Whiteboard animation – A tool for teaching the special theory of relativity

The Theory of Relativity triggered a lot of debates, applications, speculations even since its release at the beginning of the XX-th century. A large part of Science Fiction (SF) literature takes its ideas from this theory. Einstein’s postulates are "responsible" for this matter of fact [1]. The consequences of the Special Theory of Relativity are very interesting for the students and its study clearly opens their desire for the study of physics. This is the reason why presenting this sort of knowledge is highly in the benefit of building the motivation for learning. On the other hand, teaching these concepts that necessitate the use of a complicated mathematical apparatus presents some difficulties even for teachers. In order to ease the overall learning process, we propose a different approach, namely the whiteboard animation. According to some studies, this digital didactic tool is more effective than the classical teaching or even showing a video with the teacher’s lecture [2-3]. The method consists in presenting the notions by means of an animation taking place on the surface of a whiteboard. Concepts, symbols, keywords are drawn under the eye of the beholder, helping him to understand the natural flow of the events. From the technical point of view, it’s all about drawing the "action" with the help of a graphical tablet. By employing dedicated computer software, we can take a screen capture (that can be reworked in a video editing program). The voice of the presenter is overlaid for providing explanations about the subject. The result is a several minutes long video that accesses the students’ both visual and auditive stimuli. In this way, the students are highly involved in the learning process and this clearly leads to a higher absorption rate of the considered knowledge. Presenting various problems as the Twins paradox can be an effective step forward in understanding the phenomenon and in motivating the students for the study of physics.