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Computer Intensive Physics Robert G. Fuller Portugal Conference March 6, 199825 University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Dr. Amy Speigel, a Ph.D. in psychology, evaluated the course and has written a report on lessons learned from Paperless Physics. If you are interested, you can send her e-mail and she will send you the printed report (aspiegel@unlinfo.unl.edu). All I have done is pull out the big ideas of what she saw in her evaluation of "Paperless Physics." Then I will tell you my own feelings about it and I will tell you what we're doing now.

IMAGE imgs/Lisbon42.gif

normally have in a physics course. You have just got to make sure that the software works every time when you go to class and that the students know how to use it. Every one of those software packages I mentioned in the beginning, except for Word and Excel which are sold by Microsoft, are sold by different companies. They all have slightly different key strokes. They all behave in slightly different ways. It blew the minds of the students. I don't know how to explain it any other way, all of those different keystrokes just wiped them out. It has nothing to do with the physics. It is learning the key strokes. I had the idea before this course that typing computer key strokes is just like typing a typewriter, that you only needed to know which key to hit. That seemed to be wrong, because when you type a key stroke like "save" it's doing something and you need to have some image in your head of what that key stroke is doing. So just teaching key strokes is too simple. It is more complicated than that. I do not know how to do it yet, but I know it is a problem.

The students need lots of instructor interaction. They easily get lost in the software. You need to be active in the classroom. Giving them assurance that it is O.K. to get

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Computer Intensive Physics Robert G. Fuller	Portugal Conference	March 6, 199825 University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Dr. Amy Speigel, a Ph.D. in psychology, evaluated the course and has written a report on lessons learned from Paperless Physics. If you are interested, you can send her e-mail and she will send you the printed report (aspiegel@unlinfo.unl.edu). All I have done is pull out the big ideas of what she saw in her evaluation of "Paperless Physics." Then I will tell you my own feelings about it and I will tell you what we're doing now.

normally have in a physics course. You have just got to make sure that the software works every time when you go to class and that the students know how to use it. Every one of those software packages I mentioned in the beginning, except for Word and Excel which are sold by Microsoft, are sold by different companies. They all have slightly different key strokes. They all behave in slightly different ways. It blew the minds of the students. I don't know how to explain it any other way, all of those different keystrokes just wiped them out. It has nothing to do with the physics. It is learning the key strokes. I had the idea before this course that typing computer key strokes is just like typing a typewriter, that you only needed to know which key to hit. That seemed to be wrong, because when you type a key stroke like "save" it's doing something and you need to have some image in your head of what that key stroke is doing. So just teaching key strokes is too simple. It is more complicated than that. I do not know how to do it yet, but I know it is a problem.
The students need lots of instructor interaction. They easily get lost in the software. You need to be active in the classroom. Giving them assurance that it is O.K. to get
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