MPTL – report from the 20th conference
MPTL-conferences (Multimedia in Physics Teaching and Learning) provide an international forum for the discussion of recent developments and advances and ensure that the knowledge and experience in new methods and approaches are shared throughout the physics community. Innovations but also challenges for teaching and learning physics with modern media are discussed. Material for primary schools is included as well as topics for universities.
The 20th international conference took place in Munich from September 9th to September 11th 2015, hosted and organized by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich). The scientific program comprised five plenary talks, 66 talks and 25 posters (all of the proposals were reviewed by an international advisory board). The scientific meetings were organized in thematic symposia, parallel sessions, parallel talks, workshops and plenary sessions.
The conference provided insights into three main issues concerning the effective use of multimedia in teaching and learning Physics:
• new hardware and software technologies,
• concepts for teaching and learning scenarios with innovative ideas, and
• empirical studies about important factors for learning with digital media and students’ assessments.
In addition, 14 special teacher workshops on the use of modern media were offered.
The MPTL group also conducts an evaluation of on-line Multimedia resources. Each year a different topic is chosen, and the topic for the last year 2014 was “Multimedia Materials for Teaching and Learning Quantum Physics”. The evaluation process was organized and directed by Bruce Mason assisted by ten MPTL-experts in the evaluation process. The award was given to QuVis (The Quantum Mechanics Visualisation Project) created by a working group around Dr. Antje Kohnle, University of St Andrews, and the document for the MPTL award was handed to her as the representative for the QuVis team.
MPTL 2015 was supported by the European Physical Society (EPS), and by the German Research Foundation (DFG). We highly appreciate the financial and practical assistance for this conference.
In 2016, MPTL will participate at the 2nd World Conference on Physics Education (WCPE) to be held in Sao Paulo, July 2016. Furthermore an MPTL-workshop will be held in Krakow, Poland (August 30th – September 3rd) together with our partner community GIREP.
