PhET Interactive Simulations
PhET Interactive Simulations, a project at the University of Colorado Boulder, is a non-profit open educational resource project that creates and hosts explorable explanations. It was founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman. PhET began with Wieman's vision to improve the way science is taught and learned. Their stated mission is "To advance science and math literacy and education worldwide through free interactive simulations." The project acronym "PhET" originally stood for "Physics Education Technology," but PhET soon expanded to other disciplines. The project now designs, develops, and releases over 125 free interactive simulations for  educational use in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, earth science, and mathematics. The simulations have been translated into over 65 different languages, including Spanish, Chinese, German, and Arabic; and in 2011, the PhET website received over 25 million visitors. In October 2011, PhET Interactive Simulations was chosen as the 2011 Microsoft Education Tech Award laureate. The Tech Awards, presented by The Tech Museum of Innovation, honor innovators from around the world for technology benefitting humanity. History. After winning the Nobel prize in 2001, Wieman became particularly involved with efforts at improving science education and has conducted educational research on  science instruction. He helped write Physics 2000 to provide simulations to explain his work in creating the Bose-Einstein Condensate. As he gave public lectures, some incorporating simulations, he noticed that "often the simulations would be the primary thing people would remember from my talk. Based on their questions and comments, it appeared that they consistently learned the physics represented in the simulations." He then used money from a grant from the National Science Foundation Distinguished Teaching Scholars program, the Kavli Foundation, and a portion of his Nobel Prize money to found PhET to improve the way that physics is  taught and learned. The PhET simulations differ from the Physics 2000 ones because users can interact with the simulation to change conditions whereas the Physics 2000 simulations are just videos. In 2007, Wieman moved to Vancouver, British Columbia while retaining 20% faculty position at the University of Colorado Boulder. The current director of PhET is Dr. Katherine Perkins, who has been with PhET since January 2003. Perkins hopes that the simulations’ accessibility and interactive nature will increase scientific literacy and promote student engagement in the classroom. Organization. PhET Interactive Simulations is part of the University of Colorado Boulder which is  a member of the Association of American Universities. The team changes over time and has about 16 members consisting of professors, post-doctoral students, researchers, education specialists, software engineers (sometimes contractors), educators, and administrative assistants. The current director of PhET is Dr. Katherine Perkins. Design and educational impact. PhET Interactive Simulations incorporates research-based practices on effective teaching to enhance the learning of science and mathematics concepts. The simulations are designed to be flexible so that they can be used as lecture demonstrations, labs, or homework activities. They use an intuitive, game-like environment where students can learn through scientist -like exploration within a simplified environment, where dynamic visual representations make the invisible visible, and where science ideas are connected to real-world phenomena. A PhET simulation starts with three to five people including a content expert (scientist), a teacher, an educational researcher, and a professional software developer. The design begins with identifying specific learning goals that have proven to be conceptually difficult based on teachers' experiences in the classroom. The simulation design, look and feel is storyboarded, discussed, and then finally "coded." Each simulation is user tested through interviews with students and in classrooms, re-worked as needed and  re-tested, before released on the PhET website. Along with testing every simulation, the PhET team performs education research on their simulations. They have shown in their research that when students explore simulations in addition to traditional labs, student concept understanding improves. PhET usage by educators. While PhET Interactive Simulations develops the simulations, it is primarily teachers and publishers who develop the educational activities which use the simulations, sharing these with the community. Contributors on the PhET site follow Open Education Practices (OEP), enabling teachers to use or adapt the activities freely. Other Open Education Resource organizations that provide ideas  and reviews include: Professional organizations also provide ideas for using PhET simulations. In the JCE Chemical Education Xchange (ChemEd X), members have blogged about how using PhET can help with specific topics like Stoichiometry Resources, First Week Excitement, PHYSICS 2000, and Adding Inquiry to Atomic Theory. Research on use of simulations in education. The National Science Foundation has provided grants for several organizations to study PhET use: Other research grants: