New trends in physics teaching, v.4; The ... - unesdoc - Unesco

New Trends in Physics Teaching IV
personal experience with a microcomputer. A most comprehensive and semi-technical description
of microcomputers and their role in the laboratory was presented in an article in The Physics
Teacher by Robert Tinker of TERK [4]
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Debate will continue as to the role of microcomputers in the classroom and laboratory,
especially in introductory courses. When teachers realize that these devices can extend in an
intuitive manner the ability of students in question and monitor physical systems as illustrated
by the solar collector and pendulum examples, they wil become more widely accepted. This
can not occur, however, until a greater effort is made to introduce physics teachers to these
capabilities and offer them the skills to use microcomputers in their own labs and classrooms.
REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
For more information write to The American Association of Physics Teachers, Executive Office, Graduate
Physics Building, SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y. 11794, United States.
KIM was manufactured by MOSTechnology, but is now out of production. The new AAPT Workshop version
wil use SYM.
Technical Education Research Center, Cambridge, Mass. 02138, United States.
TINKER, R. Microcomputers in the Teaching Lab. The Physics Teacher. Vol. 19, No. 2, February 1981,
pp. 94-105.
See also:
0 Microelectronics in Education: Control Applications. Conference report published by Brighton Technical
College, Brighton, United Kingdom, 1981.
Microprocessors and School Physics. Physics Education, Vol. 16, No. 3, May 1981, pp. 136-51.
SPARKS, R.A. Microprocessors in Science Teaching. London, Hutchinson Education, 1982.
SUMMERS, M.K. Microprocessors in the curriculum and the classroom. Computer Education, Vol. 31, NO. 1,
February 1979,pp. 9-14.
Reference should also be made to the Harris Data Memory, a device which permits the recording of up to
512 experimental results in the form of electrical voltages at rates of from 3 per hour to 1000 per second.
These can then be replayed into a chart recorder, a meter or an oscilloscope at any of the rates mentioned.
This allows the user to slow down rapidly changing values or to speed up very slow ones. Details from Philip
Harris, Ltd., Lynn House, Shenstone, WS14 OEE, United Kingdom.
300