UNL professor develops InfoMall, a CD-ROM that contains much of the information
needed for physics classes. by Betty VanDeventer of the Lincoln
Star
A University of Nebraska-Lincoln physicist has taken the lead in electronic
publishing, creating a CD-ROM that may replace books in high school physics
classrooms.
UNL physicist Robert Fuller has created "Physics InfoMall," the
first CD-ROM containing a collection of textbooks and other materials for
high school physics teachers.
May 1, physics teacher will be able to shop the Physics InfoMall on their
computers, bypassing their local libraries and books to create their own
lesson plans.
Physics teachers will be able to cut from any of the 35,000 electronic pages
and paste physics materials into their own computer files to create not
only their own lesson plans but also instructional material for laboratory
exercises and demonstrations for students.
Computers replacing books is just one of the revolutionary changes in education
promised by electronic publishing.
UNL recently held a day long symposium to look at electronic publishing's
effect on scholarly journals and publications, professors, University of
Nebraska Press, libraries, and the classroom.
Existing technology allows professors and others to do almost anything they
want in electronic publishing, said Kent Hendrickson, dean of UNL libraries,
even though technological improvements will continue.
TECHNOLOGY WILL change the way students learn and the way teachers
teach.
The need to memorize long lists will be a thing of the past, because students
will have all the information they need at their fingertips, Fuller said.
Most students and physicists alike use physics books only to find examples
of problems they are working on.
Fuller likes to say that even if teachers and students don't know what they
want, InfoMall can help them find it.
InfoMall shoppers won't be limited to high school physics teachers, Fuller
said, even though the CD-ROM was targeted to that audience.
InfoMall will be a valuable tool for physics students of all ages, as well
as for college professors and researchers, he said. The new technology will
save users money, time and storage space.
InfoMall contains the text and graphics form 18 physics textbooks as well
as other books, biographies and titles, abstracts from the American Journal
of Physics dating to 1933 and selected articles of interest to high school
teachers and students.
InfoMall also includes 3,900 articles from Physics Today, The Physics Teacher,
and The American Journal of Physics.
INFOMALL WAS Fuller's Brainchild.
It began in 1986 with what Fuller calls his "ah ha" experience.
At that time he was a visiting distinguished professor at the Air Force
Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Students at the Academy were required that year, for the first time, to
have their own computers, but there was little use for them other than word
processing.
Fuller and other professors at the academy envisioned that, someday, the
expensive books students were required to buy would be replaced with CD-ROMs
containing everything they needed.
Then a company representative demonstrated how to search a list of articles
on CD-ROM using one word, such as "superconductivity," to track
and link physics concepts that a scientist might not otherwise consider.
"This technology could change dramatically the way people think about
information and connect different kinds of information," Fuller said.
Fuller always had been interested in how technology could be used in the
classroom. By the time he returned to UNL from the Academy, he was convinced
of the need to develop a CD-ROM to help people learn physics.
And he has.
****
Fuller and Dean Zollman of Kansas State University built InfoMall under
National Science Foundation grants totaling roughly $1.9 million.
Physics InfoMall will be available May 1 through The Learning Team in Armonk,
NY. List price is $495; the price for an educator is $295.
Learn more about the Physics InfoMall on our
server.
By Kim Hachiya, UNL News and Information
A new program to recognize and reward outstanding teachers at UNL will name
10 charter members in March.
The Academy of Distinguished Teachers will identify outstanding classroom
teachers at UNL and encourage them to share their teaching expertise with
others at UNL and around the state, said Alvah Kilgore, associate vice chancellor
for academic affairs.
The goals of the academy are to produce a sustained group of faculty who
are advocates of teaching excellence at UNL; to have them share their teaching
skills outside the UNL community; to model effective teaching for those
within UNL; and to serve as an advisory group to the senior vice chancellor
for academic affairs on matters involving the enhancement of teaching.
Each academy member will have a $1,000 stipend permanently added to his
or her base salary as long as the person remains a member of the academy.
