Virtual Classrooms

Welcome Students!!!

This page will tell you what we're about and why you might just want to do something on our web site.

Let's listen in on a chat between our president, Dr. Ray Kronquist, and a couple students who have dropped in, Kim Nguyen and Charlie Jones:

Dr. Ray: "Hi you guys, Glad to see you could drop by our web site. Can I tell you something, or did you just want to get out of the rain?"

Charlie: "Get out of the rain on a web site? Right! Actually, I was surfing the net and I just stumbled on you guys, and the site looked kind of interesting."

Kim: "I want to major in biology in college, and I've got to take a physics class in High School next year to get into college. But I'm kind of worried. I heard that physics is really hard."

Dr. Ray: "Well, Kim, you've come to the right place, and maybe you too, Charlie. Let me tell you what we're doing here, OK?"

Kim: "Sure"

Charlie: "Sure"

Dr. Ray: "I have been teaching introductory physics courses at San Jose State University, Mission College and San Jose City College, and I founded Virtual Classrooms at the end of 1998 to give physics courses to high school students over the Internet.

Charlie: "But why would someone want to take a course over the Internet when they can just go to class at their school?"

Dr. Ray: "Charlie, there are a number of things you can do in an online course that you can't do in class."

Charlie: "What, for example?"

Dr. Ray: "You can work at your own pace, within reason. You can slow down and take your time if you don't understand something. Or you can go faster if everything is clear. I say "within reason", because we will have an exam schedule. So if you go slow for awhile, you'll need to catch up by the next exam. Also, we can grade your homework instantaneously so you know how you did right away. And we can use animation and other neat computer tricks to illustrate things for you."

Charlie: "That sounds cool."

Dr. Ray: "But the most important thing we can do is let you be more active in your learning and make it easier for you to work with your classmates, to get help from them and to work together on projects."

Kim: "Classmates? But I thought when you work online, you work alone at your computer."

Dr. Ray: "You may be alone in the room, Kim. But you will have dozens or hundreds or perhaps, someday, thousands of classmates. They may be many miles away from you, or even in another country. But over the Internet, you can work together. They can help you when you get stuck, and you can help them."

Kim: "But how does that all work?"

Dr. Ray: "As soon as you send a message, it goes out from your home or school computer over the telephone lines and the Internet to our server. All your classmates can connect their computers to our server, and if they are online, they can answer you right away. If not, they can send you a reply when they do turn on their computer and get online."

Kim: "But I've never worked with anyone over the Internet. Wouldn't that be hard?"

Dr. Ray: "Yes and no. You'll have some things to learn at first if you don't have a lot of experience with computers and the Internet. But I think you'll find that those are very valuable skills you'll use a lot, and the Internet work with your classmates will greatly help you to understand the material in the course. But don't believe me. When we get through talking, I'll let you read what the students who took my physics course last semester had to say about using the Internet in the course."

Charlie: "Will we have a textbook?"

Dr. Ray: "If you are taking a regular physics course, and this Internet work is a supplement to your course, you'll continue to use your regular textbook. But if you are just taking this online course, you won't need a textbook."

Kim: "But if we don't have a textbook, how will we learn the material?"

Dr. Ray: "Some information will be on our web site, Kim. And we'll use a number of other web sites that have explanations and homework problems. But you'll learn the most from your own observations, your measurements and asking and answering questions with your classmates. You see, we'll have you do some simple experiments with materials you can easily find around the house or in your classroom, and you'll learn a lot from them. Actually, the whole world is your textbook."

Charlie: "What do you mean by that?"

Dr. Ray: "Well, physics is a science, and science is the study of nature. So we want you to spend time looking at the things in nature and thinking about how they work. We think you'll understand and remember what you learn better than you will if you just read the explanations in a book."

Kim: "If we take this course, will you be our teacher, Dr. Ray?"

Dr. Ray: "Well, I'll be around watching what you are doing. I'll probably have some help from other teachers, and we'll have some suggestions for you from time to time. Let me say this: My goal is not to be your teacher, but to make it possible for you to learn."

Charlie: "That doesn't make sense. How can you help us learn if you are not our teacher?"

