AAPT Denver Meeting

FB4-- Physlets:
Java Programming for Physics Education

Abstract

Finding appropriate uses of the World Wide Web continues to challenge the education community. Many Internet sites, including our own WebPhysics site, distribute media-rich curricular material. Good sites provide indexing and content that is unavailable through other technologies. The worst sites are merely transcriptions of a text book or faculty notepads. In fairness to the World Wide Web, it required heroic effort to move beyond text and images up until 1996. But 1997 has changed that. A good example of an interactive technology that brings added benefit is the set of small scriptable Java applets—we call them Physlets—being developed at Davidson College. Java is a platform independent programming language that is very flexible and ideally suited for instructional purposes such as problems. Java applets can be embedded directly into HTML documents and can interact with the user by employing a scripting language such as JavaScript. Adding Applets to an HTML page is no different than adding an image. Although animation can certainly be accomplished using more sophisticated programs such as Interactive Physics or possibly even QuickTime movies, Applets are often smaller and can interact with the user. Scripting allows one applet to be used for many different types of questions. The strengths and weaknesses of the Java programming language for various types of projects will be discusses and examples of Java and JavaScript will be presented.