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E3 Journal of Scientific Research

E3 Journal of Scientific Research Vol. 2 (1) pp. 001-008, January 2014; © E3 Journals; ISSN 2276-9919


TATI - A Logo-like interface for microworlds and simulations for physics teaching in second life

Renato P. dos Santos1 *
1 PPGECIM, ULBRA - Lutheran University of Brazil
*Corresponding Author E-mail: renatopsantos@ulbra.edu.br
Accepted 6 January 2014

Abstract

Student difficulties in learning Physics have been thoroughly discussed in the scientific literature. Of particular interest to this work is their general difficulty in distinguishing between the concepts of velocity and acceleration. Already in 1980, Papert complained that students have had almost no direct and physical experience of pure Newtonian motion; in its absence, schools are forced to teach Newtonian motion by manipulating equations rather than by manipulating the Newtonian objects themselves, what would be possible in a `physics microworld΄. Second Life (SL) is a huge simulation of an Earth-like world and can work as a platform for building immersive virtual simulations in which the student can experience alternative physical descriptions in a way that is completely impossible in real world. On the other hand, SL and its scripting language have a remarkable learning curve that discourages most teachers at using it as an environment for educational computer simulations and microworlds. This work describes TATI, a textual interface which, through TATILogo, an accessible Logo language extension, allows the generation of various physics microworlds in Second Life, containing different types of objects that follow different physical laws, realizing Papert΄s proposal with an incomparable degree of realism and similarity.

Keywords: Second Life, Logo, physics microworlds, physics teaching, computer simulations, textual interface

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