Abstract:

In education, laboratories represent an important academic resource as they provide practical training in addition to the theories taught in classes. The use of remote laboratories in teaching is newer and allow students to remotely conduct real experiments across the internet. This chapter describes the development of a shared, multidisciplinary and, free access web-based laboratories that allow users not only the remote operation of experiments but also to share their own resources. That is to say, the platform leaves open the possibility to share own equipment to be used by others students. Besides the “learning by doing” training that the web-based lab provides to students, the platform brings about great opportunities for the implementation of e-learning environments and collaborative scheme. This approach is highly beneficial for the less favoured sectors which do not have the resources to set up a lab infrastructure and/or are remotely located, especially those rural elementary and high schools in developing countries. The system is made up of 4 components: physical laboratories located in specific geographical positions whose equipment is intercommunicated by computer servers whose access is achieved through a web page while the users are controlling experiments from a different, usually very distant location. A detailed description of the whole system and the results found in the first pilot tests using Blockly for programing an Arduino microcontroller remotely applied to two rural schools in Celica-Loja-Ecuador are presented.

Keywords:

Distance Learning, Remote Laboratories, Social Inclusion, TIC.