The Promise and Impact of Computation for Teaching

People have dreamed of and built machines to automate computation starting with the abacus in 3000 BC, the Mechanical Calculator of Leonardo da Vinci, the Arithmetic Machine of Blaise Pascal, the punch cards of Joseph-Marie Jacquard, the Calculating Engines of Charles Babbage, and the Automatic Computing Engine of Alan Turing. After World War II, computational power advanced rapidly through the invention of transistors, integrated circuits, microprocessors, and countless other devices until the pocket computers of today. But the use of computers for instruction was an afterthought. The first use of computers for Computer Added Instruction (CAI) is attributed to Donald Bitze who developed the Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations (PLATO) system in the 1960s at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. However, CAI did not become practical or widespread until the introduction of the personal computer and the release of the World Wide Web by CERN in 1993.

Few would have predicted how the combination of at-your-fingertip computation and the internet would change the world, including teaching practice. But has the computer become just a magic box, a modern Zauberkasten, made of wires and integrated circuits that lets physics teachers do magic tricks, such as simulating molecular dynamics, the time evolution of quantum wavefunctions, or the collision of black holes? Do computers foster interactive engagement, or do they inhibit creative thinking, human interaction, and attention spans? Have computers fundamentally improved how we teach and learn physics?

This talk presents a personal history of how computers and the internet have challenged me and changed how I teach. I present examples to show that computers can provide a learning experience that utilizes students cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains of learning.