Dr. Ray: "Let me give you a quote about leadership, see if it helps explain my philosophy. It goes like this:

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists.
Not so good when people obey and acclaim him.
Worse when they despise him.
But of a good leader who talks little,
When his work is done and his aim fulfilled,
They will say, 'We did it ourselves.'"

This was written by a famous Chinese philosopher, Lao-Tze, in the 6^th century BC, over 2500 years ago. Do you understand what it says?

Kim: "I think it says that a good leader doesn’t go around giving orders and telling people what to do."

Dr. Ray: "That's right, Kim. That's what it says."

Charlie: "But how can someone be a leader without giving orders?"

Dr. Ray: "Well that's the tricky part. And that's why a good leader must be very wise and understand his people. To me, this quote says that a good leader has a vision of what he wants to accomplish, and he is able to inspire his people with this vision. He also gives them some tools and perhaps an organization to work with. But he leaves the accomplishment of the goal to his people. Thus, they feel that they have done it themselves."

Charlie: "But how does that quote apply to teaching?"

Dr. Ray: "I think a good teacher teaches in the same way. If I can stay in the background, and you tell people after you finish the course,

Then, I think I'll have done a good job."

Kim: "I'm interested in learning, but will I get credit if I take this course?"

Dr. Ray: "That's up to your principal and the school board, but the course has already been approved by the University of California as satisfying their admission requirements for a laboratory science, so we should be able to get your school's approval. Just let me know who your principal is and I'll check that out for you."

Kim: "I've heard about Advanced Placement or AP courses. Is this course an AP course?"

Dr. Ray: "I'm glad you asked, Kim. Actually, there are three versions of the course. The basic course is a one year course. The first semester is Physics I, and the second semester is Physics II. It's an introductory course, but you should have had or be taking algebra and trig."

Kim: "So what are the other two versions of the course?"

Dr. Ray: "Those are college level or AP courses. One is AP-B, and it covers Mechanics, Thermal Physics, Waves and Optics, Electricity and Magnetism and Modern Physics. We use algebra but not calculus."

Kim: "So how is that different from the basic course?"

Dr. Ray: "The AP-B course focuses more on problems than the basic course. It will prepare you to take the AP-B exam which is given in May each year, and if you do well enough on the exam, the college you go to will let you skip their version of that course. That is the college physics course that is normally taken by non science majors."

Kim: "Then what is the other AP course?"

Dr. Ray: "That is the AP-C course. It's narrower in scope than the AP-B course. We just study Mechanics the first semester and Electricity and Magnetism in the second semester. However, we use calculus in the course, and the problems are more difficult. This course will prepare you to take the AP-C exam in May. If you do well enough on the exam, your college will let you skip the first year physics course that they give science and engineering majors."

Kim: "Well, which course should we take?"

Dr. Ray: "If you haven't taken any physics before, probably you should start with the basic course. We can talk some more about that later, but why don't you both take a look at the first few chapters of the basic course and see if you like the way we do things? Then we can talk about which level you should be in and how we can get your school to give you credit for the course?"

Kim: "I'd like to take a look. It sounds interesting."

Charlie: "I don't know. I'm not sure my computer skills are good enough."

Dr. Ray: "Charlie, why don't you read some of the comments of my students from my physics course last semester. Many of them were nervous about this method too, but at the end of the semester, they felt good about what they had learned, both about working on the Internet and about physics."

Charlie: "OK, how do I do that?"

Dr. Ray: "Just click on the link below that says, 'Comments from Past Students'."

Charlie: "OK, I'll do that."

Kim: "So how can I look at Chapter 1?"

Dr. Ray: "Just click on the link below that says, 'Go to Chapter 1'. You will then go to a screen with a short form so we can get a little information about you. Then we'll give you a password so you look at the first few chapters. OK?"

Kim: "OK, I'll do it!"

So Charlie and Kim go off to check out their respective links.

And how about you, our honored visitor? Have we whetted your curiosity a bit? Do you want to see what some past students have to say first? If so, here is your link below. If you want to read some of the course material, return to the home page, and select "Courses"Thanks for coming by, and we hope to see you in our class!