PhET Blog

In a new report by the Software & Information Industry Association, “Guide to the Use of Open Educational Resources in K-12 and Postsecondary Education,” open educational resources, like PhET are “here to stay.” This white paper from the SIIA’s Education Division’s working group was written to provide an increased understanding of OER’s impact and usage in schools.

See Tim Holt on El Paso Independent School District’s (EPISD) Digital Discoveries show how they use PhET.

PhET, December 9, 2011: “In this segment, we look at some amazing online simulations for science and math classes: PhET simulations. These are great for use on IWBs as well as for reinforcing concepts. We sample a few random PhET simulations, including John Travoltage!

Thanks Tom for the Shout Out!

Harvard Magazine recently featured PhET Director, Kathy Perkins, Class of ’92 in their June-July issue. Read about how and why she became involved in PhET.

National Science Foundation

NSF has invested over $3M in PhET over the past 9 years. Today, PhET’s work and impact on science education worldwide is highlighted in a new article at the NSF website. We would like to think its been a worthy use of tax-payer dollars!

Read about PhET in “Programming Digital Fun Into Science Education” where Noah Podolefsky, a PhET research scientist, talks about how the sims let middle schoolers in Texas better visualize physics concepts.

Have you seen PhET in other published articles? If so, let us know. Or if you’d like to include us in an article, please e-mail kathryn.dessau@colorado.edu.

See our article in the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education’s online newsletter from the Committee on Computers in Chemical Education. Our Paper #7, entitled PhET Interactive Simulations: New tools for teaching and learning chemistry, describes our growing efforts to create and research interactive simulations for the teaching and learning of chemistry.

See our paper “Factors promoting engaged exploration with computer simulations” in Physical Review ST to learn more about how features of PhET sims enable students to pose questions and answer them in ways that may not be supported by more traditional educational materials.

If you are a member of the National Science Teachers Association, we have an article in the October Issue of The Science Teacher. Sims for Science: Powerful tools to support inquiry-based teaching on page 46 talks about how the design features of PhET sims support inquiry learning and gives some examples of inquiry-based activities.