Tech 4 Teach 2018

Technology: High school students in affluent, inner city, or rural communities should have access to a physics laboratory experience. Students can work together in pairs or as a whole class to gather data. This presentation introduces an application MyTech, developed by the NC State Physics Education Research group and the NC State Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications group (DELTA). MyTech is an interactive app that can perform many physics experiments and record data for future analysis. Such experiments include kinematics, acceleration due to gravity, simple harmonic motion, and collisions.
Evidence: At a North Carolina Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers (NCS-AAPT) meeting, our faculty mentor participated in a MyTech workshop. As of now, MyTech is applied in the PHY3400 Practicum course, where students develop and present a mini-lesson using the app. Currently at Appalachian, we have no statistical data or course reviews regarding the app. However, students in Practicum have further developed their mini-lessons, implementing a full lesson during their clinical internship.
Broader Impacts: There is a notion that physics apparatus are expensive and take up a space. However, demonstrations and experiments can be performed on a shoestring budget. MyTech is free and can be used in the physics curriculum, especially mechanics, to collect data in real time. It is one and done!