Online Laboratory Education: Principles and Practices of the Integrated Laboratory Network

The Integrated Laboratory Network (ILN) is an initiative to provide anytime, anyplace access to advanced scientific instrumentation and online laboratories for science education. To date, the ILN has been used successfully in high schools, community colleges, and universities, both nationally and internationally, and has provided new learning opportunities that incorporate instrumentation into the broader curriculum. The ILN uses open source software to facilitate remote access to instrumentation and curricular materials and to support video conferencing during online laboratory sessions. This chapter describes the principles and best practices of the ILN. Specifically, the history of the ILN, the technologies used by the ILN, and the pedagogical issues and strategies related to the design, implementation, delivery, and evaluation of online ILN labs will be discussed. Current activities toward the development of laboratory science kits enhanced with remote instrumentation and the formation of an international consortium of online laboratory developers will also be presented.

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