Virtual Chemistry Lab Apps

The internet revolution, the spread of PC ownership and some other factors cause “digital revolution” in education as well as in many areas. In addition, coronavirus (COVID - 19) pandemic process has also accelerated the spread of digitalization of education and distance education. On the other hand, as stated on goals of EU research and innovation policy, spreading knowledge as soon as it is available using digital and collaborative technology is a necessity of digitalization era and improving and modernizing education is a key priority for the EU and its Member States.During this time, many research and development projects and studies have been done. As a result of the impact of digitalization in education, access to educational documents has become easier and many different information and resources can be accessed in the virtual environment. This situation brought along some negative effects as well as positive results. It should not be forgotten that correcting the slightest mistake made in educational environments takes years. For this, every learning - teaching activity in this system should be prepared with great care. In addition, although students can find information to meet the theoretical knowledge in the distance education documents, they cannot find instruments to meet their practical education needs. This serious deficiency causes students not to consolidate their theoretical knowledge in practice, and prevents them from showing special interest in the relevant branch. The project aims to make up for this serious deficiency in the chemistry lab with virtual chemistry lab applications. In this way, it aims to enable high school students to make chemistry laboratory applications and to continue increasing the interest in chemistry science.The main purpose of the project is to design, develop, implement and evaluate Virtual Chemistry Laboratory Applications (VCLapps) and additional digital contents (e-books and e-learning toolkit) in order to enable high school students to conduct laboratory applications in the field of chemistry.In line with this purpose of the project, the project will be managed with the leadership of Anadolu University, which has 40 years of experience in distance education, with academic staff who are experts in chemistry and distance education. The main task distribution in the project was made according to the expertise of the project partners. The Virtual Chemistry e-book will be prepared by Anadolu University according to the high school curriculum and also, the content of the chemistry experiments that will be used in virtual chemistry laboratory applications will be prepared by Ankara University Development Foundation Private Schools and Agrupamento de Escolas Dr. Flávio Gonçalves high schools. Digital distance learning applications will be prepared by ATA Software and Asociación Para La Investigación De La Industria Del Juguete, Conexas Y Afines (AIJU). Istanbul Provincial Directorate of National Education will contribute to dissemination of project outputs on 40 different high schools of 39 different regions of Istanbul. According to European Commission Research and Innovation Strategies, one of the aims of the Innovation Union to make Europe into a world-class science performer. In this context, one of the major points is to develop high school students’ skills and competencies in science. At this point, the successful completion and dissemination of the VCLapps and e-book project will directly contribute to this goal in the field of chemistry. Virtual applications designed to stimulate the natural curiosity of this new generation of children, called digital natives and emphasize the link between scientific concepts and the real world, are very popular. These simulation-based applications have been revealed to enhance learning outcomes among students by making the learning experience more comprehensive and engaging. Therefore, within the scope of the proposed project, a virtual simulation of six chemistry laboratories determined by the partners will be developed by taking the high school chemistry curriculum as a reference and also, virtual chemistry e-book containing theoretical information on experiments will be designed to support virtual applications. Project partners attach great importance that VCLapps and e-book applications, which are among the intellectual outputs of the project, to reach students at different cultural and socioeconomic levels in all geographies. The intellectual output of the project that will meet this need is the e-learning toolkit. In this context, the e-learning toolkit includes digital applications that will enable students to access the e-book and the e-quizzes contents via smartphones, tablets or data storage devices. In this way, while students can access these intellectual outputs from any point, teachers will be able to evaluate their students' learning efficiency digitally.