Re: Computer Interfaces in the Physics Lab

[Fran Poodry <FPoodry@AOL.COM>]

Wes Davis writes:

> 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.

It does work, if you spend significant time teaching the students how to
think and analyze and draw conclusions, and emphasize the importance of this
by giving praise and even high grades for good thinking and analysis.  I find
that at the high school non-honors level, this takes a significant amount of
time, because the students simply have little or no practice in thinking
critically or analyzing data (though they may be able to analyze a poem, I
don't know. ;-)) If I want to complete say, measurement through projectile
motion in one semester, I need the speedy computer measurements in some labs
just to get the data collected and graphed more quickly.
However, I agree with the several people who have said that in some labs, the
computer stuff is overkill.  Use the computers where they are an improvement,
but for Ohm's law and other simple labs with simple equipment, they are not
needed.

Fran Poodry
Williamstown HS
Williamstown, NJ