Comparison of cost-free computational tools for teaching physics

It is widely accepted that it is quite difficult to engage today´s students, from high schools to university, both in educational activities in class and ¿teaching¿ them physics due to their prejudices about the complexity of physics. The difficulty in capturing students´ attention in class for a long time also plays a role in less effective teaching during learning activities. Research shows that students learn little from traditional lectures. According to constructivist learning theories, visual aids and hands-on activities play a major role in learning physics. In addition to laboratory work there are many computational tools for teaching physics, which help teachers and students in constructing a conceptual framework. With this in mind, this paper compares freeware and open source computational tools for teaching physics.