View lectures on CDs on your computer at home or school. I advise you to follow the course schedule and view three lectures per week. You may also view the lectures at a faster pace if you wish. See the syllabus for details. Exams and homework are delivered through WebAssign.
How Things Work: the Physics of Everyday Life by Louis A. Bloomfield, 2nd Edition, ISBN 0-471-38151-9. You may order it from the UVa. Bookstore 434-924-1073 or online from Amazon.com. Additional material present in the 1st edition , but not in the 2nd edition can be found on the web at http://HowThingsWork.virginia.edu/instructors.html
WebAssign is a web-based homework and exam delivery, collection, grading, and recording service available to teachers and students. You will be given a user number and ID for you to log on to the system. Once you are logged on you have access to your homework assignments and/ or exams, etc. You may also ask any questions using WebAssign. You will submit your answers to any homework or exam using WebAssign. As a example, you may visit the WebAssign site by clicking on http://www.webassign.net/ and type in "demo" for username, institution, and password. We recommend that you use Internet Explorer or Netscape version 4.0 or later with a 28.8 Kbps modem or better. You will be given your own username and password after signing up for the course.
You are welcome to email questions at any time. An electronic chat
room and listserve will be available using Yahoo/Blackboard to
communicate with your classmates about the homework, CDs, etc.(Chat
room is not up yet).
You must contact me to request an extension if homework or an exam can not be submitted on time. Excuses without penalty are permitted only for illness, family illness, death, or religious holidays. Late homework submissions without a valid excuse as summarized above will be allowed with a penalty. Work not turned in or tests not taken will receive a zero (0 pts), far worse than a failing grade.
You will be sent approximately 40 Lecture/Demonstrations on 5 CDs in real media format for viewing on your computer using software RealOne Player. You can download it from the internet for free. The website is at http://www.real.com/realplayer.html. You may keep the CDs at the end of the course. You may not reproduce the CDs under any circumstances.
To view or read the Lecture Slides and notes, which are in PDF
format, you will need the software program Acrobat Reader. You can
download
Acrobat Reader for free from
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
Your course numerical grade is determined by summing your scores on
the problem sets and the exams. Of course, each of the three grades in
parenthesis is normalized to a 100. Course Numerical Grade = (Sum
of
Problem Sets Grade) x 0.25 + (Sum of Exam 1 & 2 Grades) x 0.30
+(Create Exam Grade x .15 + (Final Exam Grade) x 0.30. A proctor will
be
required for monitoring Exams 1 and 2 and the final exam.