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August 1993 ConfChem Discussion Archive
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Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1993 13:14:49 -0400
From: HARRY PENCE
Subject: Re: New Tools vs. Old Methods
I loved the story of the 13 year old boy who has become interested in
science because he's fascinated by roller coasters. I think the important
criteria is not just how much material we cover, but how much we interest our
students in the subject. That doesn't mean we have to dress up like Bobo the
Clown or water down the material. It does mean that we, as experts (or the
closest thing available to experts) have to *show* them how our field relates
to things that they, the students, are likely to be interested in. The new
generation of students have been bombarded all their lives by TV, movies, etc.,
and all of these powerful tools have also been used to try to attract them
(usually to buy a product, etc.). As a result, we have a harder job
convincing them. It isn't impossible, we just have to work a little harder and
do things a little differently. Don't give up on reading and listening as
means of communication, but also make use of visual methods that our students
are more accustomed to.
In essence, we teachers are like the fisherperson who discovers that
the fish are not biting on worms. We can either change the bait we use, or sit
around and complain about the fact that fishing isn't what it used to be. The
latter activity is fairly common among those who fish, but it doesn't put
anything in the creel at the end of the day ;-) .
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Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 09:18:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Paper 11 questions
Carl Snyder asks:
> 1. Are there better carrots to use than extra credit to induce
> students to learn and use electronic communication?
Extra credit does seem to be a slightly "artificial" way
to encourage students. One might ask why WE use e-mail and
electronic communication, without being given extra credit
by our employers. One reason is that some information is
available electronically that is available in no other way.
Another is that it allows one to ask questions, share ideas,
and work on projects with our collegues in other departments and
at other locations more conveniently. Around here I see quite
a bit of e-mail traffic across campus and even within the department,
when the message clearly could have been delivered in person. But
we have the advantage over the students of having worked with e-mail
long enough that it becomes routine - even second nature. With
practice, it really is easier than walking down the hall to
slip a note under someone's door. Our department has recenty
begun to distribute most routine notices by e-mail, rather than by
paper mail. If you're not connected, you're really "out of it".
Hopefully the need for the carrot will eventually go away as more
and more students are exposed to computers and e-mail in
elementary and high school. There are quite a few projects at the
local, national, and international level that involve grade-school
kids in cooperative projects on-line: data gathering and sharing,
international e-mail pen-pals, that sort of thing.
Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 07:18:06 -0700
From: Barbara Sawrey
Subject: Paper 11 Questions
Carl Snyder asks:
> 1. Are there better carrots to use than extra credit to induce
> students to learn and use electronic communication?
Once my students have learned to use e-mail they say the biggest
factor in their continuing to send e-mail to me is the time factor.
They can send e-mail anytime -- no waiting for office hours. Most of
the mail I get is sent between 8PM and 4AM, which is when students
are studying. I can easily log onto the computer during that time and
answer them, but I wouldn't dream of scheduling office hours in the
middle of the night.
That made me think about why I use e-mail to communicate with the
person in the office next door to me as well as with those around
the world. And one big reason for me is that it is not as disruptive
as a phone call. I can send mail on my own schedule, don't need all
that phone chitchat (Hi. How are you? How's your summer been?), and
can have the same conversation with several people at a time. It's
just plain more efficient in many cases. I think students will see
many of the same benefits soon after they get involved in e-mail,
but the start can be rocky for some. So what I do, once I get the
students' written permission to post grades by a portion of their SSN,
is post their quiz and exam scores in a computer file. It is the fastest
way for them to find out how they did on an exam since it could be
as much as a week before they see their TA in discussion section and
can see the actual test. As incentive it works pretty well.
Barbara Sawrey
bsawrey@ucsd.edu
UC San Diego
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 11:43:00 EDT
From: "Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694"
Subject: Re: Paper 11 Questions
In-Reply-To: bas%chem.UCSD.EDU AT SDSC.BITNET -- Mon, 2 Aug 1993 07:18:06 -0700
Re inducing students to use e-mail:
Our University Testing Service (the office that machine-grades the machine-
graded exams here) will begin this fall to offer instructors the option of
sending students via e-mail their exam grades together with optional
messages from the instructor; the messages can be grade dependent or
dependent on the individual student's performance on selected parts of the
exam. I exepct that this will provide incentive for more students to learn
to use our campus e-mail system; because it is IBM-mainframe-based, it is
fairly user-hostile and intimidating and there is a high activation barrier
to using it.
One reason that so many faculty use it routinely is, as several of you have
pointed out, it is so convenient for them. To send an e-mail message I need
only turn 180 degrees in my desk chair. Students here, and, I'm sure, at
many other places, must go to a computer lab where they may have to wait for
a unit to be free which makes it far less convenient for them.
An incentive for some students comes when they realize they can communicate
with friends at other schools and/or with their families. I know from
direct experience that requests for money from one's children at college
come more readily by e-mail than by letter or phone.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 10:40:10 EST
From: Larry Rosenhein
Subject: e-mail in teaching
Last year I had what I thought was the intriguing idea of making
an e- mail-type function available to students in a regular general
chemistry course. They would be able to post messages and also read
all the messages and replies. I had pleasant visions of students
running to the microlabs to pose questions about homework problems
they were stuck on, or to see if anyone had replied to their problem,
or to show off how much they knew by answering other students'
queries. The instructor would be able to monitor and contribute
also. Even though I was not teaching this course at the time, I
wanted to see if it worked, so I set it up with the computer center,
including arrangements for each student to get a user id and
instructions to be handed out in the lecture. It was not e-mail
itself, but another freeware program called something like "Notice."
But nothing happened, as I could tell from
monitoring the program. I'm not sure if this was just not
interesting to the students, or to the instructors (who I don't think
sold it very hard). This fall I _am_ teaching this course and will
give it one more try.
I see a lot of potential here. Besides providing another
outlet for chewing on the material, creating a sense
of community, and developing those all-important communication skills,
this activity might simply add to the interest of being in the course
itself.
One other thing that e-mail could be used for that I don't think
was mentioned is posting old exams from the course. This could
both save work (and remove the problem of having exams stolen from
the library), and provide the incentive for students to get on the
system in the first place.
Larry Rosenhein
Indiana State University/Terre Haute
CHROSEN@SCIFAC.INDSTATE.EDU
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 11:51:40 -0400
From: "CARL H. SNYDER,
CHEMISTRY; CSNYDER@UMIAMI"
Subject: Paper 11: Replies to short questions
Replies to short questions for Paper11:
***********************************************************
>Questions for Carl H. Snyder, Paper 11
>"Applications of Networked Computers and Electronic Mail in a Chemistry
>Course for nonScience Students"
>1. Was the question of security brought up with respect to students
>having access to the Department LAN? If so, how did you resolve the
>situation?
>
>2. I presume that similar menu progrmas could be used in a Windows
>or Mac environment.
1. Security is maintained pricipally by the use of passwords (a different one
for each class using the lan) and by the use of read-only attributes for some
critical files. Naturally any student who has a class password can change the
attribute and wreak havoc. I think the most effective security measure we used
was simply to back up all the files we put onto the lan. In practice, we had
no security problems. If we had, all we could have done would be to replace
the damaged or erased files.
2. I guess so. I'm fond of DOS and did all the work in DOS. I see no reason
why the files can't be translated to Windows or the Mac.
***********************************************************
>1. From the Syllabus (PAPER11SYL.TXT) I gather that this scheme was used
> in the second half of a two semester sequence. Was course evaluation
> done both semesters? Were there any differences in course evaluations
> or specific comments which might provide some indication of the
> success of your scheme?
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
This was indeed run during the second semester of a two semester sequence.
We haven't yet tried it in the first semester. One reason is that the second
semester class is much smaller than the first. We thought it best to carry out
our trial run with the smaller class. With the trial run completed, we will
repeat it with the first semester course this fall. As I think I noted in the
paper, we didn't do an evaluation. Now that we think we know what we are doing
in the technical area, we'll run it with the first and second (again) semester
courses and get student evaluations.
>2. In section 4.1 you mention "Review Questions" using Diploma IV.
> a. Can you show us a set of questions with comments for one chapter?
> b. Can you tell us a little more about Diploma IV? What unique
> features does the package have which made you decide to use it
> rather than a simple word processor?
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
a. and b. One feature of Diploma IV that I like very much allows the user
to scramble the answers to a set of multiple choice questions for the
preparation of multiple forms, while keeping the sequence of questions
unchanged. In doing this, the program provides a separate answer sheet for
each form, showing the newly correct letter for the set of answers to each
question. This makes it very easy for me to write one full examination on
a word processor and prepare as many different forms as I wish, with a correct
answer sheet for each. Moreover, I can add comments to each answer of the
multiple choice set I used last year and use that old test as a computer
review for the students. In essence, then, I do use a word processor to
prepare the examination, then follow up with a conversion to multiple forms
and/or a review program with the aid of Diploma IV.
Since the output of Diploma IV is useful only with the program itself, I didn't
include any of the outputs with the symposium paper. However, I can translate
one of the reviews into ASCII and send it to anyone who would like a copy.
Let me know if you would like to have one. I'll be happy to e-mail one to
you.
>3. Am I correct in assuming that each dialog in PAPER11HWK.TXT was
> between A student and you? Would there be some advantage to
> making this dialog available to ALL students (protecting the
> anonymity of the student)?
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
You are right. I viewed the communications as personal, just one step
removed from a face-to-face conference. Actually, I hadn't thought of
making these communications available to all students. My only reservation
would be that this might discourage some students who might not want
the entire class to read what they are writing to me, for whatever reasons.
It's worth a try, though. I think I'll ask students to code each message
to me to indicate whether it's stricly private or might be used for the
entire class, with anonymity insured.
>4. What do you consider to be the advantages and disadvantages of
> your scheme
> a. from the perspective of the student?
> b. from the perspective of the instructor?
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting question. a. I think the students enjoyed and benefitted from
the review questions. The reviews gave them an idea of what to expect on the
examinations. I used to place the previous year's examinations on reserve
in the library and allow students to copy them. Now they've got to get their
hands onto a keyboard to get access to the old exams. That's an advance right
there. I had hoped to get more contact with individual students with the
freedom that e-mail allows, but there was no delge of individual questions
or comments. That disappoints me. Maybe it will be different with the fall
semester gruop.
b. The greatest advantage to me was that I had fun with something new and
presumably useful. It was different and stimulating to correspond (for the
first time) with students by e-mail, and to grade and return extra credit work
by e-mail. Intellectual stimulation was certainly my greatest benefit.
>5. Are there any plans to use this scheme with chemistry majors?
> If so in which course or courses? If not, why not?
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd like to see it used in freshman chemistry, but that's an enormous
course -- 700 or so students, I think -- and we're awfully short-handed
right now. My colleagues who teach the freshman majors have their hands
full just doing what they've been doing routinely for many years. I doubt
they have the time or inclination to try something new right now, at least
not until I make it very appealing to them through use in the nonmajors course.
Carl H. Snyder Internet: CSNYDER@umiami.IR.Miami.EDU
Chemistry Department Bitnet: CSNYDER@umiami
University of Miami Phone: (305)-284-2174
Coral Gables, FL 33124 FAX: (305)-285-4571
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 10:56:55 EDT
From: "R. T. Wilson"
Subject: Paper 11 Discussion
Carl Snyder's paper raises interesting questions. Anyone teaching chemistry
to liberal arts students is basically placed in the roll of a technological
missionary working among the heathen. What kind of baubles and trinkets can
we pass out to keep them happy and satisfied? After all, there are more of
them than there are of us, so we need to proceed cautiously lest they turn
hostile. Carl asks:
Subject: Discussion of Paper 11
It is now 11:35 AM on Monday August 2.
