Computer Intensive Physics Robert G. Fuller

Portugal Conference

March 6, 19985 University of Nebraska - Lincoln

I started to try an electronically based physics course in 1996, (See Figure 5), as a visiting professor at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, where every student owned a computer. Every student in the physics class had their own computer and it was hooked into a network that served the whole University. I had them buy a CD-ROM instead of a textbook. So that content was electronic. They bought a CD-ROM which was called the "Physics InfoMall" (See Figure 6). It's a mall just like a shopping mall of information about physics. It's on a CD- ROM.

I began to experiment with the CD-ROM in the spring semester of 1996 with students at the US Air Force Academy.
How do you give reading assignments when you cannot say go to page 12? When you use an electronic database, you can only find information by searching for it.

If you search for common physics words like "Einstein" you get 5,000 hits. Then the students become confused. How do you find information?

5