AAPT Conference in Sacramento

Spent the day at the American Association of Physics Teachers / Northern California and Nevada section conference at American River College just north of Sacramento. My colleagues Mae Linh and Adrian came with.

Some highlights:

- in the morning everyone gets 5 minutes (enforced by an awesome gong) to present a short demo. Saw countless things I'd enjoy implementing, not least the gong itself.

- fantastic talk by a Physics Education Researcher from Ohio State University on the use of interactive clicker devices in class. Made me a believer. Fantastic choice of problems to guide us through involving short-circuited parallel circuits. I was stumped but learned! Speaker also taught folks to fly airplanes. Doesn't it strike you that we should probably listen to pilot trainers on the issue of effective education? I mean, if their students fail, they die along with the student.

- fantastic talk by an amateur astronomer with a high school education who has produced some of the most beautiful images of the deep sky I have ever seen. He is even taking part in research these days!

- I presented for 20 minutes on the Lunar Lander project. I think it was well received. I was asked a physics question I didn't know the answer to. I hope I got across that I love my students and I love physics. Some good questions. Was happy to note that the flight instructor / physics education researcher is also using Visual Python.

- spent the whole day on my iPad. Discovered at I like it even more than I thought for taking notes during lecture. My typing speed right now is very high. I am noticing that flipping between writing and researching is a bit of a struggle. Now, if I was collaborating, that would be cool: my buddy looks stuff up while I write. The level of interest from other teachers was very high, and it made me feel very fortunate to be at a school where such a device is even conceivable in a 1:1 situation.

- Mae Linh won a new flaming tube!! There was a raffle for all attendees and they gave away physics demos and such. Our older, more dangerous, rapidly failing tube will be retired.

Conferences always give me time to think hard about my profession, regardless of what the speaker at any time is saying. Good day!

Location:American River College