It is time to begin discussion of Paper 11.
Where are the author's answers to the Short Questions?
Where is everyone?
Don Rosenthal
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 14:33:28 EDT
From: "C. H. Lochmuller"
Subject: Re: Paper 11 Baubles for Liberal Arts Students
In-Reply-To: <9308021815.AA22674@umd5.umd.edu>; from "R. T. Wilson" at Aug 2,
93 10:56 am
What kind of baubles can one offer?
IF the students are truly Liberal Arts and not just passing time in college
until they can do what they planned in high school., I doubt that bribes are
necessary. On the other hand, they may not react as desired if one leaps
into the world of quantum mechanics as a starting topic. It is not necessary
to view teaching good Arts majors as unwilling to listen. It certainly helps
to know enough about chemistry before 1970 to show them the course of
intelectual development that is now presented as shorthand format glimpses
and called intro chemistry.
It is NOT necessary to wax environmental, to dwell only on chemotaxonomy as
used by archeologists, to speak ony of the last age of chemistry which ended
with Lavoisier { everything since is physics?} as some claim. It is
necessary to be inventive. They often will listen to structure lectures if
you first let them speculate why two rubber items - a length of surgical
latex and the gutta percha of art erasers are chemically identical in that
both are polyisoprene. Yet one stretches and the other won't.
I suppose that what needs to be thought about is what do we hope to leave
Arts majors/students with when the course is over? Our very successful 20+
year run of Chemistry for Executives is certainly a product of such thought.
Want to lose a student fat? Try the Treasurer of Dupont if you can't teach
to his perceived needs from a course. Or the VP for data Processing from
Phillips. Both undergrad liberal arts majors. No prior chemistry. Same
pedagogical problem.
C. H. Lochmuller
Duke University
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 15:17:13 -0400
From: "Aline (Lindy) Harrison"
Subject: Paper #11 e-mail and class
Re: e-mail and baubles one can offer....from my point of view, freshman course
is too early to enter e-mail. I am offering it in a senior capstone course but
as a part of Internet acquisition of library info and I will also set up a
notes system in which I will give assignments which they can pick up only in
e-mail notes system....thus forcing them into it. Again, my point of
view....they may be interested or passing time in college but pressures are to
be practical so I will set the students up that their e-mail participation is
necessary to get what they need...for a grade as usually seems to be the
definition of "necessary". Lindy Harrison, York College of PA
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 15:58:26 -0400
From: "CARL H. SNYDER,
CHEMISTRY; CSNYDER@UMIAMI"
Subject: Re: e-mail in teaching
Larry Rosenhein writes:
> Last year I had what I thought was the intriguing idea of making
>an e- mail-type function available to students in a regular general
>chemistry course. They would be able to post messages and also read
>all the messages and replies. I had pleasant visions of students
>running to the microlabs to pose questions about homework problems
>they were stuck on, or to see if anyone had replied to their problem,
>or to show off how much they knew by answering other students'
>queries. The instructor would be able to monitor and contribute
(omitted material)
> But nothing happened, as I could tell from
>monitoring the program. I'm not sure if this was just not
>interesting to the students, or to the instructors (who I don't think
>sold it very hard). This fall I _am_ teaching this course and will
>give it one more try.
I had a similar experience with e-mail in a nonmajors class. See Paper
11 of the ChemConference.
(omitted material)
> One other thing that e-mail could be used for that I don't think
>was mentioned is posting old exams from the course. This could
>both save work (and remove the problem of having exams stolen from
>the library), and provide the incentive for students to get on the
>system in the first place.
In Paper 11 and in my response to the short questions I describe my
use of old examinations as a foundation for a computer review of course
material. I might add here that in an introductory organic couse I taught
this summer I did post old examinations on our departmental lan, with great
success.
Carl H. Snyder Internet: CSNYDER@umiami.IR.Miami.EDU
Chemistry Department Bitnet: CSNYDER@umiami
University of Miami Phone: (305)-284-2174
Coral Gables, FL 33124 FAX: (305)-285-4571
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 17:01:20 -0500
Reply-To: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Paper #11 e-mail
In-Reply-To: <9308021956.AA29237@umd5.umd.edu>
Dear Lindy Harrison, York College of PA:
Can you give a brief outline of using
Internet for acquisition of library information? Perhaps a syllabus?
I am very interested in helping my students develop this skill.
On Mon, 2 Aug 1993, Aline (Lindy) Harrison wrote:
> Re: e-mail and baubles one can offer....from my point of view, freshman
course
> is too early to enter e-mail. I am offering it in a senior capstone course
but
> as a part of Internet acquisition of library info and I will also set up a
Thank you.
Carolyn S. Judd Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 18:11:34 -0400
From: "James E. Van Verth"
Subject: Re: e-mail in teaching
Following a the practice of the people at Case Western, I have been
posting solutions to current exams on the network server. The consist of
scanned copies of hand-marked tests, and thus have to be stored as
paint files. Theyare low resolution to save space, and are jagged, but
readable. Students clamor for them if I don't post them in a timely
fashion. They like it because they can each print their own copy. It
also eliminates the problem of the answers being stolen from the
bulletin board.
James E. Van Verth Department of Chemistry
VANVERTH@CANISIUS.BITNET Canisius College, Buffalo, NY 14208
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 19:59:18 -0400
From: "CARL H. SNYDER,
CHEMISTRY; CSNYDER@UMIAMI"
Subject: Paper 11: Responses, Part I
Response to comments on Paper 11:
Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
writes:
>Carl Snyder asks:
>> 1. Are there better carrots to use than extra credit to induce
>> students to learn and use electronic communication?
>
>Extra credit does seem to be a slightly "artificial" way
>to encourage students. One might ask why WE use e-mail and
>electronic communication, without being given extra credit
>by our employers. One reason is that some information is
.....
>Hopefully the need for the carrot will eventually go away as more
>and more students are exposed to computers and e-mail in
>elementary and high school. There are quite a few projects at the
>local, national, and international level that involve grade-school
>kids in cooperative projects on-line: data gathering and sharing,
>international e-mail pen-pals, that sort of thing.
True enough. Extra credit is not only artificial, but a bribe. I dislike
using it to entice students into e-maii. And sure, the need for the carrot
will eventually disappear as students in elementary grades and high school
work their way into college. But what are we to do in the meantime? As
I see it, we need either to make e-mail compelling fun (the carrot) or
a requirement for a good grade (the stick) until students who have grown
up academically on e-mail get into our courses. I welcome any ideas for
carrots. I'd like to avoid the sticks if possible.
Barbara Sawrey
bsawrey@ucsd.edu
UC San Diego
writes:
> Carl Snyder asks:
> > 1. Are there better carrots to use than extra credit to induce
> > students to learn and use electronic communication?
>
>Once my students have learned to use e-mail they say the biggest
>factor in their continuing to send e-mail to me is the time factor.
>They can send e-mail anytime -- no waiting for office hours. Most of
>the mail I get is sent between 8PM and 4AM, which is when students
>are studying. I can easily log onto the computer during that time and
>answer them, but I wouldn't dream of scheduling office hours in the
>middle of the night.
That's the principal reason I want to introduce e-mail: to increase
the effecitveness and efficiency of my communications with my students.
I see it as a supplement to the office visit, a quick and easy way for a
student to ask a simple question at any time and get a rapid response.
But my students didn't see it that way, at least not in this limited
test. Then again, maybe very few had simple questions.
>but the start can be rocky for some. So what I do, once I get the
>students' written permission to post grades by a portion of their SSN,
>is post their quiz and exam scores in a computer file. It is the fastest
>way for them to find out how they did on an exam since it could be
>as much as a week before they see their TA in discussion section and
>can see the actual test. As incentive it works pretty well.
I don't think it would work for me. With multiple choice tests and a
good testing and grading center, I can get not only printed results, but
a nice statistical analysis as well into student hands the period after the
examination. Giving that up just to get students to use e-mail seems to me
to be a net loss.
"Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694"
writes:
>Our University Testing Service (the office that machine-grades the machine-
>graded exams here) will begin this fall to offer instructors the option of
>sending students via e-mail their exam grades together with optional
>messages from the instructor; the messages can be grade dependent or
>dependent on the individual student's performance on selected parts of the
>exam. I exepct that this will provide incentive for more students to learn
>to use our campus e-mail system; because it is IBM-mainframe-based, it is
>fairly user-hostile and intimidating and there is a high activation barrier
>to using it.
If we had that facility I'd try it, but we don't. As an aside, our
e-mail runs off a VAX/VMS and is very easy to use.
.................
>only turn 180 degrees in my desk chair. Students here, and, I'm sure, at
>many other places, must go to a computer lab where they may have to wait for
>a unit to be free which makes it far less convenient for them.
We have work stations scattered all over campus, and a nice group of them
in our chemistry department. I don't think waiting time is a factor for us.
>An incentive for some students comes when they realize they can communicate
>with friends at other schools and/or with their families. I know from
>direct experience that requests for money from one's children at college
>come more readily by e-mail than by letter or phone.
Now there's an interesting observation. My one student who did use e-mail
extensively (see below) was very, very active in using it to communicate
with friends at other universities.
Terrell Wilson
Virginia Military Institute
Lexington, Virginia 24450
e-mail: fchwilson%faculty%vmi@ist.vmi.edu
writes:
>Carl Snyder's paper raises interesting questions. Anyone teaching chemistry
>to liberal arts students is basically placed in the roll of a technological
>missionary working among the heathen. What kind of baubles and trinkets can
>we pass out to keep them happy and satisfied? After all, there are more of
>them than there are of us, so we need to proceed cautiously lest they turn
>hostile. Carl asks:
>He also says:
>Carl, I think I would have a talk with that student. What distinguishes him
>from the other 27? Do you have Meyers-Briggs scores of your students
>available? Our liberal arts students are not like us, and that is one of the
>hardest things for science teachers to understand. Students will use
Not only don't I have Meyers-Briggs scores, I don't have the slightest idea
what they are. But I can tell you that *she* is distinguished from *her*
classmates in that *she* was unquestionably the top student in the class.
When I asked her, incidentally, she told me that she had not used e-mail
before coming into this course. I regret now that we didn't go into the
matter more deeply.
Another point: I don't agree that our liberal arts students are not like us,
at least in things that matter. Sometimes I do think that as an organic
chemist I'm further from a theretical physical chemist, for example, that from
a logic major. But that, too, is another matter.
> Unless I missed it, you didn't mention how much of the instructional
>time in the course was devoted to use of e-mail. If that is one of your
>objectives, it may be necessary to devote more time to it. Also, I believe you
> made a tactical error in passing out key-word list hardcopies before the tests
>when they were already available by e-mail. Students are efficiency experts.
>They won't waste time getting them by e-mail if they know you're going to pass
>them out anyway. Try distributing something they need by e-mail only. Carl,
>I would also like to know how that one unique student compared with the others
>when the final grades were passed out.
You've got me there. I devoted just one period to e-mail instructions. But
as you can see from the appendices I did provide plenty of written instruction.
Maybe more time in personal instruction would be beneficial. As for the hard
copies, that was an attempt to minimize the stick. I just don't like the idea
of making e-mail virtually mandatory. I'll have to think more about that.
And, again, she was the top student. Maybe, as the data on the extra credit
work suggests, the better students catch on quickly, the poorer students don't.
Or is that too facile an explanation?
C. H. Lochmuller
Duke University
writes:
>What kind of baubles can one offer?