Four charter members have been identified already, he said, and six others
will be chosen through a competitive nomination process this spring. the
first four are Robert Fuller, professor of physics; Mel Thornton,
professor of mathematics; John Gruhl, professor of political science; and
Patrice Berger, professor of history. Fuller and Thornton are previous
winners of the University of Nebraska's Outstanding Teaching and Instructional
Creativity Award. Gruhl and Berger have been nominated for the award, bestowed
by the university system, this year.
To fill out the charter class, a nomination process has been established
using the existing OTICA guidelines, Kilgore said. In upcoming years, the
top two UNL nominees for the OTICA award will automatically become members
of the academy. The Teaching Council selects UNL's OTICA nominees from names
submitted by departments and colleges.
Kilgore said UNL once has a number of awards to recognize good teachers,
but many have been consolidated at the system level or have been reduced
due to funding cuts.
"We felt a need to recognize that we have a strong teaching university.
I can think of many who would qualify right away for the academy. We decided
to try to come up with a way to recognize our many outstanding teachers
in a highly visible and service-oriented way," he said.
Anyone can nominate a faculty member for the charter class, Kilgore said.
Nomination criteria include letter summarizing the nominee's accomplishments
in teaching, a summary of student and peer evaluations, a description of
the nominee's creative activities related to teaching and letter of support
including commentary on the importance of the nominee's teaching and the
nominee's outstanding contributions to teaching excellence.
The deadline for submission of all materials to the Senior Vice Chancellor
for Academic Affairs is Feb. 17. Nomination forms and detailed guidelines
are available at 208 Administration Building.
By Jack Kennedy of the Lincoln Journal
When the University of Nebraska-Lincoln initiated a new concept in undergraduate
physics laboratories last spring, lab manager Vicki Plan Clark was excited
about the hands-on, multi-experience approach for pre-med majors.
But she didn't want to spend all of her time compiling the individual
printed materials that each student got to explain the new approach.
"That was just too much work," she said with a laugh. It took
energy away from the real job -- making physics come alive.
The physics-astronomy department also needed more money for new equipment
or repairs to existing devices in the diverse lab.
The solution in both cases? Put the printed stuff together in a three-ring
binder that can be updated easily -- then sell it for $24 each to 500 or
so UNL students a year, with the income coming back to the department.
The result was a manual, written by Clark and internationally-known UNL
faculty member and physics educator Robert Fuller, Omaha Westside High School
teacher Charles Lang and Chris Moore, a UNL research associate.
It's a good idea, a representative of a Des Moines, Iowa, publishing firm,
Kendall/Hunt, said during one of the firm's periodic visits to the UNL department.
Other teachers and students around the nation, the publisher said, could
benefit from the new lab layout and its practical, flexible printed materials.
The NU Board of Regents liked the setup, too. On Jan. 14, the regents approved
creation of an endowment for the physics department, with revenues from
the manual's sale.
The first run of 1,200 copies wasn't printed until September. So the UNL
team doesn't know yet how many copies it may sell or how much money it may
get from royalties to put back into the department.
But there already are expressions of interest from elsewhere. That doesn't
surprise Clark. She says she knew soon after she arrived here in fall 1993
from her native Michigan that Fuller and his crew were widely known for
creative physics instruction. That reputation has drawn attention to the
new lab and manual.
The team took the lab plan to Notre Dame University last summer. College
and high school teachers at a physics conference there asked when a manual
would be available to explain the innovative approach. The publication wasn't
set then, but UNL has now notified physics teachers far and wide that it's
out.
The approach is just as applicable to high schools as it is to colleges,
Clark and physics-astronomy department head Anthony Starace said. The publisher
agrees, and hopes to sell manuals to the secondary school market, too.
Clark and Starace say the new lab layout is much more creative than conventional
physics laboratories. It includes a variety of stations where students observe
what they see and record their reactions. Then they move to more active
experiments, working with computers. "They can as 'What if?' questions
and get immediate feedback," Starace said.
In the third lab phase, students get an immediate assessment of whether
their actions and assumptions have been correct. That's the best way to
teach, Starace said.
This page was last updated February 15, 1996
For comments and questions, contact cmoore@unlinfo.unl.edu