Few have made the leap from classroom teacher to social media celebrity, but even fewer have done it with the simple humility of Dr. Ray Hall. Despite the fact that his short demonstrations contain no words, they regularly attract over a million hits by a loyal subscriber base. The talk looks at what makes physical demonstrators an important part of the inspiration phase of the learning process, and how some teachers are using them effectively to engage their learners.

Dr. Ray Hall is a full-time professor at the University of California Fresno and is widely known for his regular updates on the Instagram feed @physicsfun. Earlier in his career, he worked on a large experimental particle physics project at Fermilab, where he made the discovery of the top quark, a fundamental particle of nature.