(omitted material)
>I suppose that what needs to be thought about is what do we hope to leave
>Arts majors/students with when the course is over? Our very successful 20+
>year run of Chemistry for Executives is certainly a product of such thought.
>Want to lose a student fat? Try the Treasurer of Dupont if you can't teach
>to his perceived needs from a course. Or the VP for data Processing from
>Phillips. Both undergrad liberal arts majors. No prior chemistry. Same
>pedagogical problem.
These comments, including the material I have omitted, contain some interesting
points that deserve discussion. But my concern in the paper is focussed more
sharply on getting students to use e-mail than on broader pedagogical problems
encountered in dealing with nonscience students. This is a discussion that
could well be continued in another forum.
Lindy Harrison, York College of PA
writes:
>Re: e-mail and baubles one can offer....from my point of view, freshman course
>is too early to enter e-mail. I am offering it in a senior capstone course but
>as a part of Internet acquisition of library info and I will also set up a
I *hope* you are wrong. It seems to me that freshman in college ought to have
the skills to use e-mail in its current form. If they don't have even those
skills I have to ask myself whether they have the skills to learn chemistry.
But then *motivation* is another matter. I think one of our tasks as teachers
is to provide motivation to those students who need it. But that, too, is
another discussion.
Carl H. Snyder Internet: CSNYDER@umiami.IR.Miami.EDU
Chemistry Department Bitnet: CSNYDER@umiami
University of Miami Phone: (305)-284-2174
Coral Gables, FL 33124 FAX: (305)-285-4571
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 20:43:31 CDT
From: Barry Rowe
Subject: Re: Paper #11 e-mail and class
I apologize if this arrives late, but the NCSA email server is not working
correctly and I guess some of the mail lays around for several days before
being sent.
In response to Linday Harrison . . .
What are you going to do with students who are used to email access in high
school and demand it in college? We have an ISDN line and I expect most
high schools to have it in 5 years.
barry
[] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
[] [] []
Barry E. Rowe browe@ncsa.uiuc.edu NCSA ChemViz group
240 CAB, 152 E. Springfield Ave. Champaign, IL 61820
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 21:48:16 -0400
From: HARRY PENCE
Subject: Using e-mail in class
Last semester I introduced electronic communications in my senior
seminar class for the first time. My main focus was teaching them to use
telenet to access Chem Abstracts, but I also asked each student to sign on to a
chemistry-related bulletin board and write a one-page report on one of the
threads on that bulletin board.
All of the 15 students in the course ultimately completed the
assignment, but I had to work very hard to convince some of them. (This was a
pass-fail course, and the bulletin board assignment was such a small part of
the course that it was difficult to convince anyone that his or her chances of
failing the course would increase significantly in this particular assignment
was not completed. Part of the problem may have been that I could only spend
one lecture on this topic, so I left them largely on their own. I did make it
clear, however, that anyone who was having trouble could see me for help, and
several students did do this.
Only one student clearly became a dedicated e-mail user. Some of the
problems which must be overcome the next time I do this include: (a) some of
the bulletin boards are either no longer in existence or else are not very
active, (b) students felt that the discussions of some of the bulletin boards
were not related to their activities, and (c) students felt that it was
unlikely that they would have access to e-mail after they graduated. Based on
this experience, it may be easier to start e-mail training with sophomores or
even earlier.
Lest you think I regret the experiment, I certainly plan to try again
the next time I teach senior seminar. This was just an exploratory exercise.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| Harry E. Pence BITNET: PENCEHE@SNYONEVA |
| Professor of Chemistry PHONE: 607-436-3179 |
| SUNY Oneonta FAX: 607-436-2107 |
| Oneonta, NY 13820 |
____________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 22:20:35 MDT
From: Reed Howald
Subject: paper 11 discussion, carrots
Paper 11 discussion
>are there better carrots?
>one reason that so many faculty use it . . . it is so convenient
>but nothing happened.
>I'd like to see it used in freshman chemistry, but that;s an enormous course
-- 700 or so students . . . -- and we're awfully short handed
>O'Haver's list
>The key to this work is the use of a flexible menu program that allows
students easy access . . .
Extra credit is a good carrot to get students to use e-mail, but a more
effective one is providing the material they need to review for the exam.
Rosenhein suggests posting old exams from the course. With modern word
processing this will be easy and effective. I envision such large question
banks a few years from now that there will be no problem with providing two or
three practice exams to each student on every topic we teach.
Is the use of e-mail one of the topics we need to teach in chemistry. A month
ago I would have said NO! The discussion of paper 9 has changed my mind. If
computers are really changing the way we operate as chemists and teachers we
owe it to our current students to demonstrate even embryonic uses as early in
their education as possible.
I see no problem in using e-mail with 700 student classes. Snyder's data
indicate the we can anticipate up to 5 communications per student. I had 120
e-mail messages one day last week when I was back from a backpack trip, but
that was doable. 3500 messages over 10 weeks is only 70 per day. I would not
deal with them all personally, but a TA could sort through them all regularly.
At Montana State University all students automatically get a computer account
on our VAX system. I like the concept of distributing scores on examinations
along with instructor comments to all students by e-mail, and apparently that
is all handled by machines.
But we will not get 100% yields. Most conference participants have yet to
send a message to "CHEMCONF@UMDD.UMD.EDU". It is hard to do, and we (like our
students) don't think it is essential. We as teachers must show that we use
computers AND make them easier to use.
The main menu in paper 15 provides the students e-mail instructions and
access. This is an 8 item menu. Selections are made with arrow keys plus
return or with a single letter keystroke. I am frustrated with menus that
require mice, but we can and should provide menu eccess to computer
information and control in a standard way. This is the one item I notice
missing from O'Haver's list: Using standard menus.
Here is my revision of his list:
1. Using standard menus
2. Files and file types
3. Text editors through desktop publishing
4. Calculators, spreadsheets, and equation solvers
5. Interpreters, compilers, and programming languages
6. Serial and parallel communication
7. Interfacing
8. Calibration
9. Cut, copy and paste
10. Computer graphics
11. Networks, clients, servers and peers
12. Telecommunication and Internet tools
Thus use of standard menus is first, because it is the key to easy access to
the details one needs on the others. Note that at 12 item menu like this does
not allow selection by a single letter (I is used twice and C four times). I
propose using two letter key strokes for standard menu choices, and providing
the information one needs for a particular job on the computer no further than
two menus away. We shouldn't need to be drilled in how to use UUDECODE. we
should be taught where to find the file and where to get the instructions.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 06:51:00 EDT
From: "Thomas C. OHAVER"
Subject: Paper 11: Posting old exams
> One other thing that e-mail could be used for that I don't think
> was mentioned is posting old exams from the course.
For the last three years I have been posting old exams for my
courses in a directory on the departmental LAN fileserver. The
advantages over e-mail distribution are two-fold: first, the
documents retain the formatting, formulae, subscripts, structures,
graphics, etc.; and second, it is much easier to access and print
them. All the students have to do is to go to the student
workstation room in our building, double-click on the course
directory, and then double-click on the exam they want to see. To
print a copy, they simply select Print from the File menu. The
DISadvantage of fileserver distribution is that it is available
only from the departmental LAN, which can not be accessed from
outside the department or the campus (for reasons having to do with
software licenses). In fact, one reason for posting the old exams
in this way was to give them a good reason to use our student
workstation room more regularly - or to learn where it is if they
have not discovered it yet.
Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 07:53:33 -0400
From: George Long
Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Subject: Re: Paper 11: Posting old exams
What are the disadvantages of using E-mail to communicate with
students? Undoubtedly, this type of communication is going to
become much more prevalent in the future. I can see the possibility
of whole courses being taught exclusively via E-mail, or at least
in combination with video technology (as in paper 8). There would
be many advantages to this scheme, many have been mentioned already.
Could it be that asynchronous teaching will largley replace traditional
methods? If it does, what does everybody think the downsides might be?
George Long
Indiana Univ. of PA.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 10:58:41 EDT
From: "Frank M. Lanzafame"
Subject: email with students
One question I have regarding the use of email with students for exam
keys, and similar materials, is the handling of subscripts and
superscripts etc. I make fairly extensive use of multiple layers of
text in my word processor (eg. conversion factors including scientific
notation and squares and cubes of units...)
Do those of you using email to transmit such materials to students
have that capability in your email software (my VMS system handles
straight ASCII text only), or do you move your text to a straight
ASCII representation such as H2SO4, or better yet HPO4-2 ??
-----------------------------------------------------------
| Frank M. Lanzafame Department of Chemistry |
| Monroe Community College 1000 East Henrietta Rd. |
| Rochester, NY 14623 (716) 292-2000 Ext. 5130 |
| Internet: flanzafame@eckert.acadcomp.monroecc.edu |
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 11:32:45 -0400
From: "Aline (Lindy) Harrison"
Subject: e-mail exam answer posting
Van Verth (canisius) posts exam answers on e-mail. My senior capstone is a
writing intensive. Think I'll have them e-mail their papers to me...and I can
correct them on line...then they can correct and resubmit without so much
paper....and, as requested, I'll supply a way to do library search from
Internet in a couple of days as soon as I find the papers among my stuff again.
Lindy Harrison -- York College
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 11:39:10 -0500
From: Donald Peterson
Subject: DISCUSSION OF PAPER 11
I have been a passive participant of this conference since it started. Since I
am deaf, I do have to say that this is the first conference in which I have
been able to participate fully and not feel disadvantaged in any way. The only
negative aspects have been that I am not usually in my office during the summer
and these discussions really eat up my disc quota.
Gallaudet University has had e-mail for a long time, using a DEC-10 and now the
VAX. Last year was the first time I used it for classroom use. This was for a
30-student General Chem course. At the beginning of the course, hard copy
schedules and directions for using e-mail were distributed. After that
everything from homework schedules, practice exams and general notices were
sent out via email using a .DIS file containing account names for all of my
students [those few who did not already have accounts got them fast]. While
most had already had experience with email, it helped make them more computer
literate. We have no problem with student workstations. There are stations
scattered throughout the campus, as well as 20 in our Science Computer Lab.
One great advantage is that I no longer have to keep hard copies for students
who lose schedules and whatnot. I can simply send them another copy via email.
A further advantage is that everything is in print. I do not denigrate in any
way the sign language that we use for classroom communication, but the use of
email does reinforce this communication. I'm sure that students who hear do not
get everything that they should through hearing alone.
I am puzzled as to why Dr. Snyder would need access to the students'
directories on the VAX. Was this only with the Chemistry LAN? or with the
general mainframe VAX? If the latter, I should think it would be a potential
invasion of privacy, since the students (if they are anything like ours here)
carry on a lot of personal conversation via email. Aside from that angle,
isn't it a lot of bother to get into 28 different account to check? I would use
a separate account for the Instructor (a course account as opposed to a
personal account) and have the students sent email to that course account.
Again, I thank all of you for these discussions on all of the papers. I have
enjoyed their frankness and wit.
Don Peterson
=======================================================================
Donald O. Peterson ? 202-651-5385 (V/TDD)
Department of Chemistry + - 202-651-5463 (FAX)
Gallaudet University * dopeterson@gallua.bitnet
Washington, D.C. 20002 ~~~ dopeterson@gallua.gallaudet.edu
=======================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 11:44:42 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: e-mail for students
Prof. Snyder has made a valuable suggestion in proposing wider
use of e-mail in teaching.
Using e-mail is an important skill to use in teaching science
at all levels. For the science student it is a tool that they
will need in their future work. And as several participants
pointed out, there are various ways that we can use this tool
to entice students to use it.
For the non-science majors it is also important and for the
same reasons that it is important for the science majors. You
all may be aware that many liberal arts courses - especially
writing courses - on some campuses are already using e-mail or
some other form of electronic communication to process student
work and provide feed back to students for on going projects.
When e-mail is not used then diskettes are a useful way to
reduce paper load.
All students need some enticement for learning an important
tool. These take the form of a grade, extra credit, or access
to important information. Of the three the last is probably
the most important. This one satisfies a need perceived by the
student. However, even if something is perceived as needed it
will be given up or postponed if access is too difficult.
Furthermore, there is always the question of what is
appropriate for inclusion in any particular course. Many items
could be listed for a non-science major taking a chemistry
course. Courses such as chemistry of polymers, food chemistry,
forensic chemistry arise out of the desire to improve the
science literacy of our students. This then leads to the
consideration of what science literacy implies.
Surely we would all agree that one or two courses in science
does not make for a scientifically literate person. Perhaps
consideration of this issue would be put into perspective by
considering the following question that Prof. Nelson posed at
one of his critical thinking workshops. The question is:
"What do you want your student to remember about science when
she is governor of your state 20 years from now?"
When put into this light it becomes clear to me that no one
individual fact is very important in the push to make a person
scientifically literate. The focus shifts, in my opinion, to
generating a positive attitude and a glimmer of awareness about
science in students in such a way that the student is open to
consider further reading and learning about science once they
are out of the formal educational stream.
There are many examples of successful courses that accomplish
this goal. Some of these are at small four and two year
colleges and some are at larger schools. The important thing
is to match the learning experience with the mission of the
school and the mission of the program while keeping in mind the
long term needs of the students. It does no good to offer a
great course full of facts and interesting topics if the
students after the course never read about science again. As
the 1990 NSF sponsored Sigma Xi report suggests, we should
avoid offering courses that represent science as static bodies
of knowledge to be memorized.
In light of this then it becomes important to develop in
students the awareness that they can figure things out for
themselves and do things that scientists do. Prof. Snyder
accomplishes this objective in one way by using e-mail as an
effective teaching strategy. He further improves student
engagement with the subject by designing their own exam
questions. Assigning points toward the final score is an
appropriate strategy for increasing compliance of the students
on this activity. However, as we all know, no strategy ever
ensures complete compliance from students.
Prof. Snyder asks: "Is there a body of instructional software
that is particularly suited to the non-science major?"
I think that we can use the same software as we use for the
science majors. For example, one of my students asked about
the shape of a large ring hydrocarbon of 15 atoms. Was it
puckered? After class I thought about how I would illustrate
this to the student most effectively. I could have constructed
a model with balls and sticks or some other modeling kit.
Instead I turned to my little PC and started up my little
modeling program. Next day I took the PC to class and we
examined the model. There were several interesting outcomes
from this exercise. First, the students were surprised that in
a little financially strapped school like ours we could "do
molecular modeling" on a computer. Second, it was a wonderful
way to introduce how some of the drug companies do research on
the structure of drugs and try to design new ones. Third,
students who are non-science majors appreciate the same toys
that science majors appreciate.
Another example may give others some inspiration. As part of a
food chemistry course I used a nutrition program for analyzing
foods and menus. The program is called Nutrition Wizard.
Students liked using this type of software. It was practical
and satisfied one of my teaching objectives - to get students
to analyze data about the foods that they eat. When this is
coupled to a library exercise using standard nutrition
references and a spreadsheet project, the students are
presented with the opportunity of integrating information and
tools in a useful critical thinking promoting fashion.
I join Dr. Snyder in being interested in hearing about
other examples of using
standard software for the non science major.
Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University
Roszieli@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Chemistry Department
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 11:48:43 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: email with students
If you are using Eudora on a Mac or NuPop on a PC you "attach documents"
typically MS Word or WordPerfect with formatted chemistry sybols and
diagrams etc. They both use the same bin/hex encoding so at the other end
you get readable files for your word processor. From a Mac you can easily
send both a Mac and DOS version, or the Macs can read the PC version. The
actual e-mail message just tells the recipient what is in the word
processor document which they are asked to save on receipt or it may open
automatically --- just like getting papers for this conference with
Fetchit. Three cheears for PCs and Macs compared to the more expensive less
friendly VMS or UNIX systems which can do it to but usually at a greater
cost.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 12:28:27 -0400
From: "CARL H. SNYDER,
CHEMISTRY; CSNYDER@UMIAMI"
Subject: Re: DISCUSSION OF PAPER 11
Donald Peterson
writes:
>30-student General Chem course. At the beginning of the course, hard copy
>schedules and directions for using e-mail were distributed. After that
>everything from homework schedules, practice exams and general notices were
>sent out via email using a .DIS file containing account names for all of my
>students [those few who did not already have accounts got them fast]. While
I, too, distributed hard copies of the schedule and other matters in the
first class period, then put them onto the lan. I did note that that
whenever I looked in on the students in the computer room the *only* files
I ever saw on the screen were the review examinations. And that invariably
was just before the scheduled examinations.
.....
>One great advantage is that I no longer have to keep hard copies for students
>who lose schedules and whatnot. I can simply send them another copy via email.
A fine, fine use of e-mail, or of lan files, as far as I'm concerned.
.....
>I am puzzled as to why Dr. Snyder would need access to the students'
>directories on the VAX. Was this only with the Chemistry LAN? or with the
>general mainframe VAX? If the latter, I should think it would be a potential
>invasion of privacy, since the students (if they are anything like ours here)
>carry on a lot of personal conversation via email. Aside from that angle,
>isn't it a lot of bother to get into 28 different account to check? I would use
>a separate account for the Instructor (a course account as opposed to a
>personal account) and have the students sent email to that course account.
This was only with the VAX. Here's why. Dr. Shelley, co-author of the paper,
had previous experience using e-mail in a computer course he teaches. He found
that his students would submit any specific piece of work to him repeatedly by
e-mail with each submission a refinement of the previous one, up to the
deadline for the work. Naturally, each submission came to him via e-mail and
he had to scan or read each successive submission. His idea was for students
to place all their files in their own directories, and for me to look into the
students' directories after the deadline for submission had passed and read
*only* the latest file for any given assignment. This in itself didn't
penalize any student for repeated submission, yet saved me a lot of work
reading obsolete submissions. Furthermore, after I had read, graded, and
commented on each student's work I needed only to save it in that student's
file under an appropriate filename. The student found it there the next time
he or she logged in. Yes, it was a lot of work and bother, but I'm not
convinced there's a better way to do it. I'd appreciate any suggestions
anyone may have for an improvment on this process.
As for issues of privacy, the student accounts were set up specifically for
this couse and with the students' knowledge that I could read anything in
the files. I don't know if that constitutes an invasion of privacy but in
my own opinion that's not an issue here. If any particular student wanted
to use the VAX account for his or her own correspondence, that was up to
the student.
Carl H. Snyder Internet: CSNYDER@umiami.IR.Miami.EDU
Chemistry Department Bitnet: CSNYDER@umiami
University of Miami Phone: (305)-284-2174
Coral Gables, FL 33124 FAX: (305)-285-4571
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 12:37:00 EST
From: "DR. LISA KINTNER CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT, UPJ,
JOHNSTOWN PA"
Subject: Paper # 11 and EMail in Teaching
Carl Snyder's question: "Can E-Mail become a useful supplement to
office conferences?" generated some interesting responses. I saw
some suggestions that I would like to see introduced here at UPJ.
Larry Rosenhein, Indiana State University/Terre Haute, suggests:
>I see a lot of potential here. Besides providing another outlet for
>chewing on the material, creating a sense of community, and
>developing those all-important communication skills, this activity
>might simply add to the interest of being in the course itself.
> One other thing that e-mail could be used for ... is posting old
exams from the course.
Two recent articles in J. Chem. Ed on Writing in the Chemistry
curriculum (Sunderwirth, S.G. J.Chem.Ed. 1993 70(6), 474-475; and
Cooper, M.M. J.Chem.Ed. 1993 70(6), 476-477) had ideas that I see as
easily translated into an EMail "plan"
Lindy Harrison, York College of PA, describes
> a senior capstone course....as a part of Internet acquisition of
>library info....I will also set up a notes system in which I will give
>assignments which they can pick up only in e-mail notes system
>....thus forcing them into it.
James E. Van Verth Canisius College, Buffalo, NY, is one of many who
described the
>posting solutions to current exams on the network server. The
>consist of scanned copies of hand-marked tests, and thus have to be
>stored as paint files. They are low resolution to save space, and are
>jagged, but readable. Students clamor for them if I don't post them
>in a timely fashion.
Barry Rowe (browe@ncsa.uiuc.edu) tells us that we would be wise to
introduce EMail as early as possible. . .
>What are you going to do with students who are used to email
>access in high school and demand it in college? We have an ISDN
>line and I expect most high schools to have it in 5 years.
Harry E. Pence (BITNET: PENCEHE@SNYONEVA) described an
application similar to Lindy Harrison's,
>Last semester I introduced electronic communications in my senior
>seminar class for the first time. My main focus was teaching them
>to use telnet to access Chem Abstracts, but I also asked each
>student to sign on to a chemistry-related bulletin board and write a
>one-page report on one of the threads on that bulletin board.
After reading these comments I am prompted to circulate Carl's
paper and the comment to my department colleagues and request
ideas for applications of EMail in our chem classes. I expect that I
will attempt to use it extensively next spring when I teach advanced
inorganic. Perhaps with another summer to play with the idea, I
might introduce it into my freshman level gen chem and prep-chem
courses.
My own experience with EMail started as a post-doc. Another
post-doc who had used BITNET previously joined the group and
motivated everyone to get BITNET accounts. That year I helped
organize an international conference via BITNET and found that it
was a much more efficient method to communicate with my old grad
school friends. My first teaching job (fall 1990) was at a mid-size
four-year school which had a VAX and was the end-node of a larger
VAX network. Two of the chemistry faculty had VAX accounts, but
rarely used them. As I began to make inquiries about EMail, I found
that I was at the pioneering edge for that institution. Although I
was only there for a year, I had a student doing research under me
and he was to continue after I left; he was to communicate his
results via EMail. Therefore I instructed him to get a VAX account
and gave him some basic instruction. Once he started sending me
EMail, all of the chem students who knew me started sending EMail -
- it caught on like wild-fire. When I arrived at UPJ (fall 1991), I
found that although Pitt has a good system, only a small fraction of
the faculty on this campus take full advantage of it. I learned a
great deal about the availability of information over the INTERNET
by participating in Richard Smith's "Navigating the INTENET"
workshop last fall. This conference has provided unlimited
opportunities for learning.
What about students? Quite by accident one of my genchem
students ( a comp sci major) got my address and started sending
messages asking for clarification on class assignments, etc. At the
time I was intrigued by the student's resourcefulness. I have
noticed that many of my students will pick up the phone and call me
in the office to ask questions. I suspect that if they knew they cold
do the same via EMail they would. When I teach advanced inorganic
in the spring (5 to 10 students) I have them use ChemAbstracts via
STN and the library's on-line database. Some of these kids have VAX
accounts and I quickly show them how they can gain access to other
information sources from the computer in my office. These kids
usually get hooked and start to use electronic communication. I
suspect that with a requirement that they must use it and some
basic instruction (Carl Snyder's on-line tutorials are nice!!) it would
work well. It's just like my 13-year-old and the roller coasters . .
.give them something they find exciting that appeals to their visual
senses and has a resemblance to the electronic world around them --
and they will use it because it's "fun"!
