Review for:Logger Pro

posted: on December 18, 2006 at 3:58PM

Physics

Newton's Second Law

To use probeware to see the relationship between force applied and acceleration of a constant mass cart.

Honors or Advanced, Intro or Regular

Using LoggerPro, a Vernier LabPro data logger, and a photogate setup, the students were able to create a velocity vs. time graph for the cart.

Provides visualization or animation, Increases graphing skills, Increases data collection & analysis skills, Provides assessment opportunity, Increases student engagement and motivation

LoggerPro is a very sophisticated program that offers everything from basic graphing of data to Fast Fouier transfroms of the data. It is a rich program that has more possibilities than I have even bothered to explore. For the students, it is pretty good because it allows them to see data being captured live and quickly decide if the data is good or bad. If it's bad, they can rerun the experiment right then, rather than finding out as they are typing up the lab and realize they have to redo it at that point.

It allows students to rapidly see the data as charts and graphs, which is much more intuitive than a series of numbers. I used LoggerPro and an accelerometer to show the students about acceleration. But rather then have them see the data to five decimal points, I set it up to show the data as a gauge. This "analog" display allowed them to see the changes in accleration much clearer than.

I think LoggerPro has too much in it. Yes, it is inexpensive ($159 for the CD which includes a "site license for all computers in a school or a college department, including students' personal computers.") but I wish they had a simpler version of it. I find it intimidating because it has so much in it. And, if they students start to mess around with the settings, it can be next to impossible to figure how this affected their data.

And I don't know who else is using it. Are colleges using it and is it a valuable skill for the students, or is it another throw-away skill the students will never use again?