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Re: Computer Interfaces in the Physics Lab

On the other hand, if you use software like LoggerPro
which lets you VERY EASILY configure your own
investigation, in kinematics experiments you can limit
the output to only a position vs.time graph and then
instruct the students how to develop the associated
velocity and acceleration graphs on their own. This
provides excellent pedagogy (IMHO) on the derivative
(ie, slope @ HS level) relationships involved. Also,
if you want to get decent experimental results that
are mathematically meaningful, it's very helpful (yea,
necessary) to have experimental tools that are equal
to the task. Hand timing isn't. John Barrere Apex HS
Apex, NC
--- Wes Davis <wlrdavis@EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
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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