Finally, to answer Carl's question directly,
>Are there better carrots to use than extra credit to induce
>students to learn and use electronic communication?
After reading the other responses, I have come to the conclusion
that we need to make electronic communication an integral part of
our courses. Some excellent suggestions have been made. I suspect
that there are others. Barry Rowe (browe@ncsa.uiuc.edu) made the
point that soon our freshmen will almost expect it. Let's not
disappoint them -- rather let's challenge them!
Lisa Kintner
Department of Chemistry
University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
Johnstown, PA
KINTNER@VMS.CIS.PITT.EDU
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 13:27:35 -0400
From: "James E. Van Verth"
Subject: Re: e-mail exam answer posting
>Van Verth (canisius) posts exam answers on e-mail. My senior capstone is a
>writing intensive. Think I'll have them e-mail their papers to me...and I can
>correct them on line...then they can correct and resubmit without so much
>paper....and, as requested, I'll supply a way to do library search from
>Internet in a couple of days as soon as I find the papers among my stuff again.
>
>Lindy Harrison -- York College
Correction: I don't post answers on e-mail; I put them on the server for
"public" access. The reason being that the answers are hand written, and
must be provided as graphics files. That, of course, does not affect your
excellent plans, Lindy. I believe that some word processors - I think
MSWord - have ways of attaching separate editorial comments to documents.
James E. Van Verth Department of Chemistry
VANVERTH@CANISIUS.BITNET Canisius College, Buffalo, NY 14208
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 13:33:37 -0400
From: "James E. Van Verth"
Subject: Re: e-mail exam answer posting
Just as I sent the last comments, I came to the realization that, of
course, word processor documents as such can't be sent by e-mail, either.
Never mind...
James E. Van Verth Department of Chemistry
VANVERTH@CANISIUS.BITNET Canisius College, Buffalo, NY 14208
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 15:16:45 -0400
From: Robert Nelson
Subject: Re: Paper 11: Posting old exams
While using e-mail to communicate with students is a laudable idea,
not every instutution has sufficient access to e-mail and/or terminals
for all students to have convenient use. In addition, it discriminates
against students who must commute to campus since their already long
day must be extended to find a terminal and check their e-mail.
We cannot even get our students to check their snail-mail boxes on a
regular basis.
As far as posting old exams, I prefer to place them on reserve
in the library or include them in a packet the students purchase at the start
of the term. This is particularly important since figures and chemical
formulas do not "translate" well.
Robert N. Nelson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Chemistry - 8064 Georgia Southern University Statesboro, GA 30460
912-681-5675 rnnelson@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 14:32:05 PST
From: "Edward H. Piepmeier"
Subject: paper 11
>George Long writes: I can see the possibility
>of whole courses being taught exclusively via E-mail,..Could
>it be that asynchronous teaching will largely replace
>traditional methods? If it does, what does everybody think
>the downsides might be?
--------------------------------------------------
I am an email enthusiast, and I have seen it catch on quickly.
But that has made me wonder where are we going to get the
computer storage, network time, and personal time to read and
answer all communications? Our mainframe email accounts have
a 500-Kbyte limit and my local network manager feels that this
is adequate (although he has not yet imposed a limit). I have
had little trouble transferring 5-Megabyte image files via
ftp, but what will happen after traffic increases
exponentially?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 17:56:02 -0500
From: Alton Banks
Subject: Re: e-mail exam answer posting
>Just as I sent the last comments, I came to the realization that, of
>course, word processor documents as such can't be sent by e-mail, either.
>Never mind...
>
>James E. Van Verth Department of Chemistry
>VANVERTH@CANISIUS.BITNET Canisius College, Buffalo, NY 14208
...............................................
I would like to add a bit of experience to this topic. It is possible to
have a word-processor document saved as an RTF file, encoded (with BinHex
or uuencode) and sent via e-mail. This process is highly susceptible to
local computing environments. NCSU Chem. Dept. has a departmental RISC6000
to which all faculty can be attached. I use a MAC for most of my word
processor work. I use EUDORA to have my MAC communicate with the RISC6000.
I can send a file--handled as described above--to a colleague --or for
that matter to another Internet address, the recipient decodes it (BinHex
or uudecode) and can open it within his/her word processor.
It's a hassle the first time you do it, but the learning curve is pleasant !
Graphics obviously have their own problems, but as discussants at this
conference know GIF files can be used to solve those problems.
Alton J. Banks, Chemistry
Electronic address: banks@chemdept.chem.ncsu.edu
Mailing address:
North Carolina State University
Department of Chemistry
Box 8204
Raleigh, NC 27695-8204
Phone (919) 515-2546
Fax (919) 515-5079
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 21:34:10 EDT
From: Jim Holler
Subject: Re: Paper 11: Posting old exams
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
3 Aug 1993 15:16:45 -0400 from
Email is not for everyone .. now. However, it is just a matter of time.
All students are going to need to know how to communicate in this way.
There are certainly many reasons of convenience for using email in a course
setting, but in my opinion, this is not the most important reason for using
it. By requiring students to become familiar and comfortable with email
and other as yet unknown forms of communciation, we will better prepare them
for life in an optoelectronic world.
On Tue, 3 Aug 1993 15:16:45 -0400 Robert Nelson said:
>While using e-mail to communicate with students is a laudable idea,
>not every instutution has sufficient access to e-mail and/or terminals
>for all students to have convenient use. In addition, it discriminates
>against students who must commute to campus since their already long
>day must be extended to find a terminal and check their e-mail.
>We cannot even get our students to check their snail-mail boxes on a
>regular basis.
> As far as posting old exams, I prefer to place them on reserve
>in the library or include them in a packet the students purchase at the start
>of the term. This is particularly important since figures and chemical
>formulas do not "translate" well.
>
>Robert N. Nelson, Ph.D.
>Associate Professor of Chemistry
>Chemistry - 8064 Georgia Southern University Statesboro, GA 30460
>912-681-5675 rnnelson@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884
Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069
University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Lexington, KY 40506
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 22:13:49 CDT
From: Brad Thompson
Subject: Distributing Grades by E-mail, etc
Regarding distributing grades via networks:
==========================================
<< Follow-up on Peter Gold's msg. >>
This very unglamorous use of networks (e-mail or otherwise) is popular
with students, and a really sweet carrot. I've worked it out in two
environments:
* At the University of Toledo, on an old PDP-11 network under RSTS,
we ran a program called MYGRADE. We had a gradebook program from
which we could export grade reports that students could get from
any network terminal. Most chemistry faculty distributed exam
results this way -- often within an hour of the grading. We would
have final course grades in general chemistry "on the net" within
a day after the final was given. Lots of students asked why all
departments couldn't do this.
* At Gustavus Adolphus this past spring we made the first use of a
similar program for Novell Netware PC networks. In its first test
this program reported only results from our individualized-
homework program, but in principle it will handle any table of
of grades in comma-quote-delimited form. When we have a version
for general use (this summer, I trust) I'll put a note on CHEMED-L
and PHYS-L.
Two observations from experience:
--------------------------------
(1) Student response.
A major advantage to grade distribution by this means is that students can
easily be given complete, up-to-date printouts of their grade records, with
such comparison standards as the faculty member wishes. Students really
appreciate this! Many of them don't (perhaps don't know how to) keep up on
their status. I have generally posted advisory target score totals for A's,
B's, etc.
Oh, and faculty members' grade records do occasionally get screwed up, too!
With a procedure like this, students will tell you!
(2) Student identification.
Grades should not, and need not, be distributed (by computer or otherwise)
using part of each student's SS number, or their student ID, or the like.
I'm not sure that one is totally in the clear vis-a-vis federal privacy laws
even with students' permission, unless (a) you "inform them of their
rights", and (b) make grades equally available by other means. There's a
simple alternative: just pass out a code for this specific purpose! It's
simple to do -- four- or five-letter combination is adequate. If codes are
generated randomly, leave out vowels in the middle -- this avoids most
objectionable words. Both at Toledo and at GAC we devised programs that
would allow the students to "register" their codes and enter their names and
student ID numbers. For some, this simple program was their first computer
experience! At Toledo we used this to get their names into our gradebook
files. A labor-saving scheme, and they almost always spell their names
correctly.
H. Bradford Thompson [Brad]
Scholar in Residence, Chemistry & Physics
bradt@gac.edu Gustavus Adolphus College
Saint Peter, Minnesota 56082
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 23:40:44 -0500
Reply-To: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Answers to Paper 12 - Short Questions
In-Reply-To: <9307271246.AA17379@umd5.umd.edu>
NOTE: ANSWERS ARE IN CAPITAL LETTERS
On Tue, 27 Jul 1993, Donald Rosenthal wrote:
> Paper 12 - Short Questions
>
> THE COMPUTER CO-OP: TEACHING ORGANIC CHEMISTRY ON A CONFERENCE IN AN
> INTERDISCIPLINARY MACINTOSH LAB
> by Carolyn S. Judd and Robert G. Ford
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
Sections 2.2 and 2.3:
> a. I assume the "lecture" actually consisted of these three
> activities.
> Is that correct?
YES.
>
> b. Did you consider two 1.5 hour sessions or three 1 hour sessions?
> Don't students get tired in such a long session?
YES, 3 HOUR LECTURES ARE FAR TOO LONG, BUT BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF OUR
COMMUNITY COLLEGE, THE 0 COMMUNITING DISTANCES, AND THE LARGE PERCENTAGE OF
WORKING STUDENTS, WE DO NOT FORSEE ANY CHANGE IN THE NEAR FUTURE.
> c. Were students expected to read an assignment prior to class?
> Did they read or review the assignment after class?
> Do you have any information on how they allocated out-of-class
> time to this course?
STUDENTS WERE EXPECTED TO READ THE CHAPTER PRIOR TO CLASS. AND THE
STUDENTS WERE ASSIGNED MANY OF THE PROBLEMS AT THE END OF EACH CHAPTER OF
THE TEXT. THESE PROBLEMS WERE REVIEWED UPON REQUEST. STUDENTS ALSO USED
THE STUDY GUIDE WHICH HAD SOLUTIONS TO ALL THE PROBLEMS. THERE WAS AN
ATTEMPT TO INCLUDE SOME REVIEW OF THE PRIOR CHAPTER WITHIN THE NEW
PROBLEMS FOR EACH NEW CHAPTER DISCUSSED OVER PACERFORUM.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 2. > PacerForum . . supports graphics and sound as well as text.
> > . . They would . . scroll through the opening messages
> > from the instructor . . (section 3.4.1)
> > When they entered the classroom, students were presented with a
> > short summary of the material assigned for the day (prepared in
> > advance) . . (section 3.4.2)
>
> a. Were the opening messages oral (in sound) or in text?
OPENING MESSAGES WERE IN TEXT.
>
> b. How was sound used - by the students? - by the instructor?
> How much time was devoted to PacerForum sound each week?
MAINLY FOR FUN. THE FIRST TIME WAS WHEN THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT IT WAS TIME
FOR A BREAK. THE STUDENT HAD TO PRESS THE ICON SHAPED LIKE A MEGAPHONE TO
HEAR THE MESSAGE. THEN SOME STUDENTS BEGAN TO RECORD MUSIC, AND REPLAY
IT. THIS WAS GREAT FUN, BUT NOT EXPLORED FOR ITS TEACHING UTILITY.
> c. Was the short summary supplied as hard copy or via PacerForum?
SUMMARIES WERE ON PACERFORUM. ANY STUDENT COULD COPY ANY PART (OR ALL) OR
THE SESSION.
> d. Does PacerForum make the handling of graphics easy?
> How much graphics did you create for this course?
