Advancing
the Goal of Ending Education as We Know
It
Asora® Physics With Video
Lectures
Demonstrating On-Demand
Content Using PowerPoint
There are
several ways to present mixed textual, audio and visual
information that is included in our lectures. A very widely
available tool for viewing such lectures is PowerPoint.
Using PowerPoint at this stage should not be interpreted to
mean that Stellar Schools will use this particular program
because we envisage developing a custom built presentation
software system as we develop actual courses and when we
have the resources to do so
Demonstrating On-Demand
Content Using A Physics Course
Given the interest and background of
Asora's founders in the subject of physics it seemed
natural to embark on the production of a physics course. To
show that the Stellar Schools format is capable of
presenting what is arguably the most difficult course of
its entire K-12 content we decided that the course should
be calculus based and suitable for Advanced Placement
students.
Running PowerPoint And
Its Video Clips On The Web
The
technology for streaming video over the Internet is now
capable of delivering video lectures on demand and at very
low cost. Based on the data transmission costs charged to
this Website, we can estimate that a year's worth of
Physics lectures will cost less than $1.00 to transmit over
the Internet. In fact, you can watch four different
PowerPoint presentations that are Physics related by using
the links below.
Perhaps due to our lack of expertise in Web engineering, we
have found that only the most robust browsers are capable
of running the PowerPoint embedded video clips. Internet
Explorer for the Mac runs it correctly. The video lecture
clip on each page of the PowerPoint lecturettes is launched
by double clicking (or single clicking) in the
graphic/picture window. For those who can't run the video
clips in the Web based PowerPoint they can alternatively
download the PowerPoint file and its associated .mp4 video
clip files and then run the lecturettes or presentations
locally.
If you choose to view these Physics related presentations
from this Website, then once PowerPoint is opened up on the
Web, depending on your Internet connection's speed, you may
need to wait a few minutes or more for the video files to
download and populate your browser.
At this time we have only generated two lecturettes (a few
percent) of the Physics With Calculus course. We have also
produced PowerPoint versions of the presentation we gave in
Lausanne, Switzerland in June 2008. More details follow in
the next sections. Additionally, we have a video movie of
the entire Lausanne presentation you can watch from this
website.
Examples Of Course
Materials Including Lecturettes
The examples shown here were produced in
2008 and are based on our plan to generate a calculus based
physics course that follows the texts by Giancoli. It is
designed to meet the Advanced Placement content standards
for a calculus based Physics course. Lecturette notes,
which comprise the primary textbook and the associated
PowerPoint based video lecturettes are made available here.
Refinements not present in our earlier Algebra 1 prototype
are shown here, including four video "personalities"
consisting of two instructors and two student questioners.
Not only are these PowerPoint presentations examples of how
we might provide some of the Stellar School instruction,
Lecturette #1 also provides considerable descriptive
material about the instructional methods employed in
Stellar Schools. It does this in the presentation to the
students about the administrative details of the Physics
With Calculus course. That presentation assumes that some
of the students would have transferred into the Stellar
Schools and thus would need a comprehensive description
about the course structure and operation.
As has been the case
with our Algebra 1 example, we use this course in Physics
to provide another prototype of our courseware. We envisage
the course being presented in several hundred short
"lecturettes." We here present two of them: Lecturette 1
and Lecturette 149, which are the only two segments we have
completed. For them we have the following instructional
vehicles or avenues students can use to learn the material:
1. We have written lecture note textbook segments that we
intend to be parts of the primary text for the course. You
can download copies of them (written in MS Word) from the
relevant lecturette page- either Lecturette 1
Downloads or Lecturette 149
Downloads . We
plan to give a printed hardcopy version of this material
to each student.
2. A digitized version of this same textbook material will
eventually be available on the student's computer.
3. As a secondary text we have adopted the Giancoli
books, Physics for
Scientists & Engineers, Volumes I &
II. We note that
our lecture note textbook follows a similar instructional
sequence. (It would have been the primary text if the
publisher had not refused us permission to have a digital
copy of it.)
4. The related PowerPoint files and their associated mp4
files are also available from the respective download pages
at Lecturette 1
Downloads or Lecturette 149
Downloads .
Finally, we can demonstrate the PowerPoint lecturettes
directly for those who have suitable browsers. For example,
on Apple computers, recent versions of Internet Explorer
will correctly run the PowerPoint files. You could try
running those links from the just mentioned download areas.
When you find that your installation will not play these,
we recommend downloading the needed files as just described
in item 4. including all of the video clips.
The Lausanne
Symposium Examples
Some of the
video clips from the Physics With Calculus Lecturettes were
also used in a pair of presentations prepared for a
conference in Lausanne, Switzerland which was attended by
research physicists as well as physicists interested in
education.
The intended PowerPoint based presentation, edited to match
the symposium time slot, can be downloaded or run from
our Lausanne
Symposium page.
We also provide the actual video taped recording of
Anderson's presentation on a subpage labelled:
Actual Lausanne
Presentation
Alternatively, the longer unedited PowerPoint version can
be accessed from our Extended
Lausanne Symposium page.