Saturday, August 17, 2013

Cool Physix & Astronomy Apps to Consider

I thought starting the academic semester/year with a bunch of Physix Apps and strategies for acquiring them might be the best gift I give my fellow Physix teachers and instructors the world over.

So, within this PDF file I listed all the Apps I currently own, which I hope you can acquire as many of them as possible to make your educational experience with your students a richer experience at least as far as mobile devices technology is concerned.




Please, keep in mind that most of the apps were free when I first got them but some either were removed from the App store or a price was added to them.

Mr. Le Nadj! suggestions regarding app acquirement:

1) Check the app store every two weeks or so and search for new apps dealing with specific topics you are interested in.

2) Sift through the junk by setting the search criteria to be Free & the display to be based on Ratings so that you get the free apps that got the best ratings.

3) Download the chosen app(s) even if you may not think you would need it right away because they may either disappear or become pricy. You still can delete them if need be.

Happy Educational App Year! :-)

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Physics Reading Quizzes that Tap into Students' Creative Power & Show & Tell

Believing in the importance of reading in physics and science in general and in the vitality of writing creatively and clearly, I devised a few reading quizzes that enable my students to (a) demonstrate that they have indeed read some of their assigned chapters and (b) allow them to express themselves creatively within a physics context. 

Following are samples of students' creative outputs in such reading quizzes.


Sample 01: Notice the citations
Sample 02: Use of Dialogue
Sample 03: Notice the depth of thinking even prior to coverage of the topics at hand!

Considering the fact that these are reading quizzes that preceded the eventual coverage of the featured physics concepts, the students have done such a superb job with the concepts and I am very proud of them for their creativity, their reading effort, and above all their willingness to move their learning process to such unchartered territories!

Please, share similar assessment tools or activities you employ in your physics curriculum to foster the reading and writing skills of your students on one hand and enable them to express themselves creatively on the other hand. Thank you