Use of a virtual laboratory for teaching instrument design

This paper considers the role of instruments as measuring devices. The cyberbooks that we have been developing for teaching instrument design contain nonlinearly organised text, reactive pictures, motion video clips and a virtual laboratory environment that can be called up as and when it is needed. Students use this laboratory to design, test and use virtual instruments in scientific and engineering experiments. We believe that combining learning resources into integrated and self-contained packages is an important way of developing portable training products that can be used in locations other than those where they were developed. However, in doing this it is important to use appropriate metaphors to facilitate student understanding of the embedded material. We have found the book metaphors to be a useful one; combining this with a virtual laboratory environment enables us to develop completely self contained interactive learning environments that do not require students to use a conventional laboratory environment