Universität Augsburg, Germany
MuPhy (Multimedia Physics Text-book) is not a conventional text-book with multimedia
additions but rather a collection of teaching and learning materials related to certain
physics topics. It is intended to be a teachers´ aid for the preparation of lessons. Instead
of being forced during the preparation to consult books, journals, encyclopedia, audiovisual
media, manuals and other ressources which are to be found at home, in libraries or various
public institutions, the teacher has all kind of information and data at his/her disposal on
mouse click. In this sense MuPhy constitutes the attempt to develop some sort of (school)
physics data base which could be integrated into a larger general science data base on a
central server for natural science teachers. The topic oriented and didactically prepared data
can be used as subject matter information material for the teacher and/or as learning material
for students. It is up to the teacher how to use the material components and how to incorporate
them into the learning invironment.
MuPhy´s conceptual basis and the program design was developed in 1995/96 by Axel Möller, a
physics teacher student, and me. Since then various chapters in mechanics, heat and energy
sources and environmental problems were elaborated and enriched with multimedia data (text,
historical information, pictures, video clips, sound documents, simulations, (interactive)
animations, problems and experimental exercises, games and methodological hints). Till now the
MuPhy project is not sponsored. The work is done by physics teacher students within the
framework of their examination thesises. Progress depends on students´ motivations and skills.
During the last couple of years the number of physics students has dramatically decreased
in Germany, a fact which effectively slowed down the project´s advancement.
The actual version of MuPhy consists of a set of hypermedia text books with some chapters
partially completed and a media CD-ROM which contains pictures and videoclips. MuPhy can be
downloaded as a test version from my homepage (
http://www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/did/did.html ).
The MuPhy site also contains an order form for the media CD-ROM.
The presentation at the 5th Workshop is restricted to the general structure of MuPhy and to
some typical examples out of the existing books.
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