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WhatIsEjsEasy Java Simulations (Ejs) is a software tool designed for the creation of discrete computer simulations.
A discrete computer simulation, or simply a computer simulation, is a computer program that tries to reproduce, for pedagogical or scientific purposes, a natural phenomenon through the visualization of the different states that it can have. Each of these states is described by a set of variables that change in time due to the iteration of a given algorithm.
All this means that Ejs is a program that helps you create other programs; more precisely, to create scientific simulations.
There exist many programs that help create other programs. What makes Ejs different from most other products is that Ejs is not designed to make life easier for professional programmers, but has been conceived by science teachers, for science teachers and students. That is, for people who, like you and me, are more interested in the content of the simulation, the simulated phenomenon itself, and much less in the technical aspects needed to build the simulation.
Easy Java Simulations is a modeling and authoring tool expressly devoted to this task. It has been designed to let us work at a high conceptual level, concentrating most of our time on the scientific aspects of our simulation, and asking the computer to automatically perform all the other necessary but easily automated tasks: Ejs provides a set of simplified tools that allow the user to focus their efforts in the description of the model of the phenomenon that they want to simulate.
Nevertheless, the final result, which is automatically generated by Ejs from your description, could, in terms of efficiency and sophistication, be taken as the creation of a professional programmer.
In particular, Ejs creates Java applets that are platform independent, which can be visualized using any Web browser (and therefore distributed through the Internet), which read data across the net, and which can be controlled using scripts from within web pages.
Because there is an educational value in the process of creating a simulation, Ejs can also be used as a pedagogical tool itself. With it, you can ask your students to create a simulation by themselves, perhaps by following some guidelines which you have provided. Used in this way, Ejs can help your students make their conceptualizations explicit. Used in groups, it can also improve your students’ abilities to discuss and communicate about science.
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