 150 labs covering Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics and English, spanning standards 9-12 as per CBSE syllabus. All (Except English) are well aligned with the CBSE lab manual, and hence directly usable without any preparation. And all these labs are FREE for use. Just go to Olabs website.

Why online labs? The answer may be obvious to many. There are many many schools in India, with hardly anything that can be called a physical lab. And even if the labs are available, access is limited. One hour a week perhaps, where you rush into the lab, get lost in figuring out what is where and what is to be done, and under instruction you do something, copy some from your neighbour, and 'complete the lab'. And even then the experiments you can perform is limited, because of resource constraints, cost of consumable items, and so on. And then, we keep complaining of inadequate practical exposure to the students!

Is online labs the answer? Not fully. But it can amplify the limited physical lab time you get. Trying out the online labs before going to lab, removes the surprise elements in the lab, and helps you prepare your mind (and brain?) about what to expect, what we are going to do, and so on. This can help optimise the lab experience. And post the lab, you can try more variants, repeat things more times, since you are comfortable with what is happening. And of course, if you have no lab in school at all, you get some feel of what the lab means. I fully agree that without smelling the rotten egg (H2S) and breaking a test tube, chemistry lab is not complete. But we can go a fair distance with the virtual labs -- I am sure, it will be much better than zero.

Given the very positive interest, we are trying to reach out to all school teachers, and make them aware of this resource. It is no mean target, with over 17000 CBSE schools and almost a lakh of schools in all. With support from the Ministry, we have embarked on a mission to train 30000 CBSE teachers. Bringing the teachers on board, we feel, is very important. They can factor in resources like this into the classroom, and position it correctly. Without a teacher direction, very few students will explore and use such online resources. So, we are urging all 9-12 standard school teachers, and principals, to explore these labs and adopt them as per your local context. We have currently over one lakh registered users on the website, and the website records 60-110 thousand hits per week, depending on the school season.

An interesting aspect of the labs is that it is packaged for easy use. Rather than just build an animation or simulation, we have incorporated the full eco-system at one place...

There is a theory tab giving you the background of the lab, procedure tab which explains how the lab is done under Olabs as well as when done in real lab, and a simulator tab where the student can actually perform the lab. There is also some viva questions and references. Teachers can use the online labs, to demonstrate the lab in a classroom -- mimicking the real lab setting well. Where appropriate, there is built-in provision for recording observations and even making a plot.

To encourage adoption, we have also made these available in 3 Indian languages -- Hindi, Marathi, and Malayalam. With volunteer help we can also extend these to other languages.

Let me know if you like to know more --- tell me what you want to know -- and if you like to help. Since we are not charging any money for the labs, and also for the training, and since our interest is more social (in the hope that these interventions can help increase the quality of education), any help would be valuable in our outreach.

We do not have resources to go to each school and train. So the preferred model is to get 2-3 teachers each from a number of schools together at a venue and conduct a 3-4 hour programme. I think NGOs working in the field of education can also help in this task.

What do you say?