Single Concept Film Research Articles

Optical Barrier Penetration

Recently I took a walk through the physics demonstration room at Kenyon College, where I first started teaching in 1964. On an upper shelf was the little home-built apparatus in Fig. 1. This was used for one of two short single-concept films that I made in the 1970s. Both “The Magnus Effect” and “Optical Barrier Penetration” were part of the Film and Slide Repository of the American Association of Physics Teachers. Looking back, my colleague Franklin Miller (1912–2012), the developer of the single-concept film, and I, once the chair of the Visual Aids Committee of the AAPT, were both involved in this project.

The American Association of Physics Teachers

Can you tell which problem came from what text? Calculus and first-year college physics seem to have a great deal in common. A large number of students take both courses, and their success in physics depends in an important way on their mathematical proficiency. Many of the physics faculty concerned with these and also more advanced courses are among the approximately 9000 members of the American Association of Physics Teachers, AAPT for short. The AAPT was founded in 1930 by a group of physicists who dedicated the Association to the advancement of the teaching of physics and the furtherance of the role of physics in our culture. A majority of the members are college or university faculty, while a minority teach in secondary schools. The AAPT therefore resembles the Mathematical Association of America in many ways. Three periodicals are published by the Association. The American Journal of Physics, with twelve issues totaling more than one thousand pages annually, focuses on instructional and cultural aspects of the physical sciences. It includes expository articles on physics as well as reports of new teaching approaches, physics instructional apparatus, and reviews. of books and films. The Journal is the oldest publication of AAPT and corresponds to the American Mathematical Monthly. The Physics Teacher comes out nine times annually and is primarily concerned with the teaching of introductory physics at all levels. The AAPT Announcer is a bulletin with four issues a year, carrying information about AAPT's annual meetings, news about the more than thirty Regional Sections, progress reports on AAPT's ongoing projects, and other items of general interest to physics teachers. The Association's winter meeting in late January is held jointly with the American Physical Society and alternates between East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast metropolitan centers. The summer meeting, which attracts about 350 participants, takes place at the end of June on a college campus in a more scenic environment. The meeting programs include invited and contributed papers as well as poster sessions on areas in physics, laboratory equipment, educational approaches, and possible new course topics. During recent years the meeting programs have also come to include interactive workshops in which the participants use programmable calculators, make single concept films, study developmental psychology (see below), design and assemble integrated circuit electronic devices, investigate the use of model rockets for physics instruction, or complete other short projects. The educational products sponsored and/or distributed by AAPT include more than 70 singleconcept physics films, more than thirty sets of slides illustrating physical phenomena, and Women in Science, a multi-media package presenting information about six women scientists to help girls inform themselves about scientific careers. Among the most popular film titles have been twelve made with NASA cooperation in the zero-gravity environment of Skylab. Annotated bibliographies of special interest to physics teachers are published in the American Journal of Physics as Resource Letters and are often accompanied by reprint books that include many of the references recommended. Sample titles from this list are Kinematics and Dynamics of Satellite Orbits, Quantum and Statistical Aspects of Light, and Achievement Testing in Physics. A recently introduced product is the Workshop on Physics Teaching and the Development of

Two systems which produce animated representations of the execution of computer programs

This paper describes two prototype systems which facilitate the production of teaching films containing animated representations of the execution of computer programs. With such systems, it is possible for an instructor to produce short quick-and-dirty single-concept film clips with only hours of effort, and more polished material with only slightly more effort. Demonstration clips produced in this way will be shown at the Symposium.

Waveshape and Relative Phase: A Single Concept Film for Classroom Use

Computer animation is used to illustrate the dependence of waveshape on the relative phases of the sine-wave components of various complex waves. Four standard waveforms (pulse, sawtooth, square, and triangular) are synthesized by using appropriate relative phases. The relative phases are then varied while keeping the spectrum constant in each case and the new waveshapes are synthesized. The waveshapes are generated with a PDP-15 computer and displayed on a CRT. The film is made by recording the CRT images on Super-8 film. A 4-min movie is presented.

Developments in the 8mm Field

Basic considerations:Single-Concept-Film-Format Whilst ‘short-film’ denotes a film with a running time of 10.30 minutes, and a ‘long film’ normally means a feature film with a duration of one hour and more, the single-concept film with a running time of one to five minutes should be named ‘shortest film’. The term ‘single concept film’ is an educational term and implies that these films deal with only one concept, one well-limited subject; a film which is used within a lesson, integrated into the lesson. Thus a teacher's lesson on a certain subject is composed of a number of various constituent parts: the spoken word of the teacher, drawings on the black-board or with the help of an overhead projector, slides, tape recordings, short film. This integration into the lesson of even the shortest films requires fast and easy operation of equipment in order to make this integration into the lesson possible.

Single-concept films.

We see short films as being of two types with two purposes: (1) educational films presenting limited topics; and (2) teaching films—discrete clips presenting stimuli and perhaps confirmation of response. It is this latter which we are calling ‘single-concept films,’ and which we feel contribute most effectively to the instructional process. Where do you get single-concept teaching films? First, since there are few available to meet your teaching needs, consider excerpting sequences from longer films; and second, assuming you still have unmet needs, consider the value of producing your own.

