Invited Speakers

Francisco Esquembre


Department of Mathematics
Universidad de Murcia





Francisco (Paco) Esquembre (born 1963) received the Ph.D. degree in Mathematics in June 1991, from the University of Murcia, Spain, where he is Associate Professor since 1994. Since June 2009, he is the Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics. His academic expertise includes Differential Equations, Dynamical Systems, and Numerical Analysis. Francisco is the author of the Easy Java Simulations modeling and authoring tool (http://www.um.es/fem/EjsWiki)  and his current research includes modeling and simulation of scientific processes for didactical purposes. Francisco has participated in numerous international and national research projects in these topics.
 
From 1995 until 1999, Paco held a position at the Regional Ministry of Education of the Region of Murcia, where he was General Director for Universities and Research. From 2002 to 2006, Paco was Director of the Office for Transfer Research of his University and also coordinated the participation of the University in the regional Science Fairs.
 
Paco was member and president of the CoLoS group, participates actively in the Open Source Physics project and was elected member of the board of the Multimedia in Physics Teaching and Learning international group in 2006 and co-president of this board in 2010.


Facilitating the creation of virtual and remote laboratories for Engineering education. (Lessons from the past ten years and plans for the next “n”.)

For roughly the past ten years, we have been working on providing a number of software tools that facilitate the creation of virtual and remote laboratories for Engineering education. Virtual laboratories, or simulations, can be used to promote a more active role of students when studying certain phenomena. Remote laboratories add the extra value of using real hardware, typically at a distant location, which shows students the additional issues that appear when using real equipment. These pedagogical benefits are particularly effective if the laboratories are designed to be used using an Interactive Engagement approach, one in which students participate in hands-on, head-on activities that challenge them to learn.
Our work, which received the gift of the collaboration with many other people interested in improving education, in particular in Control Engineering, has taught us what are the features and software platforms required to create virtual and remote laboratories. We review the lessons learnt from the past ten years of successful outcomes and extract from them the plans to follow in a moment when there is an important technology change: from computers to tablets.