🚀 go-pugleaf

Reply on;
J.S. Miller, as it appeared in Physics Today (July, 1982, page 10).
>
>   ... "This machine business is a curse upon us - anathema ! It robs
>   the beauty of physics - it cheats the students - it is a sickness !
>   It destroys the humanism the subject posesses. Deliver us from this
>   affliction - this plague - this evil monster - which so abuses the
>   spirit of physics."
>
>
My basic position is that I will seek all available ways to share my love
of Physics with my students in ways which are acceptable to them and which
can be readily accessed by them. To this end I have to be aware of where
they are coming from in terms of knowledge, attitudes and skills.  I see
the computer as just one of my tools and in this context I seek to use them
where appropriate just as I use demonstrations or lectures to support their
learning.

With regard to the use of computers I have to be sensitive to the student's
ability to access the software in meaningful ways and the general
accessability of the software on machines with which they are familiar.
Fortunately students are now coming to university with a greater awareness
of how to use computers so that the issue of illiteracy and keyboard skills
is becoming less of a problem.

The use of computers to teach Physics is not a single faceted gem.  There
are many ways that they can be used and as the level of the student changes
so does the power of the computer to change abstract concepts into concepts
that can be modelled on screen.  This modelling aspect is one of the most
promising aspects.  The electronic page turner is usually seen as the
bottom of the heirarchy.  In there is also the use of the computer to
collect data, to present the data in graphical form and a number of other
approaches.

Now as to this plague which abuses the spirit of Physics and destroys its
humanism I am looking forward to the responses.
David Bailey                              !  Faculty of Science &
Technology,
University of Western Sydney, Nepean            !  P.O. Box 10, KINGSWOOD  2747
Phone (047) 360 429  Fax (047) 360 713    !  Australia