Resumen de Going the way of the slide rule: can remote laboratories fungibly replace the in-person experience?
Euan D. Lindsay, Philip C. Wankat
The slide rule is an important part of the heritage of the engineering discipline, but it was ultimately replaced as the newtechnology of calculators overtook it. Since this scenario is potentially repeating itself now with the introduction of remotelaboratory classes in engineering, it is useful to compare the current situation of hands-on versus remote laboratories with the casehistory of slide rule replacement by calculators. Hands-on laboratories form a core part of the education of the current generationof engineers; this paper explores whether it is possible for remote laboratories to replace them. Remote laboratories are laboratorieswhere students conduct experiments on real, physical equipment, but the students are not physically co-located with the equipment.The key factor is the fungibility of the learning outcomes that laboratories provide—whether the remote experience can achieve allor the most important of the things that the in-person-experience can. The slide rule became obsolete because new technologycould achieve the most important of its outcomes, but quicker, easier and cheaper. An analysis of remote laboratories shows thatmany learning outcomes are able to be achieved more easily and more cheaply in the remote mode, and additional learningoutcomes are also possible, with only a small number of non-fungible outcomes preventing remote laboratories replacing the face-to-face experience.