YES, GRAPHICS ARE HANDLED EASILY BY PACERFORUM. STUDENTS WOULD PRESS THE
ICON TO ACCESS THE GRAPHIC.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 3. (Section 3.4.3)
> > Each student would be given a slightly different response,
> > based on the response he or she had provided.
> > During the course of the class session, the teacher would send
> > responses; all would see these as they were posted.
>
> With sixteen students wasn't this rather confusing?
THESE WAS GREAT! SURELY NO MORE CONFUSING THAN ANSWERING QUESTIONS IN A
REGULAR CLASSROOM. THE BIG DIFFERENCE WAS THAT ALL STUDENTS GOT
ATTENTION, NOT JUST THE COURAGEOUS ONES.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 4. (Section 3.4.5)
> I am not an organic chemist and I probably saw an early version of
> Beaker. I agree that it is a remarkable program. However, the
> version that I saw didn't always give the correct answer. (For
> example - pKs).
>
> Is this still true?
> Doesn't this cause a problem?
INDEED SOME OF THE ANSWERS GENERATED BY BEAKER ARE NOT CORRECT - BUT
STUDENTS LOVE THE PROGRAM, AND UNDERSTAND READILY THAT IT HAS LIMITATIONS.
THE BIG LESSON THAT THEY LEARN IS THAT BEAKER CAN DO A LOT, AND IT DOES
NOT COST A LOT. SOON THE STUDENTS REALIZES THAT MAYBE S(HE) CAN DO AS
WELL AS THIS INEXPENSIVE PROGRAM.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 5. (Section 6.6)
> a. Was or will this course be taken by chemistry majors?
MOST OF OUR STUDENTS ARE BONING UP FOR ENTRY TO PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS,
MEDICAL, PHARMACY, NURSING, ETC. WE HAVE PRECIOUS FEW CHEMISTRY MAJORS.
> b. > How much material can be cut from a course without discrediting
> > the course?
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 6. a. Computers can assist in helping to provide a better understanding
> of the three dimensional character of molecules. Have you
> considered using molecular modelling software in the course?
WE HAVE ORDERED CHEM 3DPLUS AND HAVE A NICE QUADRO, AND A MEANS TO DISPLAY
THE MODELS FOR ALL TO SEE.
> b. Have you considered using computer simulation of qual organic
> software like MacSQUALOR or MacQual?
WE WOULD LIKE SOME MORE INFORMATION ABOUT HOW OTHERS USE THESESOFTWARE
PROGRAMS.
> c. Have you considered using Stan Smith's organic chemistry software?
WE HAVE ORDERED AND RECEIVED A COPY OVER THE SUMMER, AND WILL USE THIS FALL.
> d. Have you considered using Andrew Montana's award winning software
> involving organic reaction mechanisms?
THE ORGANIC REACTION MECHANISMS SOFTWARE NOTED IN THIS PAPER SHOULD HAVE
MENTIONED BOTH AUTHORS: ANDREW MONTANA AND JEFFREY R. BUELL. TRULY THIS
SOFTWARE IS A BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLE OF DOING SOMETHING BETTER WITH COMPUTERS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- >
Carolyn S. Judd and Robert G. Ford
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 23:54:28 -0500
Reply-To: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Answers to Questions- Paper 12
In-Reply-To:
NOTE:ANSWERS ARE IN CAPITAL LETTERS
On Fri, 30 Jul 1993, CHARLES SUNDIN, CHAIR, CHEMISTRY wrote:
> 1. You stated that you have 5 sections of Organic per semester. There
> were 16 students in your "group".
>
> What is the size of a typical "section" or what is the total organic
> enrollment?
TYPICAL CLASSES ARE FROM 15 TO 30 STUDENTS.
>
> 2. What is your normal teaching load per semester?
NORMAL TEACHING LOAD IS THREE FOUR-HOUR CLASSES; EACH CONSISTING OF A
3-HOUR LECTURE AND A 3-HOUR LABORATORY PER WEEK.
> 3. Will you continue this mode of instruction and with all of your
> students?
YES, WITH THE MODIFICATIONS MADE SO THAT AUDITORY LEARNERS ARE NOT LEFT
OUT; I.E., SUPPLEMENTING THE TOTAL COMPUTER APPROACH WITH ABOUT 1/3
STANDARD LECTURE.
> 4. Will the other organic instructors at your campus and in your
> "system" adopt this mode of instruction?
MANY OF THE ORGANIC INSTRUCTORS ARE INTERESTED IN PORTIONS. I BELIEVE
THAT SOON THE READY AVAILABILITY AND ALSO THE OPEN LAB TIME WILL ATTRACT
STUDENTS ON THEIR OWN.
> 5. Assuming you are responsible for only organic lecture and lab as
> your full time teaching position, how many students do you think you
> could teach (being at least as effective as you were before this
> experiment) using this mode of instruction?
CAROLYN JUDD TAUGHT ONLY ONE ORGANIC CLASS DURING THE SPRING, AS WELL AS
ONE INTRODUCTORY CLASS FOR STUDENTS WITHOUT HIGH SCHOOL CHEMISTRY.
RELEASE TIME FOR THE OTHER PART OF THE FULL-TIME LOAD WAS GIVEN BY A GRANT
FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PROTON NMR TUTOR, WHICH WILL INCLUDE QUICK-TIME
MOVIES OF RESEARCHERS AND ACTUAL INSTRUMENTS. THIS GRANT IS UNDERWRITTEN
BY OUR OFFICE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, WHICH ACTS AS A SOURCE FOR
FACULTY DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTER PROGRAMS.
Do you think adequate software is easily
availablevfor the Intel > platform for this mode of instruction?
VERY GOOD SOFTWARE IS AVAILABLE. HOWEVER, THERE IS LESS SOFTWARE
AVAILABLE THAT IS APPROPRIATE FOR THE FIRST SEMESTER OF AN ORGANIC
COURSE.
Carolyn S. Judd and Robert G. Ford
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 06:32:44 -0400
From: "Thomas C. O'Haver"
Subject: Re: Paper 11 Baubles for Liberal Arts Students
In-Reply-To: <9308021920.AB26643@umd5.umd.edu>
Terrell Wilson:
> Our liberal arts students are not like us, and that is one of the
> hardest things for science teachers to understand.
A real eye-opener for me was Sheila Tobias' book "They're Not
Dumb; They're Different". The book describes an experiment in
which several non-science graduate students (and one professor)
were paid to take first-year science-major chemistry and physics
courses and to keep a detailed journal reporting their reactions
to the course and their observations of their fellow students.
Most of them found the courses to be intellectually sterile,
obsessed with quantitative answers, and to provide little opportunity
for actual discussion with the teacher or with other students.
Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 07:05:28 -0400
From: "Thomas C. O'Haver"
Subject: Re: email with students
In-Reply-To: <9308031758.AA13204@umd5.umd.edu>
> Frank M. Lanzafame
> One question I have regarding the use of email with students for exam
> keys, and similar materials, is the handling of subscripts and
> superscripts etc....such as H2SO4, or better yet HPO4-2 ??
1. One way is to use three lines for each line of "chemistry":
-2
H SO HPO
2 4 4
It's harder to write and to edit, but it's unambiguous, platform
independent, and easier to read than H2SO4 and HPO4-2.
2. As several people have suggested, you can text-encode a binary
document, expecting the recipient to decode it, but this is a hassle
unless you are using a LAN mail system or a specific mail client that
automates the process.
3. As others have suggested, you can distribute binary documents via LAN
fileserver rather than by mail, but this requires that the students use
workstations on the LAN, whereas they can access e-mail from home if they
have a computer and a modem. A LAN can be the most transparent way to
distribute formatted documents electronically, as it requires only a
knowledge of directory navigation and file saving or copying, which any
computer user will already know.
One note: We use our departmental LAN fileserver (AppleShare) for
submission of completed assignments in some courses by creating "drop
folders", which are folders (Mac-talk for subdirectories) for which
students have write access but not read access - that is, a "write-only"
folder. Students can copy (drag) their completed files into this folder,
but can not open the folder to look at other students' work. I have
seen this idea used even in 5th grade computer labs.
Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 09:05:40 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 11: Posting old exams
>While using e-mail to communicate with students is a laudable idea,
>not every instutution has sufficient access to e-mail and/or terminals
>for all students to have convenient use. In addition, it discriminates
>against students who must commute to campus since their already long
>day must be extended to find a terminal and check their e-mail.
>We cannot even get our students to check their snail-mail boxes on a
>regular basis.
That's the nice thing about e-mail -- more students these days seem to
have computers at home than faculty -- and many have a modem -- they can
check their e-mail from home.
> As far as posting old exams, I prefer to place them on reserve
>in the library or include them in a packet the students purchase at the start
>of the term. This is particularly important since figures and chemical
>formulas do not "translate" well.
Don't put the exams in the body of the e-mail message but rather in an
attachment. The attached word processor document can contain formulae,
graphs etc. Minimal PCs or Macs as terminals can handle this and the
software is free or very inexpensive for universities and colleges.
>
>Robert N. Nelson, Ph.D.
>Associate Professor of Chemistry
>Chemistry - 8064 Georgia Southern University Statesboro, GA 30460
>912-681-5675 rnnelson@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 09:10:24 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: paper 11
> >George Long writes: I can see the possibility
> >of whole courses being taught exclusively via E-mail,..Could
> >it be that asynchronous teaching will largely replace
> >traditional methods? If it does, what does everybody think
> >the downsides might be?
> --------------------------------------------------
> I am an email enthusiast, and I have seen it catch on quickly.
> But that has made me wonder where are we going to get the
> computer storage, network time, and personal time to read and
> answer all communications? Our mainframe email accounts have
> a 500-Kbyte limit and my local network manager feels that this
> is adequate (although he has not yet imposed a limit). I have
> had little trouble transferring 5-Megabyte image files via
> ftp, but what will happen after traffic increases
> exponentially?
The trick is to keep your e-mail downloaded frequently to your Mac or PC
where you are unlimited and with disks at such a low cost there is no
problem with central server limits unless you are away on hollidays -- I
came back after 12 days yesterday to find 170 messages occupying several
mB.
As the traffic goes up, network bandwidth will be pushed up. Ethernet is
migrating from 10 MHz to 100. FDDI is 100 MHz. All on cheap unshielded
twisted pair. New and faster standards are being developed.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 09:15:18 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: e-mail exam answer posting
>>Just as I sent the last comments, I came to the realization that, of
>>course, word processor documents as such can't be sent by e-mail, either.
>>Never mind...
>>
>>James E. Van Verth Department of Chemistry
>>VANVERTH@CANISIUS.BITNET Canisius College, Buffalo, NY 14208
>...............................................
>I would like to add a bit of experience to this topic. It is possible to
>have a word-processor document saved as an RTF file, encoded (with BinHex
>or uuencode) and sent via e-mail. This process is highly susceptible to
>local computing environments. NCSU Chem. Dept. has a departmental RISC6000
>to which all faculty can be attached. I use a MAC for most of my word
>processor work. I use EUDORA to have my MAC communicate with the RISC6000.
> I can send a file--handled as described above--to a colleague --or for
>that matter to another Internet address, the recipient decodes it (BinHex
>or uudecode) and can open it within his/her word processor.
>It's a hassle the first time you do it, but the learning curve is pleasant !
>Graphics obviously have their own problems, but as discussants at this
>conference know GIF files can be used to solve those problems.
