Technology in the Physics Classroom Can Benefit Both Students and Teachers

In today's world, technology is ubiquitous and has seeped into nearly every moment of our lives. However, many classrooms seem behind technologically. The following is an exploration of why and how we should incorporate technology into our physics classrooms specifically, and what we need to be prepared for when it inevitably happens.

Anita Sanyal, former education teacher at UMD and current assistant professor of education at Universidad Catolica de Chile told me that it is not necessarily important what technology we use, but how we make it a part of the student's learning experience. She explained a scenario where the students were learning about inertia and so the teacher took a video camera and taped another person driving a car and dropping some keys out the window. They then projected the video onto the whiteboard and went frame by frame to plot the path that the dropped keys took. This is a great way to integrate technology in a way that enriches the student's learning environment.



While there are the obvious technological tools that are used in class, such as email and websites, there are others that can have more subtle but still beneficial effects. Take for example the clicker; this device allows students to answer questions anonymously and lets the teacher know how well students understand a certain problem. In classes where there are objective answers, such as physics, many students are apprehensive about answering questions for fear that they will be incorrect and therefore embarrassed in front of their classmates. Clickers, however, take away the spotlight and let students answer questions truthfully as well as see how many of their classmates thought of the same answer. Confidence is key in daunting classes like physics, and while it may not be immediately apparent why this is important, this confidence can lead to students being more enthusiastic since they don't fear being called on and getting the answer wrong.

I spoke with UMD physics professor Kaustubh Agashe about his opinion on clickers, and he agreed that not only will it help alleviate students' shyness, but it can help to provoke discussion if they are asked to think of an answer in groups and then use their clickers.

Another helpful tool in the physics classroom is the applet. Applets allow students to interact with certain concepts and see how they work when different parameters and variables are changed. For example, this applet allows students to see how fourier series work and how sines and cosines fit into different waves. This is really helpful since fourier analysis is a rather abstract mathematical concept which can be hard to visualize. These can be presented in class initially and then available on the class website for students to access if they want to use it themselves.

An oft-overlooked technology is the simple website. Even the most basic website can help students be more organized and aware of due dates and changes in the syllabus. If a student is sick or forgot to write down a due date, they could completely miss an assignment if there is no website. However, when the homeworks are posted online, there is no reason for any student to miss them. With more advanced websites such as ELMS, it becomes even more helpful because the student can then track their grades and discuss problems with other students online. Making it easy for students to contact each  other as well as the professor is extremely helpful in particularly challenging classes where students might not be able to complete assignments without help from others. In most physics classrooms it is common for students to have study groups in which they solve the homework problems together, and having an online resource for them is a huge improvement.

Yet another tool is the interactive whiteboard, where whatever the teacher writes is recorded for later viewing, and images and videos can be projected onto it and then written on. This is particularly helpful in physics classrooms where static and dynamic graphs and diagrams are used almost daily, but usually are limited to the artistic abilities of the professor. Having, for example, a dynamic image of the Bohr model can help teachers show students how the atom "cloud" works and can also help illustrate the differences in the models as they changed over the years.

However, as Anita Sanyal reiterated, what is most important is using technology to keep students interested and helping them learn. There are many different ways to use technology actively in the classroom and get students excited about learning in an alternative way. Thankfully, it is fairly easy to think of ideas on how to use these tools as a way to make learning more interactive.



For example, using walkie-talkies and stopwatches in an experiment to triangulate a position using the speed of sound is a simple way to integrate technology in the classroom. If physics teachers try to come up with new and creative ways to use the tools around us in the classroom, they can create a generation of physics students who are eager and excited to learn.