Virtual Labs

·      Virtual Labs is a project initiated  by the ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, under the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology

·       The project  aims to provide  remote-access to Laboratories in various disciplines of Science and  Engineering for students at all levels from Under-graduate to research

·      It also intends to develop a complete Learning Management  System where the students  can avail the various tools for learning, including additional web-resources, video-lectures, animated demonstrations and self- evaluation

·      There is also a component where in costly equipment and resources are shared, which are otherwise available to only a  limited number  of users due to constraints on time and geographical distances

·      Seven  IIT’s, Amrita University, NIT  Karnataka and college Engineering  pune are the institutions participating in the project

·      The project intends to cover physical Sciences Chemical Science and Various branches of Engineering

          

                  Virtual Learning Environment

§  Virtual  learning  environment(VLE)  is a set of teaching  and learning tools designed to enhance students learning  experience by including computers and the internet in the learning process

§  The principle components include  Curriculum mapping, student tracking, online support  for both teacher and student, electronic communication

Major  Components

1.  The course syllabus

2.  Administrative information about the course

3.  A notice board for current information  about the ongoing course

4.  Additional resources ,either integrated or as links to outside resources

5.  Self- assessment quizzes or analogous devices, normally scored automatically

6.  Formal assessment functions , such as examinations, essay submission ,or presentation of projects, this now frequently includes components to support peer assessment

7.  Documentation and statistics is required for institutional administration and quality control

8.  Management of access rights for instructors ,their assistants , course support staff ,and students

                   Purpose

a.    Content  Management

b.  Curriculum Mapping and planning

c.   Communication and collaboration

         Virtual Tools

         The 8 Best tools for Virtual Teams

1.  Google Docs

·      Google Docs provides free online spreadsheets and document management with a Gmail/Google Account

·      The spreadsheet feature is particularly useful when you need to have multiple people working on the same spreadsheet at the same time

·      It doesn’t have all of the features of Excel

·      It’s very useful for collaborative editing of documents

How we use Google Docs

o  Domain management, financial  reports ,ranking reports .online resource

2.  Jing

§  It is a free collaboration tool

§  It allows you to take screen or video capture of anything on your desktop

§  Screen captures can be easily annotated ,and you can record your voice along with any video to easily explain something

How we use Jing

·      Communicating with designers and developers, creating training

3.  Skype

§  Skype is now commonplace and  has become the standard for voice calls over the internet-as well as chat, video conferencing and file transfers

§  More than 520 million people worldwide use  skype

§  It’s free to use across a number of devices, including smartphones, tablets and just about every system known to man

How we use Skype

·       Video conferencing, simple screen sharing, Training

4.  Dropbox

§  It makes file sharing a breeze and nearly  gurantees  that you’ll never need a USB storage device ever again

How we use Dropbox

·      Sharing training materials, backing up documents, images, passwords

5.  Mantis

§  Mantis is an online bug tracking script, free  the GNU License

§  It’s a great way to record and log any bugs ,improvements or feature requests

How we use Mantis

·      Bug tracking, feature requests

6.  FreshBooks

§  Freshbooks is simple to setup and is probably the most widely used web based invoicing application

§  It has a neat feature set and allows your staff to manage and add time to a company invoice

How we use Freshbooks

·      Invoicing clients, creating estimates

7.  Basecamp

·      Basecamp is an collaboration tool which can be used to effectively manage projects, tasks lists, team communication

How we use Basecamp

·      Managing tasks assignment, managing projects, team spaces

8.  Time Doctor

·      It used for monitoring attendance

·      It is also a great collaboration tool for virtual teams  because it helps managers and team members know what others are working on

How we use Time Doctor

·       Managing to do lists, managing attendance, improving  productivity