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Re: Computer Interfaces in the Physics Lab



Mike:

Although I'm in the minority on this topic I, too, feel that
computers have become the outcome of the lab, rather than physics
principles. The usual response to this thread is "We have to
prepare them for the working world", or "That's the way
they will be doing it in industry". In fact, the principles of physics
that we are trying to teach are being minimized while the technology
we are using is now the objective.

I often have students in my college classes who do not know how
to plot data, draw a best-fit line, and take the slope of the line, even
though they have had classes in physics and chemistry before mine.
They tell me that they have never HAD to do that before. "The
computer always did that for us."

I taught at a large university for a number of years. In the
freshman mechanics lab, kinematics experiments were done
exclusively by computer. In a typical experiment, students
released a rider on an air track, timing data was fed to the
computer by photo gates. Then the computer calculated
acceleration, speeds, and printed a graph. The students just
bundled all this stuff up and turned it in. I always wondered
why the students had to be there at all. They could have
phoned the lab in.

I think that computers have little (no?) place in the freshman
lab. I know that 'educators' will say that using computers frees
the students from the drudgery and lets them concentrate on
thinking and analysis. uh huh.

Wes Davis


-----Original Message-----
From: mike sloothaak set L DIG <mike.sloothaak@EXCITE.COM>
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Date: Friday, September 01, 2000 4:22 PM
Subject: Computer Interfaces in the Physics Lab


I'm support staff in a small college, just hired.

I am surprised (and frankly, a little concerned) about how introductory
physics labs are shifting towards computer based experiments. I have always
tried to adhere to the KISS philosophy. For example, to show students
linear
relationship of a simple resistor (ohm's law), I want to use a DC power
supply, a resistor with pretty colored stripes (or a length of resistance
wire) a voltmeter and an ammeter, a pencil and graph paper.

But I am feeling pressured to use a complete PC, a PASCO 750 interface with
its accompaning software, a power amplifier, a rheostat.... And of course a
printer to give the students a copy of the graph the software makes.

I am concerned that physics educators are feeling pressure to computerize
for the sake of computerizing. When I ask my professors why we need the
computer to do "Ohm's Law", I do not get answers based on physics or
pedagogy, but rather on apperances. "Other schools are doing it this way",
or "the students expect to see computers in today's labs. They consider us
backwards if they are not there."

Now, I think computers have a place in these labs. Computers are especially
useful to collect and analyze big repetitive data sets, and using a spread
sheet to analyze such data is good experience for students in a wide range
of fields. But I really DON'T see many other educational advantages. And
they often violate my KISS philosophy, which I feel is the cornerstone to
good science.

Students and instructors often spend more time getting the
software/interface up and running than doing physics, and often these
complex computer-based set-up force teacher and student to do the
experiment
the ONE way that the software expects. It is often difficult to EXPERIMENT
with the experiments.

I'd like to read the comments of others on this trend.





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