EXPLORING VIRTUAL EXPERIMENTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOL SCIENCES LESSONS

Science experiments can be simulated easily using the proper software applications. The simulated experiments provide to pupils / students the opportunity to run experiments many times and at convenient time. On the other hand, the teachers can use the simulations for specific demonstrations during the theoretical lessons. Science experiments can be also presented as educational video-clips. In many Physics and Chemistry courses, real experiments are represented as digital video demonstrations. Taking into consideration the mentioned ideas, this paper emphasizes some results on developing related learning objects that include platform collaboration in two Socrates-Comenius 2.1. European projects: "FISTE - A Future Way for In-Service Teacher Training across Europe" (Project no. 118766-CP-1-2004-1-RO- COMENIUS-C21) and "VccSSe - Virtual Community Collaborating Space for Science Education" (Project no. 128989-CP-1-2006-1-RO-COMENIUS-C21). More, the experiences gained in the Socrates-Comenius 2.1. projects are useful for developing various skills for teaching in the m- Learning era during the Leonardo da Vinci project "MENUET - Mobile E-Novative Use of E-learning Technologies" (Project no. LLP-2008-1-RO1-LEO05-00813).