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Re: Physics education via the internet?



Hugh Haskell asked:

But what does the issue of simulation have to do with the internet, which
is what this thread was all about in the first place? Can we access any of
NASA's simulators that way? Are their simulators resident on the internet
that cannot be downloaded to local computers?

I tried to list simulations yesterday as one of the benefits of using the
Internet. My point was not that simulations are better than labs or should
replace hands-on laboratory measurements. But the question under study in
this thread is whether there is a use for the Internet that cannot be done
better another way.

With the use of Java and JavaScript, we can finally work at truly
interactive simulations on the Internet. By the very nature of the
Internet, this means that the simulations I write as web pages will run
equally well on a PC with Windows 95, on a Mac or on a Unix box as long as
they have a JavaScript interpreter which is built into MS Internet
Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

The point is not that the Internet will replace labs, but rather that the
Internet can supplement print media in a very important way. That is if we
work to do so. Too much of what the Internet is used for is simply as a
print media replacement. That is unfortunate for our students who are
attempting to learn science in whatever way possible.

Richard
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Dr. Richard L. Bowman
Chair, Dept. of Physics e-mail: rbowman@bridgewater.edu
(and Dir. of Academic Computing) phone: 540-828-5441
Bridgewater College FAX: 540-828-5479
Bridgewater, VA 22812 http://www.bridgewater.edu/~rbowman/
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