GO-LAB ECOSYSTEM: USING ONLINE LABORATORIES IN A PRIMARY SCHOOL

Abstract

Online (virtual and remote) experiments are the essential part of the contemporary science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Although online experiments are broadly employed in higher and secondary school class instructions, they should still be presented in a primary school to teachers, education administration, and designers such as curriculum developers and assessment creators. This paper focuses on the planning and embedding online laboratories into primary school science curriculum. The challenges of implementation of different types of laboratories in a practical context are discussed as well. The integration of the laboratories is demonstrated using the Go-Lab ecosystem. The ecosystem consists of more than 600 online laboratories, 40 inquiry applications, 940 inquiry learning spaces (ILS) that are presented with more than 30 languages (as at the time of writing this paper). Moreover, the Go-Lab platform supports teachers to realize science education by offering interactive domain-related applications that enable inclusive, active and engaged learning, providing students with tools that support these forms of learning and train 21st century skills such as digital literacy, computational thinking, research culture, and creativity. The modernization of the school education encourages teachers to start modelling such students skills from their very early age. The paper shows all phases of embedding the laboratories into the inquiry environment. It describes several demanded activities that a teacher shall perform. It includes (1) mapping the lesson; (2) defining the lesson goals where the lab will be used; (3) establishing the type of the online experiments that should be embedded; (4) defining critical points of the usage of the experiment; (5) creating usage guide in a language suitable for the student age. The authors believe that the paper will be useful for primary school teachers as well as for developers of the online laboratories for elementary school students