Reflection On Data Logging

Reflection: Practical for Data Logging

After conducting this practical, we found that there are a lot of advantages of using data logging device over the manual data collecting method. The most significant advantage is measurement is always taken at the right time. Unlike human, the device will not miss to take a reading and data logger can collect data more often even at every second in which humans normally cannot.

Besides that, all the usual mistakes made by human while taking the measurement can be avoid when using this application.  For example humans can make errors when they read the temperature of a thermometer and the result is always not very accurate. But, by using data logger all the possible error made by human can be eliminate and it can make measurements with greater accuracy.  Not only that, graphs and tables of results also can be produced automatically by the data logging software since the data is available straight away to be analyzed by the computer. In that case, it allows data to be shared easily among students and allow the data to be analyzed much more easily than data collected by hand. Furthermore, it frees our mind from difficulties in manual graph drawing.

 Moreover, data logger can store and collect data independently and save data in memory, therefore a person does not need to go and collect it. With this advantage, in the real practical class situation students will have more time to relate practical to theory while the measurement is recorded by the data logger. With this, the data logging software can give rise to much discussion, asking question, writing-up the experiment and so on. Also, because of the time saving factor when using data logging equipment, students will have opportunities to re-doing the experiment to get better results and also gives students the opportunity to quickly try out ideas with different data.

However, for a new user like us more practical need to be conducted because before a data logging system can be used we need to consider a few things including what we want to measure, what type of sensors we will use for our measuring, what range we will need our sensors to take measurements, where we will position the sensors and over how long the measurements will take place (the period of logging). Without proper training we might encounter problem when dealing with this device. For example, the device might not operate as what we want and we might take longer time to set up the equipment.

Despite all the advantages, data logger is very sensitive toward the surrounding condition. Therefore, it is important to take into account all the outside parameters that may affect the result of the experiments. In addition, teacher must be prepared to encourage their students to talk about what they are doing and findings because while waiting for the device to take the reading, students might spend their time talking about other things.

As conclusion, if data logging is to be successfully introduced into school laboratories then teachers must look carefully at their teaching methods and be prepared because the effect might turn the other way round.