AN EXPERIENCE WITH VIRTUAL LABORATORIES FOR EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE: THE VCL TOOL

A fundamental aspect within the configuration of the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is that students play an active role in their own learning process. On this educative model of academic formation, the teacher participates as a guide during the teaching-learning process of the student and so he or she must apply constructivist-learning models in which new technologies are substantially present. In this regard, the use of tools such as virtual laboratories (which can be found as interactive resources on the web or in digital format from several publishers) can be very effective, for they allow the student to approach real systems and do research on their behaviour with regard to the modification of certain parameters. An experience on the use of the VCL tool on several Chemistry classes will be presented in this contribution. These resources are very useful for the acquisition of several competencies not only when used as teaching materials, but also when integrated as part of the teaching methodology, on an environment of face-to-face or virtual classes, thus reinforcing the teacher-student cooperative work within a constructivist learning context.