search

phetsims / energy-skate-park-basics

"Energy Skate Park: Basics" is an educational simulation in HTML5, by PhET Interactive Simulations.
http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/energy-skate-park-basics
GNU General Public License v3.0
2 stars 9 forks source link

The "stick to track" buttons only apply to the 3rd track in the friction screen, should it be moved? #120

Closed samreid closed 10 years ago

samreid commented 10 years ago

The "stick to track" buttons only apply to the 3rd track in the friction screen, should it be moved or only shown and/or enabled when the 3rd track is selected?

samreid commented 10 years ago

Could be good to get Trish's opinion on this.

samreid commented 10 years ago

I emailed Trish:

We realized the "stick to track" icons in the friction screen of ESPB only apply to the third track. Should we make an effort to "couple" those controls to that track. Say, putting them next to the third track button, or only enabling/making them visible if the third track is selected? Another option we considered was getting rid of the "stick to track" buttons from the "friction screen". What do you think?

Trish responded:

I think that if there is still a playground scene where students can investigate the skater jumping off the track, it may be ok in the basics version to simplify the situations on the first 2 scenes. One thing that is difficult for "less physics knowledgeable" teachers is to help students understand why the heat might increase when the skater "lands". I am not sure that just deleting "stick to track" will solve that issue and I think it makes the scenes less deep in terms of students' learning and develop of ideas, so I am somewhat hesitant to oversimplify the scenes. [...] An important question: Is there a student difficulty that is made more easy by removing the options or is the option helpful to learners ? I wonder if we could ask a MS teacher who uses the sim what they think?

I said:

If we do keep then "roller coaster mode on/off" buttons in the friction screen, did you like any of the ideas for associating it more closely with the 3rd track (with the hump on the track)? Also, I understood the tradeoffs you mentioned below regarding keeping vs removing this feature from the "friction" screen, but wasn't sure of your final "vote" on the matter.

Trish said:

I do not have a vote about the on/off track button, but I think having it makes the sim more fun. I don't really like buttons that are just for one scenario, so if you keep it, I would vote to just have it as a feature for the scene.

samreid commented 10 years ago

I would like to try making the "stick to track" buttons enabled/disabled based on whether the third track is selected on the friction screen--perhaps it will make it more obvious what the buttons mean.

samreid commented 10 years ago

Update above seems good to me, closing.