To achieve this chapter’s goals, we first introduce two research-based smart- phone apps that offer wide-ranging opportunities to engage students in active STEM learning.26 We decided to focus on two different apps for the following reasons. First, they can support two pedagogically distinct types of student active engagement with STEM. Second, both apps are freely avail- able and do not require ongoing internet access. Third, these apps are based on STEM education research and have undergone significant testing with various student populations, and yet they offer different ways to engage stu- dents. Fourth, these apps have teaching communities associated with them, that have produced and tested numerous activities, lesson plans, virtual labs, and authentic experiments. The first app is a suite of phET simulations that offers students an opportunity to model and visualize various STEM phe- nomena (see Figure 21.1(a)).28 The second app allows students to collect and analyze data in real time, as well as transfer it to their computers for addi- tional in-depth analysis (see Figure 21.1(b)).
21.2.1 PhET Simulation Suite as a Smartphone App
phET (physics Educational Technology) interactive Simulations is a project founded by Carl Wieman in 2002. Since then, the phET team has developed hundreds of interactive STEM simulations for K–12 and post-secondary learners. phET is designed to promote student conceptual understanding of STEM fields by actively engaging them in scientific exploration and increas- ing their interest in science.29 Thus, phET simulations are designed to be engaging, interactive, connected to the real world, and yet representing the phenomena under study as accurately as possible.3 Unlike many other STEM visualizations, phET simulations are based on numerical solutions of under- lying equations, governing the behavior of the physical system. For example, in the Gas properties STEM simulation,30 the size of the container is assumed to be 10 nm, to allow for the realistic number of particles in that volume.
at the same time, pressure and temperature are calculated as macroscopic parameters of the system (see Figure 21.2).
While the simplest of the simulations—Ideal (see Figure 21.3) allows stu- dents to modify only three parameters: the number of particles, the types of particles, and the volume of the container, at the next level—Explore, the students can heat up the gas and even overheat it, such as the gas pressure will grow sufficiently to blow off the container’s lid (see Figure 21.3). More- over, in every type of the simulation, one can keep some parameters constant
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269 Smartphone Applications as a Catalyst for Active Learning in Chemistry
(i.e., volume, temperature or pressure), thus isolating the parameters of interest and investigating how they are interrelated.
phET simulations also use multiple representations, address known stu- dent conceptual difficulties and misconceptions, incorporate game elements, as well as allow teachers to increase the virtual experiment complexity within the same group of simulations (see Figures 21.2 and 21.3). as a result, this plat- form allows students to learn about the real-world physical systems through the virtual experience of cleverly-designed interactive simulations that allow students to visualize abstract phenomena, build experimental setups, make Figure 21.1 Screenshots of (a) phET and (b) phyphox smartphone apps. repro-
duced from https://phet.colorado.edu/en/, and https://phyphox.org/, under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license https://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Chapter 21 270
Figure 21.2 a screenshot of the Gas properties: ideal phET interactive simulation.
reproduced from https://phet.colorado.edu/en/, under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/.
Figure 21.3 a screenshot of the Gas properties: Explore phET interactive simula- tion. The pressure of the gas as a result of heating blown off the lid of the gas container. reproduced from https://phet.colorado.edu/en/, under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license https://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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271 Smartphone Applications as a Catalyst for Active Learning in Chemistry
predictions and test them using virtual experiments.31,32 While phET simula- tions were originally built as computer programs, in the last years, phET has been expanded to work on ipads, tablets, as well as smartphones.33,34
The phET environment has numerous advantages, yet it is a relatively closed system and does not allow students to collect real time data. This can be done with the smartphone app, called Phyphox, discussed below.
21.2.2 Phyphox Smartphone App
phyphox (physics phone experiments) app was designed at the University of aachen, Germany and was spearheaded by Sebastian Staacks and his col- leagues35 (see Figure 21.1(b)). like phET, phyphox was originally designed to support physics learning, but it can be expanded to other science fields, such as chemistry, biology, earth science, mathematics, etc.36 phyphox is also based on STEM education research25,37 as it aims at promoting student active engaging through data collection and analysis, but it is much more open than phET. While phET has a structured experimental setup, where the students have limited degrees of freedom for its manipulation, phyphox allows students to use sensors already available in their smartphones, such as motion sensors, accelerometer sensor, pressure sensors, light sensors, a gyroscope, magnetic field sensors, etc. for their own science experiments.
The experiments are not limited by the phyphox app but are widely open to students’ imagination. The only limitations are the variables that can be measured and the range and sensitivity of the measurement. For example, students can measure acceleration, rate of rotation, ambient pressure, mag- netic field, illuminance, frequencies and intensities of sound, etc. Then the students can export data into their favourite software (e.g., MS Excel) and conduct the data analysis on their computers. in addition, phyphox can con- nect wirelessly to the computer through its remote access option. hence, while the smartphone works as the measuring device, the data can be simul- taneously displayed on students’ computers as will be demonstrated below.