A Blog as Ancillary Material for a Physics Textbook

Today I’m attending the Fall 2019 Meeting of the Ohio-Region Section of the American Physical Society and the Michigan Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers, held at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. Flint is just 45 minutes north of Oakland University, so this is a local meeting for me.

At the meeting I’ll present a poster titled “A Blog as Ancillary Material for a Physics Textbook.” As you can probably guess, the blog I’m referring to is the one you’re reading now. My poster is shown below.

The poster begins with my meeting abstract.

Nowadays, textbooks come with many ancillary materials: solution manuals, student guides, etc. A unique ancillary feature is a blog. A blog allows you to keep your book up-to-date, to expand on ideas covered only briefly in your book, to point to other useful learning materials such as websites, articles and other books, and to interact directly with students using your book.

Then I address the question “Why write a blog associated with a textbook?” My reasons are to

• Keep your book up-to-date. 
• Present background material. 
• Offer links to related websites, videos, and other books. 
• Try out new material for future editions. 
• Provide a direct line of communication between you and your readers. 
• Reach out to students from other states and countries who are interested in your topic but don’t have your book (yet). 
• Have fun. 
• Increase book sales!

Next I discuss the blog for IPMB.

I am coauthor with Russell Hobbie of the textbook Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology (5th edition, Springer, 2015) My blog can be found at hobbieroth.blogspot.comThe blog began in 2007. I post once a week, every Friday morning, with over 600 posts so far. I also share the weekly posts on the book’s Facebook page. I use the blogger software, which is free and easy to learn; https://www.blogger.com.

After that, I describe my different types of posts.

• Useful for Instructors: Posts that will be especially helpful to faculty teaching from your book, such as sample syllabi, information about prerequisites, and links. 
• Book Reviews: Reviews of books that are related to mine. 
• Obituaries: Stories of famous scientists who have died recently. 
• New Homework Problems: I often post new homework problems that instructors can use in class or on exams. 
• My Own Research: Stories from my own research, to serve as examples of how to apply the material in the textbook. 
• Lots of Math: Some of my posts are very mathematical, and I warn the reader. 
• Personal Favorites: About 10% of my posts I list as personal favorites. These are particularly interesting, especially well written, or sometimes autobiographical.

Finally, I provide a sample post. I chose one of my favorites about craps, published on August 10, 2018.

A big thank you to my graduate student Dilmini Wijesinghe, who helped me design the poster. She’ll be at the meeting too, presenting another poster about biomechanics and mechanotransduction. But that’s another story.