Capacity building in virtual labs for teachers and teacher educators of Maldives

A three-day capacity building programme on virtual labs for teachers and teacher educators of Maldives was organized by CEMCA in collaboration with the National Institute of Education (NIE), Maldives from 1^st to 3^rd February 2021.

Fathimath Naseer, Hon'ble Minister of State for Education, Maldives appreciated the initiative and emphasised the usefulness of virtual labs in reaching teachers and students across diverse geographies in Maldives. Prof. Madhu Parhar, Director CEMCA, spoke of how virtual labs could enhance science education.

Prof. Prema Nedungadi, Director, AmritaCREATE, presented an overview of Online Labs for Schools. Shri Anil Kumar Pipal, eLearning Divisions, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), GOI spoke of initiatives of the MeitY including online labs. Prof. Methil Krish from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham highlighted the usefulness of virtual labs in the current context of disrupted in-person education.

Mr. Saneesh from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham demonstrated online experiments and simulations for school-level Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Mathematics. Research insights on the effectiveness of online labs were presented. 194 teachers from Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Mathematics attended this programme. Participants explored online experiments, posted queries, and answered questions through polls. They welcomed this opportunity to learn how to access, use, and integrate virtual labs in teaching and learning. Mr. Hussain Majid from NIE Maldives appreciated this initiative and spoke of the need to conduct more such training programmes.