The Case for the Short Film

The Single-Concept Film Clip Project was organized in 1964 to develop a system for excerpting, packaging and retrieving segments of footage from 16mm films in a minimum of time. These excerpts should be packaged by the producers in self-contained cartridges as single-concept films. Sound-on-film machines can help cartridge films to a maximum potential use in education. The Basic Information Retrieval System (BIRS) is a general use, computerized storage and retrieval system using the meaningful terms in the clip summaries written by the Project's film excerpters. The Project has also investigated the need for standards for cartridge projectors, particularly for the various 8mm formats now available.

Laboratory Arrangment in a New Perspective

Laboratory experience and the theoretical aspects of physics must merge for a complete and thorough introductory physics program. A new approach to the laboratory experience has been under study and development during the past five years at Orlando Junior College, a private institution with a physics (1966–1967) enrollment of 105 students from a student body of 2361. Obvious trademarks of this laboratory are a diversity of interests, educational excellence, and economy. Thirty permanent experimental stations, seventy other experiments on open shelving, total blackout booths for optics, a single-concept film booth, a director's office in the laboratory, and an adjoining small class or seminar room show the efficiency of this plan. A description of the organization and attractiveness of the laboratory as well as its unique utilization of wall, ceiling, and floor space is given in this paper.

Single concept films: A pilot study based on chem study films

AbstractA study on the selection and use of single concept films.

MULTIPLICATION: THE USE OF 8 mm. FILM IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Essentially, the motion picture is a means of communication. Over the last few years, there has been a great expansion in the use of audio-visual material in teaching and a growing market for audio-visual material. In the use of motion pictures the acceptance of 8 millimeter film as a valid communication medium has revolutionalized thinking regarding the motion picture film. No longer is sound film the only kind of respectable film. The single concept film -- or silent loop film -- has shown the value of the moving picture. There are many subjects which can appeal to a wide audience and so benefit from lowered costs resulting from mass multiplication. If this was not the case, the use of motion picture film in education could never have got off the ground. Preparation for use is the real key to the most successful use of film. Personal experience suggests that village audiences in developing countries may need to be shown a film more than once in order to enable them to derive full benefit from it. There must be time given to discuss its content and implications. If motion picture film is to be made the basis of discussion, there must be some limitation to the audience size. 8 millimeter film has this advantage in that there is a limit to the size of picture which can be usefully projected. Present day 8 millimeter equipment can record and play back magnetic sound. This is of great value to the community development worker. The community development worker is faced with problems not found within the framework of formal education, and making a film, a tape recording, or taking photographs of a community to show to itself may prove a powerful catalyst to community action.

The use of new educational media

We shall make a basic assumption that we are interested in media which will be useful in the mainstream of instruction in the day-to-day mathematics classroom. For our purposes, new media are considered as materials which can be integrated with more conventional materials to provide a multimedia approach to the instructional-learning process in mathematics. Moreover, this discussion will be limited to communication media, which includes television, moving picture films, single concept films, projectuals, filmstrips, programmed instruction, and the like. That is, media to be used as a part of the instructional program will be that which communicates something about the concepts and principles of mathematics to the children in much the same way that the teacher or textbook communicates with them.

Single-Concept Films in Physics

Short films are described which are designed to be used within a teacher's lecture, having application at various levels of instruction. The importance of the teachers' guide is stressed. Commercial distribution of the series is on a nonexclusive basis. New projectors and film formats are described. An annual competition is proposed for short 8mm films made by physics teachers for use in their own classes.

An Experimental 8mm Film Production Workshop for Teachers

The Toronto Board of Education, Teaching Aids Department is conducting an 8mm film production workshop for 30 teachers. There are six objectives: to encourage teacher production of 8mm films peculiar to individual requirements; to promote programs of student film production; to encourage teachers to suggest ideas for 8mm single-concept films to be produced in the Teaching Aids Department; to encourage wider use of motion pictures in the classroom and, through involvement in production, a greater awareness of the effectiveness of films; to acquaint teachers with the currently available 8mm camera and projection equipment; and, finally, to develop enthusiasm among the group.

Art and the Single Concept Film: A New Instructional Medium

Art and the Single Concept Film: A New Instructional Medium

Single Concept Films for Sex Education

Single Concept Films for Sex Education

Development of the Educational Single-Concept Film in Great Britain

With the introduction of a magazine-loaded projector using 8mm film in loop form the development of a self-contained daylight projection unit for use by teachers under classroom conditions to provide motion-picture illustrations in the course of their own lessons became a practical possibility. The development and demonstration of this idea in Great Britain and the production of the first films are described. This visual aid is now in production and more than 200 single-concept films are now available for teachers' use.

Aspects and Applications of the Single-Concept Film

The production of single-concept films, films characterized by their shortness, is increasing. The scope of five educational projects utilizing the single-concept film are reviewed. These films are described with reference to subject matter, intended audience and photographic techniques.