Montse Novell

Audio processors as a learning tool for basic acoustics

Audio processors like Audacity provide a “hear‐and‐see” learning tool for basic acoustics, combining sound and image. Activities designed as laboratory experiments with PC (even at home!) have been already successfully implemented, for example, about the dependence of timbre and acoustic spectrum, of pitch and frequency, and of loudness and amplitude.

Teaching and Learning Physics Using the Internet: The Baldufa Project

The aim of the Baldufa project that is presented in this article is to help both teachers and students in teaching‐learning activities in physics. A certain amount of HTML documentation is available, at this moment, to be used by students as learning aids. Teachers can propose their own pedagogical strategies via the Internet. For these reasons, the authors have programmed a server and have conceived a teaching package in HTML language.

Description and evaluation of a hybrid basic optics course

In this paper, the authors present and evaluate a partially web‐based Basic Optics course held each year from 2000 to 2003. The course has evolved over the last four years, and we analyse this process based on students’ responses to a paper‐based questionnaire. Their responses show the difficulty they had in adapting to this new environment, in which they are required to actively participate in their learning process. One positive aspect that has been brought to our attention as teachers is that it is necessary to reflect on the learning model we would like to introduce. In other words, the focus has shifted from the course contents to designing effective teaching and learning processes.

Virtual Information Managers in Physics Education Context

In this article, the authors analyze how educational institutions behave in relation with the contents available through the web. They also reflect on the features of the currently available information managers (IMs), from an educational point of view. They found there is a lack of tools for information management at low scale when it has to be used as a resource for teaching and learning. Finally, they propose a solution, which consists of naming a “small virtual educational library” (SVEL), and they show how it works in a physics education context.