Virtual labs: Experiencing internet-based 3D spatial training

Spatial skills are critical for higher-level thinking, reasoning and creative processes (Sorby et al., 2005). Thanks to today's Internet technologies, students can access virtual labs for gaining and improving their spatial skills. Smith (1964) estimated that spatial ability plays a key role in at least 84 different fields, including medicine, dentistry, mathematics, chemistry, engineering, and computing and so on. This pervasiveness makes it important to create training methods that help people gain spatial skills needed to comprehend visualizations. In spite of the importance of spatial skills, it is usually costly to access spatial training facilities (e.g., physical robotics), especially for developing three-dimensional (3D) spatial skills. Internet technologies have made online learning an achievable goal in education (Balamuralithara and Woods, 2009). Virtual labs have vast advantages in becoming an alternative to physical labs. The virtual lab is one possible technique that makes it possible to share expensive equipment among several universities or education centers. In this research, we designed and implemented two different types of Internet-based training systems for students to gain and improve their 3D spatial skills in a virtual lab setting. One system is to give students a remote control through an Internet Application to manipulate an actual robot which performs object rotation and movement tasks in a professional lab, and the other system is a 3D computer simulation system, where students can conduct the same tasks as the ones through the remote robotic system. Due to the lack of real interactions with peers and instructors with virtual labs (Balamuralithara and Woods, 2009), we add a team pair component in this study to minimize student online isolation and to increase the learning outcomes in a collaborative learning setting.