Comparison of Cost-Free Computational Tools for Teaching Physics

Abstract

It is widely accepted that it is quite difficult to engage today's students, from high schools to university, both in educational activities in class and "teaching" them physics due to their prejudices about the complexity of physics. The difficulty in capturing students' attention in class for a long time also plays a role in less effective teaching during learning activities. Research shows that students learn little from traditional lectures. According to constructivist learning theories, visual aids and hands-on activities play a major role in learning physics. In addition to laboratory work there are many computational tools for teaching physics, which help teachers and students in constructing a conceptual framework. With this in mind, this paper compares freeware and open source computational tools for teaching physics.