>
With Eudora just Attach Document, and if you don't know if the recipient is
using a Mac or a PC save the Mac document from word or WordPerfect in DOS
format on your Mac which can still be opened by the Mac or by anyone else
with Word or Wordperfect. WP files are a bit nasty in that they don't
always translate well to other word processors. Eudora does the binhex for
you automatically and someone at the other end with Eudora or NuPop on a PC
just receives it and it decodes automaticlally. Nothing fancey, no special
precautions, just use the features built into the user friedly software &
it will be invisible to the novice. My wife, a Professor of Fine ARts got
the hang of it in 5 minutes.
>Alton J. Banks, Chemistry
>
>Electronic address: banks@chemdept.chem.ncsu.edu
>
>Mailing address:
>North Carolina State University
>Department of Chemistry
>Box 8204
>Raleigh, NC 27695-8204
>
>Phone (919) 515-2546
>Fax (919) 515-5079
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 09:23:37 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: email with students
>> Frank M. Lanzafame
>> One question I have regarding the use of email with students for exam
>> keys, and similar materials, is the handling of subscripts and
>> superscripts etc....such as H2SO4, or better yet HPO4-2 ??
>
>1. One way is to use three lines for each line of "chemistry":
>
> -2
> H SO HPO
> 2 4 4
>
>It's harder to write and to edit, but it's unambiguous, platform
>independent, and easier to read than H2SO4 and HPO4-2.
>
>2. As several people have suggested, you can text-encode a binary
>document, expecting the recipient to decode it, but this is a hassle
>unless you are using a LAN mail system or a specific mail client that
>automates the process.
Nothing special is required -- just shareware if you are on Macs or PCs.
The mail lives in a normal UNIX e-mail account (or VMS for some people or
even an old mainframe) on a server somewhere - not necessarily on campus
and you log into it from either a campus network or from home and read your
mail on your personal computer.
>
>3. As others have suggested, you can distribute binary documents via LAN
>fileserver rather than by mail, but this requires that the students use
>workstations on the LAN, whereas they can access e-mail from home if they
>have a computer and a modem. A LAN can be the most transparent way to
>distribute formatted documents electronically, as it requires only a
>knowledge of directory navigation and file saving or copying, which any
>computer user will already know.
It works just fine for me from home as well as at the office where I'm on
the lan. It can be tedious unless you have a 9600 BAUD or faster modem at
each end.
>
>One note: We use our departmental LAN fileserver (AppleShare) for
>submission of completed assignments in some courses by creating "drop
>folders", which are folders (Mac-talk for subdirectories) for which
>students have write access but not read access - that is, a "write-only"
>folder. Students can copy (drag) their completed files into this folder,
>but can not open the folder to look at other students' work. I have
>seen this idea used even in 5th grade computer labs.
In the Mac world AppleTalk Remote Access is great -- you can access servers
on campus from home just like on your local area network including use of
softwre located on the server. At 9600 BAUD it can take a while for a
program to open (5 minutes or more) though for small applications there is
no problem. It's great for Eudora based e-mail and Turbo-Gopher -- look up
a FAX number in australia and then FAX from the powerbook.
>
>Tom O'Haver
>U. of Maryland
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 09:46:00 EST
From: "DR. LISA KINTNER CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT, UPJ,
JOHNSTOWN PA"
Subject: Paper 12 Answers to Authors' Questions
FILENAME: PAPER12 DISC
CONTENTS: ANSWERS TO AUTHORS' QUESTIONS IN PAPER 12
Answers to the authors' questions for paper 12.
>THIS IS WHAT WE ARE CURIOUS ABOUT AND THEREFORE POSE THESE
>QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
>
>6.1
>Can non-experts learn from each other, especially in a
>complex field like Organic Chemistry?
I think we'd all like to believe that perhaps all nonexperts, and in
particular our students, can learn from each other -- regardless of
the field. Isn't this what cooperative learning is all about. I try to
tell my students what we learn more from our mistakes (that is
figuring out why the answer was wrong) than being told the correct
answer. I've developed problem sets for my general chemistry
classes with very complex, long, and laborious problems which the
students must solve as teams. I create the teams based on class
performance so as to get a mix of abilities in each group. I give
them a week to work the problems and schedule in one class period
in which the teams can work on the problem. During that time I
circulate from group to group to monitor progress and nudge them to
work cooperatively. The overall response is favorable. The positive
comments are that it gives them an opportunity to meet other
classmates (especially good first semester freshman year) and they
get to learn about material they might otherwise miss. The negative
comments are largely that they have difficulty finding a time to
meet as a team outside of the class time. I have had students who
don't really understand how to work as a team; helping them to see
teamwork as a means of learning is perhaps the hardest thing. I've
also tried this same approach as a lab project-- simulating the
environment of a research group. It worked best in that
environment. Each student performed one small portion of the
experiment. They can only draw conclusions when all of the data and
results are combined. This received very positive response.
Note that the July issue of J. Chem. Ed. has several articles that
address this idea.
>6.2
>Why is Organic Chemistry often identified as the hardest
>course a student takes? It is not the quantity of material
>(biology has millions of terms). It is not the math. Do we
>pride ourselves in its inaccessibility?
>
I can only speak from my own experience as a freshman soon-to-
be sophomore fifteen years ago. I had many friends who were
sophomores; they all moaned dreadfully about how difficult organic
was. I was prepared for the worst; and when I started organic in the
fall, I experienced the worst (at least by my standards). At some
point during the second semester, I was able to distance myself
from the situation. At Chapel Hill 75% to 85% of the students in
organic were destined for professional school in the health sciences
of some sort. They were all there to pass their MCAT's and get into
professional school. I saw that I was feeling oppressed by the
competitiveness of my classmates and hadn't been able to learn for
the sheer fun of it (not unusual among 20-year-olds). I think that
part of what made it seem less difficult second semester was that
the professor began to make connections between what we were
learning and what we had learned as freshmen and "everyday life".
I call myself a bioinorganic chemist. My graduate coursework was
in inorganic but I trained in a very multidisciplinary research group.
We had protein people, we had and inorganic organic types, we had a
few NMR jocks and ALL of us did spectroscopy. Now I'm the resident
inorganic chemist at a branch campus of a large university. Most of
my teaching load is general chemistry (each year I teach one
advanced inorganic course). Most of my students in general will go
on to take organic; most of them are already "afraid" of it before
they begin their second year. Why? Probably because those same
nasty "rumors" are being passed down from the kids further along.
When I start the second semester course, I let them know that
probably 95% of them will go on to take organic and that I suspect
most of them have already heard that it's a REALLY difficult course .
. . and I agree. Then I tell them that a lot of what they have heard is
nothing more than a nasty rumor. I proceed to explain that many of
the principles and much of the descriptive chemistry that they will
learn this semester are nothing more than organic chemistry. I hope
than by taking organic chemistry out or the neat little box that we
have created, I can help dispel the "nasty rumor" before these kids
become sophomores.
>6.3
>Consider a research lab, with a lot of collaboration going
>on. Can we achieve some of that excitement if we encourage
>student collaboration during lecture?
>
I've tried to do this in the group exercises that I described in
response to question 6.1 above. I think that ultimately this is
possible. I suspect that we have a few barriers to overcome.
Perhaps the greatest barrier to change is style. Theresa Zielinski
described it as "the resistance to movement away from algorithms".
Can we overcome that barrier? Yes . . in time.
>6.4
>Can anyone lecture for 3-hours after lunch -- can anyone
>really listen for 3-hours?
>
I rather doubt it. I teach two back-to-back sections of the same
course at 12N and 1P. It's been a real challenge to stay alive. When
I get back to my office I'm exhausted! Don Rosenthal posed the
question:
>b. Did you consider two 1.5 hour sessions or three 1 hour sessions?
> Don't students get tired in such a long session?
>6.5
>Can writing lead to understanding? Does better writing
>reflect clearer thinking?
>
Recent articles in J. Chem. Ed. (May, June and July) as well as the
leading references to these articles suggest that this is true. I
certainly gain a much better understanding of a subject when I write
about it. The key to having our students reach this stage is the
types of exercises which we employ.
>6.6
>How much material can be cut from a course without
>discrediting the course?
>Can we agree on a bare minimum of general mechanisms and
>principles, with which our students will be able to tackle
>more advanced courses?
> The discussion thread which developed under the heading "New
Tools vs Old Methods" addressed this question.
>6.7
>Memorizing tons of mechanisms does not lead to mastery, but
>can understanding the basic mechanisms lead to mastery?
>
I'm not sure; but then how do we define "mastery"? I can't
remember who said it, but one of the participant suggested that
mastery comes about with time and experience. What can we hope to
achieve for beginning organic students (for our chemistry majors?)?
Understanding and appreciating the principles underlying the basic
mechanisms is probably a good start. If we aim to make them
"independent learners" mastery will come more easily.
>6.8
>The network itself depends upon the teacher. What are your
>experiences and ideas about teaching through electronic
>conferences?
>
This conference is probably the best example I can give for using
electronic conferences as a means of teaching. I participated in
Richard Smith's "Navigating the Internet: an Interactive Workshop"
last fall. In both cases the motivation has been to learn more about
the available technology. We probably need a "tastier carrot" for our
students. I have found that when I teach my seniors how to use on-
line searching and mention the wealth of information available over
the INTERNET my enthusiasm is contagious.
>6.9
>With the help of appropriate software, can we make experts of
>our students, even the beginning organic chemistry students?
>Can they explore and verify the correctness of their answers
>themselves?
>
Experts may be asking too much -- though I must admit I
sometimes wish I could. I think that Theresa's
(Roszieli@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu) goals are realistic and address this
question nicely:
>>I guess my goal now for my students is to make them independent
>>learners. Give them some modern toys to play with, some modern
>>tasks that develop >>their basic skills, and challenge them to
>>explore learning and the creation of their own understanding of the
>>world around us.
>6.10
>Finally, based on all of the above, do we serve as teachers
>if we only help provide the directional signposts?
>
I can empathize with the point made in 5.1
>a student writes, " ... The teacher when asked a question
>either answers with a question or gives you an answer which
>literally confuses you more than before. As a student I am
>here to be taught and when there is no instruction by the
>teacher, why should we call it a class, when we are all on
>our own."
I've used the strategy of answering a question with another
question. I got into this habit when my would-be architect 13-year-
old son was about 21/2 -- long before I started teaching college
chemistry. It frustrates him sometimes -- just as it frustrates my
students sometimes. I'm beginning my fourth year of teaching full-
time and I'm finally at that vantage point where I can observe the
student maturation process. I doubt I'll have disagreement that
teaching is many things. Providing directional guideposts is a major
part. We also have to help them learn to use the signposts. That is
perhaps the most challenging part. Simply lecturing (imparting
information in a formal detached manner) doesn't accomplish either
of these goals effectively. Understanding how our students learn
and developing a teaching style that speaks to the modes of learning
will accomplish those goals more effectively.
Lisa Kintner
Department of Chemistry
University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
Johnstown, PA
KINTNER@VMS.CIS.PITT.EDU
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 10:47:01 EDT
Reply-To: smitc@vims.edu
From: "Craig L. Smith"
Subject: Re: DISCUSSION OF PAPER 11
On Tue, 3 Aug 1993 11:39:10 -0500, Donald Peterson wrote:
>I have been a passive participant of this conference since it started. Since I
>am deaf, I do have to say that this is the first conference in which I have
>been able to participate fully and not feel disadvantaged in any way.
>A further advantage is that everything is in print.
Well I too am disabled (a C4 quad), with little opportunity to travel to
conferences, or to read papers in the massive tomes that are the convention
in scientific conference and general publications. It is refreshing to be
able to retrieve papers (& figures) in electronic format. Kudos to T.
