John Mocko during a "Physics is Fun" demonstration at the O'Connell Center. Photo courtesy of John Mocko.
Bringing physics to life
John Mocko celebrates 35 years at UF
Educator, T-shirt guy, tech support — for John Mocko his job is always something new. On paper, Mocko is referred to as a teaching laboratory specialist III within the Department of Physics, but he said his position is all about bringing science to life.
Originally from Jacksonville, Mocko came to UF in 1981 intending to pursue a degree in aerospace engineering. When he lost passion for engineering, he said he transferred to a degree in physics education because he’d always had a knack for teaching.
“When I was young, I took care of a lot of the kids in the neighborhood, they would all come to me for advice and this kind of thing,” he said. “I even had parents thank me for helping with raising their kids.”
After graduation, Mocko took a job at East Side High School teaching physics but returned to the Swamp in 1990 when a position opened for someone to set up physics demonstrations. He said he had previously completed an independent study class while an undergrad under the person formerly in the position.
“I also came back for a summer teacher program and there was a component of it that was working with the guy doing demos,” he said. “At that time, I already knew a lot of the demos, so I was helping him. Then one day, out of the blue, he called me up at my high school and he said if you want my job, apply for it.”
Mocko has been with UF ever since.
While at the university he said his proudest achievement was setting up a light board. Mocko’s light board allows faculty to write on an illuminated surface, utilizing LED lights. The board is used for video recording lectures to be sent out virtually. Instructors can choose to stand behind the board and are placed directly inside of the slide deck they are using for lecture. The board is set up in a recording studio outfitted with broadcasting equipment and green screens.
“It has a lot of my interests in it,” he said. “The department kind of picked me to build it because I had the right combination of skills … I had the teaching background, I had the AV component background to be able to figure out all the wiring and all that, and then I also had the kind of handyman construction skills to build it. And then, honestly, I also had the thriftiness to save money.”
He said he attributes his thriftiness to how he’s managed to be so successful in getting work done efficiently and cost effectively. Since its creation, Mocko has expanded the light board to be able to connect with MediaSite. MediaSite is a lecture capture tool used to record class sessions or lectures and upload recordings to university servers.
He said he entered a contest explaining how his light board uses Mediasite desktop recording software to give students access to watch what’s being written on the screen by the professor and whatever the camera is pointed at. He ended up being a finalist for the competition and won a MediaSite classroom recorder that has since been installed in a physics lecture hall.
Beyond his AV skills, Mocko’s day-to-day workload consists of setting up demos for two lecture halls inside the New Physics Building. He has made the 15 minutes in between classes into an art of rotating out old experiments, resetting the room and setting up new- in a single day, he said he can erase up to 99 blackboards.
Students and faculty depend on Mocko, said Steve Hagen, the physics department chair.
“John Mocko is known to generations of UF Physics students as the guy with all the physics demos, who has a different, kaleidoscopic T-shirt for every day of the semester, and helps the professors get class under way,” Hagen said. “John designed and built our amazing Light Board, a teaching tool that was one of the first of its kind. Thanks to John, thousands of UF students have had a richer, more engaging experience in Physics.”
Over the 35 years Mocko has spent working at UF he said he has watched both himself and the campus grow.
“The guy who used to do my job before me, his name was Alex, when I took the job he said, you know, I bet in five years you’re going to find someone to marry here in the auditorium. He was wrong, it didn’t take me five years. Took more than five years, but I met my wife in the main auditorium when she came to teach her statistics class.”
He said his favorite part of the day lies in making students smile.
“I have well in excess of 200 T-shirts,” he said. “To students, for many years, I’ve been known as ‘t-shirt guy.’ The students will often compliment me, and I really enjoy them complimenting…I buy them specifically to make the students happy.”
He said he could easily go a full semester wearing a different shirt each day.
Staff contributions are crucial to the success and continued growth of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. We would like to highlight individuals throughout the year as examples of the breadth, creativity and talent of our team. If you know someone you would like to suggest for a profile, please email commsupport@clas.ufl.edu.
