Overview

PHET Simulations:



Technology in the classroom can still be seen as a novel concept in this day and age, even though the majority of people ages 6 and over travel with at least one smart phone and an ipad everywhere they go.The underlying reason to this can pertain to the fact that public education has remained "stagnant" and has not seen a "significant change in state standards in more than 15 years. See More about New Proposed Common Core Standards Here

However, without much opposition, one can claim that technology really does make life easier, so the real underlying question is, ""Does the ease of technology benefit education enough to replace traditional methods of teaching?" If it ain't broke, don't fix it right?
The short answer is yes, and helpful implementations of technology can be found in easy-to-use simulation website likes Phet.

WHAT IS PhET??

PHET is a free, fun and interactive, research based science simulation website that allows students a hands on approach to learning about complex science concepts in a way that is very similar to actual research. PhET developers incorporate results from their own testing and research into the results displayed on the PhET simulations to ensure an realistic result, budding the student's inquiry curiosity, as well as instilling an underlying appreciation of the physical phenomena that science gives to the universe every day.

MORE INFORMATION FROM THE PHET WEBSITE:

• To help students visually comprehend concepts, PhET simulations animate what is invisible to the eye through the use of graphics and intuitive controls such as click-and-drag manipulation, sliders and radio buttons. In order to further encourage quantitative exploration, the simulations also offer measurement instruments including rulers, stop-watches, voltmeters and thermometers. As the user manipulates these interactive tools, responses are immediately animated thus effectively illustrating cause-and-effect relationships as well as multiple linked representations (motion of the objects, graphs, number readouts, etc.)

• To ensure educational effectiveness and usability, all of the simulations are extensively tested and evaluated. These tests include student interviews in addition to actual utilization of the simulations in a variety of settings, including lectures, group work, homework and lab work. Our rating system indicates what level of testing has been completed on each simulation.

All PhET simulations are freely available from the PhET website and are easy to use and incorporate into the classroom. They are written in Java and Flash, and can be run using a standard web browser as long as Flash and Java are installed.