This project is a collaboration involving a 4-year school, two community colleges (Illinois Central College and Richland Community College), and an instrumentation company (National Instruments). The project is improving the competency of technology students with virtual instrumentation and data acquisition systems by developing and teaching courses using this technology. These courses are preparing students for measuring and analyzing real world data using virtual instruments. The award provides the necessary hardware and software and the project trains community college faculty members in the use of the software. The project team, with the help of an experienced evaluator, is determining how the use of virtual instrumentation affects student learning. The project team plans to describe their educational materials and evaluation results in presentations at various conferences, in the education journals, and on websites, both at the educational institutions and the instrumentation company.
