🚀 go-pugleaf

>After reading todays message about the Australian conference on "Computers
>in University Physics Education" I decided to share the following quotation
>from 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."
>
>A lot has happen since these strong words were written but many people
>still think that teaching with computers is not desirable. I would like
>to know what most subscribers (not a random sample of physics teachers)
>think about educational advantage and pitfalls of digital technology. It
>would perhaps be useful if those of us who have strong feelings about
>teachng software (one way or another) expressed themselves BRIEFLY and
>explained their positions. I will try to do this next week.
>
>           Ludwik Kowalski        kowalski@apollo.montclair.edu
 I use Sensornet in the physics labs because it is quick, cheap, and allows
us to measure and display stuff way faster than manual means, AFTER they
have learned how to do their best with the primitive methods. I use
Interactive PhysicsR only for those demonstrations impossible/too expensive
to be done by other means, e.g. trajectory problems in real time. I use
Voyager as an astronomy simulator and there is now way we could cover the
material we do now with simple 2d fixed text/diagrammatic models. Even 3 d
demos lack the complexity possible in seconds with voyager.
I force the use of cricket graph as a graphical analysis tool, again, after
showing them the hard way to do it. with curve fitting, my students can in
3 minutes tell if their Charles' law gas thermometers have found absolute
zero well. There is really no way to cover the material we wish to, in the
context of the modern world (i.e. computer literate) wihtout the tools I
have mentioned.
Take it one step further to include NASA data from mosaic, and you have
some pretty modern stuff. Does this abuse the "spirit of physics"? Not
quite-instead it allows students awash in a sea of sensory stimulation
(ever play Nintendo?) to use these _tools_ to explore thier world.
I suppose the same could have been said of the study of the bible from
manuscripts as Gutenberg was developing his press.

IMHO
aloha

bill

------------------------
Bill Wiecking
Honolulu Hawaii
Bill@ahi.pbrc.hawaii.edu
Pacific Biomedical Research Center
Bekesy Lab of Neurobiology
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