| Product Name: |
Interactive Journey through Physics |
| Level: |
a Year 12 class/ First Year Tertiary |
| Platform: |
Macintosh / PC - Windows / Windows 95 |
| Supplied Information: |
Interactive Journey through Physics is an interactive multimedia CD-ROM for foundation and first year university level physics students. It is primarily an audio-visual interactive multimedia exploration of mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism and optics. The package contains short text based topic reviews, 62 video clips, 89 animations, over 120 interactive simulations, 231 multiple choice problems, 129 MCAT review questions, an on-screen scientific calculator, list of equations, and a glossary. |
| Possible Use: |
This product is suitable for a Year 12 class/ First Year Tertiary courses for use by teachers preparing teaching materials. |
| Review: |
Although this package is designed for use by students at an introductory tertiary physics level, it contains numerous simulations, animations and video clips that also make an excellent resource for lecture demonstrations and tutorial discussions. Each topic is provided with review problems in a variety of formats to cater for the different learning styles of individual students, and a plain-text log file can (optionally) be saved to monitor progress. Very useful features of IJTP are the scientific calculator (with a "Constants" pop-up menu for common values such as the electron charge, etc.), and a built-in spreadsheet.
The material is presented in four modules, viz. Mechanics, Thermodynamic, Electricity & Magnetism and Light & Optics, each beginning with an overview video clip of a "talking head" introducing the physics content to be covered. Units within a module also contain an overview video, highlighting some interesting application of the concepts covered in the unit. Finally, topics within units begin with a topic review (consisting of rather uninspiring text/diagrams in a scrollable window), and generally proceed to animations, videos, simulations, problems and MCAT questions. (Australian users of IJTP may wonder about MCAT - this is the Association of American Medical Colleges Medical College Admission Test.)
The topics covered are standard to most junior physics courses, but it is disappointing that there is no mention of Kirchoff's laws, Thévènin's theorem and ac circuits. The material presented is engaging and accurate, with the videos, simulations and problems (with solutions) bringing Physics to life in a way that a textbook cannot rival.
IJTP can only be run (in 640x480 mode!) from the CD - the installation program copies a "shortcut" to the executable file; there is no "uninstall" feature. The package requires QuickTime, but the version provided is very outdated; accidentally installing it over a later version on my PC made the program inoperable, with any attempt to open it resulting in the dreaded "blue screen of death".
Navigating through IJTP can be frustrating. For instance, there is no "next" arrow (only "previous"), and videos, animations, problems and so on, could do with more descriptive names than Animation 1, Animation 2, etc.. Clicking on a video button opens the video player, but another mouse click is required to play it. Text is sometimes obscured on screen by other text or figures.
In summary, although I have no doubts that Interactive Journey through Physics is a very useful teaching aid, I could not recommend its purchase until the very clumsy interface is updated to match modern expectations.
|
|
Walter Kalceff, Department of Applied Physics, University of Technology, Sydney, 14 February 2000 |
| |
| Supplier: |
Pearson Education Australia
Unit 4, Level 2
14 Aquatic Drive
Frenchs Forest
NSW 2086 |
|
susannah.bowen@pearsoned.com.au |
|
http://www.pearsoned.com.au/ |
| Date Record Last Modified: |
28/3/2000 |
