Active learning electromagnetism with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad: a new teaching resource

The proliferation of so-called smart phones (among which we include the iPhone) and tablets (iPad and iPod Touch) is leading to these devices to be focused by teachers and researchers. Their power of calculation and their graphic capabilities make them to be extremely attractive for trying to increase the process of teaching and learning in a highly significant manner. Smart phones and other similar devices provide new ways of learning that we believe it is necessary to explore. They are also adequate tools to be considered as possible alternatives or complements to the traditional classes. These devices have also the possibility of being interconnected among them either connected through Internet, and doe to this the range of possibilities they offer is really hard to imagine. The connection can be synchronous (voice calls, short messages with special applications to communicate the iPhones, …) or asynchronous (e-mail, social networks, blogs, forums, short text messages,.). We are at the beginning of a stage, with an open-mid door and a powerful glow can be seen through the slit. Who does not dare to open that door? Through three commercial applications that it is possible to download in an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad from the App Store at a price at 0.79 € and 1.59 € (1 or 2 dollars) we propose the use of these devices as tools for learning electromagnetism with first-year students in university. The programs (Apps) that we describe are those we find the most interesting between more than one hundred options, which have been developed for studying electromagnetism. These three Apps are “ELECTROMAGNETISM Solver”, “FORMULARY: PHYSICS Pro” and “PHYSICS by Hanz Meyer”. We will show different screens for each of the three aforementioned Apps and we will insert comments on the physics aspects that we consider most interesting for each of them. Finally we would like to point out that a correct operation of the applications requires having the latest version of the software available. It can be concluded that these programs are useful for making some concepts of electromagnetism more attractive to college students because they allow search and understand, in a very interactive way, some physical concepts which are displayed in a very visual manner. Maybe this is the near future that awaits us if we want an active learning by our students.Part of this work was financed by the Vice-rectorate of Technology and Educational Innovation of the University of Alicante (Spain), under project GITE-09006-UA