O'Haver for the excellent job of convening and moderating. I should also
be thankful to the UMD CWIS system that allows such varied electronic
access to this conference and other material by internet gopher, telnet,
ftp, and email connection.
Although I do little course teaching per se, I have found email an
effective tool for rapid asynchronous communication with students and
colleagues. It is effective for 'open book' examinations, assignments,
and Q&A sessions.
I think if more universities offered similarly powerful information
services, and also insisted (as Clarkson & Va Tech & ... do) that entering
students purchase a PC (no OS or manufacturer implied or endorsed) as part
of student activity fees, we would see an enormous growth in electronic
communication in teaching, examining, and learning. Even those commuting
students could login to such services by modem at modest cost. A minimum
hardware setup can be obtained by investment of <$1000, and with free PD
packages such as kermit, clarkson/rutgers telnet/ftp, and UMN gopher clients
readily availale, what a bargain!
Craig L. Smith or
Dep't of Environmental Sciences : School of Marine Science
Virginia Inst. of Marine Science : College of William and Mary
Gloucester Point VA 23062 : (804) 642-7246
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 11:49:26 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Paper 11 Baubles for Liberal Arts Students
The second book by Sheila Tobias is also worth looking at:
Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why some Things Work
and Most Don't
Other important works include:
America's Academic Future : A report of the Presidential Young
Investigator Colloquium on U.S. Engineering, Mathematics, and
Science Education for the Year 2010 and Beyond. (1992)
obtainable from NSF
Report on the National Science Foundation Disciplinary Workshops
on Undergraduate Education (1989)
obtainable from NSF
An Exploration of the Nature and Quality of Undergraduate
Education in Science, Mathematics and Engineering - AReport
of the National Advisory Group of Sigma Xi, The Scientific
Research Society (1989)
supported by the NSF and Jhonson Foundation
obtainable from Sigma Xi
Entry Level Undergraduate courses in Science, Mathematics and
Engineering: and Investment in Human Resourses
An Initiative of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society,
Committee on Science,Mathematics and
Engineering Education (1990)
supported by NSF and the Johnson Foundation
obtainable from Sigma Xi
Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University
Roszieli@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Chemistry Department
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 16:03:43 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Discussion of Paper 12 begins
In-Reply-To: <9308041303.AA11956@umd5.umd.edu>
Answers to Short Questions on Paper 12 were emailed early in the morning
of August 4, prior to Tom O'Haver's official opening of the discussion on
Paper 12.
Carolyn S. Judd and Robert G. Ford
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 16:40:25 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Cooperative Learning - Paper 12
In-Reply-To: <9308041450.AA20417@umd5.umd.edu>
On August 4, 1993, Dr. Lisa Kintner shared her answers to the questions
posed by the authors of Paper 12. Her message was so full of good ideas
that the authors of Paper 12 are each submitting a reply to her.
I endorse the concept of cooperative learning, which is the goal of using
the network. Having the networked-computers so that everyone received all
messages
made for a different atmosphere than just a lab filled with computers. A
real sharing did take place. I can tell you that several of the students
never did really buy the idea of sharing or cooperation. Can you share
with us some of the ways that you encouraged team work for those who do
not understand about working in teams?
The experiment that simulated a research project sounds great. Can you
furnish a few more details about what type project was involved?
Hurrah for you for trying to tackle the fear of Organic Chemistry during
the general chemistry course.
Carolyn S. Judd Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 17:28:10 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Paper 12 Answers to Authors' Questin
In-Reply-To: <9308041450.AA20417@umd5.umd.edu>
>From Robert Ford, co-author, Paper 12
I'm very interested in Lisa Kinter's message to us today about the value
of collaborative teamwork for the non-experts in our classrooms. I think
I liked best the reference to "non-experts" for with Carolyn's chemistry
class I was clearly the non-expert of the group. Although I became
involved with the chemistry class in the Macintosh lab as a part of my
assignment to assist faculty in all departments use the facility, I became
really fascinated with what Carolyn was doing as I realized how she valued
the electronic network, conferencing and written class discussion. I'm an
English teacher, specializing in composition instruction. Collaborative
learning has been a major support for the theory of how we teach writing
for the last few years (as those of you with friends in your English
departments probably already know). Ever since I began teaching I've
relied on "peer responses," "group projects," and "class discussions" to
help my students learn to be better writers. All of these activities were
based on hoping that by going through these paces the students would learn
more about the complications of audience, about how multiple readers read
a text differently. That these goals are hot topics in the academic
discussion of English scholars made a focus on collaborative activity all
the more important:it was one of the ways that freshman English and
professional English scholars related to each other.
As much as I've valued collaborative work, though, I have to confess that
I have grave doubts about it. I know that I may preach for the need for
students to discover their own voices by working through information on
their own, but I also know that I think I know the "best" ways for them to
discover their own true selves. And -- it's just hard for them to
discover what I think is "best" on their own.
Sometimes--usually--they discover something else, something that
they think is better. When I let a collaborative group work on a
project, I have to make myself stay out of things as much as
possible, to encourage the group members to pull together. Sometimes
there are problems, when a group of students are un-equally matched,
when a group of non-experts contains too great a range of possible
non-experts for the group to function successfully. Then, I have
to reenter the picture and give direction. I alsom have to will
myself to avoid giving too much direction and thereby turn the
group into less a collaborative group and more a group performing the
tricks I've set out.
Dr. Kintner's comment that "helping them to see teamwork as a means of
learning is perhaps the hardest part" really hits home with my
experiences teaching writing. Sometimes a group sees my assignment as
busy work to be completed as soon as possible. They view possible
instances of confusion as annoying interruptions. I view these
confusions as moments when thinking can occur, when students can make
themselves use their brains to figure out what to do. I often find
myself exerting much more energy and attention to a class involved in
some collaborative project than to a class in which I'm carefully
directing things upfront. In the collaborative class, my directing
role is I think more crucial--and it's harder, for I have to direct
and encourage the students almost invisibly, so that they continue to
have to work themselves.
I do think that using an electronic network, whether in a class in real
time or over a network (I have most experience with a modem-based distance
education program) can help encourage the collaborative process. Eachg
student is made a little bit more equal, for each can be more or less
anonymous. Those who would hesitate to participate due to shyness,
language problems, cultural reasons, or other reasons can sometimes (or
more times?) participate more fully. The teacher is more hidden, for
his or her voice is just one more message.
Whether in a traditional classroom or over a network, though,
collaboration seems to work best when the goal of the activity is
clearly assigned, when the range of possible results is somewhat
limited and the teacher has carefully thought out what should be that
range. Doing this planning is difficult; I know how difficult
when teaching English. What impressed me with Carolyn's
chemistry class is how she asked students to use the software we
had to conduct miniature experiments or analyses and then
publicize their results. Each questionshe sent over PacerForum
allowed for a small moment of collaboration to occur. Granted,
I don't think that all of the students fully valued the positive
effects of these activities; Carolyn and I are both aware of the
pitfalls. However, when I saw students talking to each other
about what they were doing over the network, or saw them
hunched infront of one computer screen , looking at a simulation and
trying to figure out how to analyze it, well, I think I was looking at
real learning. Since I'm not a chemist, I can't really say what it is
that they were learning, I admit, but as a teacher I know I can
recognize thinking when it is occurring.
This project was exciting too --mostly because it helped me think about
how I use classroom collaboration in traditional classrooms or in my
own computer-based courses (which I teach in a same room Carolyn
used and over the modem in our distance education program).
Dr. Kintner also refers to a problem in using more collaborative methds
of teaching when she mentions that "the greatest barrier to change is
style." I'm now working to encourage faculty in history, political
science, psychology, marketing, and art history to use the Co-op. Faculty
members who have never used computers in their classrooms come to the
computers with the idea, often, that the computers will deliver
information to their students. They view the computers as a
lecture-enhancing tool. When I try to suggest that the network
will allow for their students to discover aspects of the information
they need to learn by working together, some of the faculty members seem
alarmed. However, enough seem interested and curious; this fall we will
be experimenting with a new group of collaborators. Yippee!
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 17:16:12 PST
From: "Edward H. Piepmeier"
Subject: paper 11, formula display
Tom O'Haver writes:
>1. One way is to use three lines for each line of
>"chemistry":>
> -2
> H SO HPO
> 2 4 4
This works fine so long as the formula is on a separate line,
but I have seen it scrambled when the author's margins and the
reader's margins are different.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 21:05:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: Paper 12 - Discussion and Questions
In Section 6.6 of your paper you ask:
> How much material can be cut from a course without discrediting
> the course?
In your paper you stated:
> Obviously, not as much material can be covered with this question and
> answer format.
* 1. What textbook and workbook did you use?
*
* 2. Which chapters were covered and which not covered?
* What fraction of the total material was covered?
*
* 3. Considering what you covered, how well do you think these students
* would perform:
*
* a. on one of the standard ACS organic examinations?
*
* b. The graduate record or MCAT chemistry examination?
*
* c. Placement examinations given at some graduate schools?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald Rosenthal
Department of Chemistry
Clarkson University
ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 21:07:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: Start of Discussion
Carolyn Judd mentioned that her answers to questions for Paper 12
were sent out before the official announcement to begin discussion was
received.
Discussion is supposed to begin at 8 AM Eastern Daylight Saving Time on
the day designated for the beginning of discussion of the paper.
Frequently, messages are received just a few minutes after they are sent.
However, sometimes there are delays somewhere in the network. From the
time indicated on the dateline of Tom O'Haver's messages it is clear
he is sending out his messages on time. However, his and other messages
sometimes experience delays.
Authors and participants are urged to begin discussion on or after 8 AMEDT
on the designated day and NOT to wait for Tom's message which is merely
designed to be a reminder.
This message is being posted at 9:20 PM (21:20 PM) on August 4.
Don Rosenthal
ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 01:06:31 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Paper 12 - Discussion and Questions
In-Reply-To: <9308050113.AA23945@umd5.umd.edu>
On Wed, 4 Aug 1993, Donald Rosenthal wrote:
> In Section 6.6 of your paper you ask:
>
> > How much material can be cut from a course without discrediting
> > the course?
>
> In your paper you stated:
> > Obviously, not as much material can be covered with this question and
> > answer format.
>
> * 1. What textbook and workbook did you use?
MCMURRY, ORGANIC CHEMISTRY, 3RD EDITION
> *
> * 2. Which chapters were covered and which not covered?
IN TWO SEMESTERS, WE COVER CHAPTERS 1-23, 25-27. OUR GOAL IS TO INCREASE
THE COVERAGE TO INCLUDE THE OMITTED 5 CHAPTERS: CARBOHYDRATES, LIPIDS,
NUCLEIC ACIDS, PERICYCLIC REACTIONS, AND SYNTHETIC POLYMERS)
> * What fraction of the total material was covered? >
FROM 1/3 TO 1/2 OF THE TIME WAS SPENT ON VERY BASIC MECHANISMS FROM EACH
CHAPTER. THEN THOSE REACTIONS THAT REINFORCED THE BASIC MECHANISMS WERE
EMPHASIZED. PROBABLY 1/4 OF EACH CHAPTER RECEIVED LITTLE EMPHASIS.
REACTIONS THAT PRODUCED TRICKY OR UNEXPECTED RESULTS WERE NOT EMPHASIZED.
FOR INSTANCE, WE DID NOT COVER THE CANNIZZARO REACTION. I KNOW THAT SOME
MATERIAL MUST BE OMITTED, EVEN IN A REGULAR LECTURE STYLE COURSE; I AM
SOMEWHAT UNEASY ABOUT MY CHOICES OF WHAT TO OMIT.
*
> * 3. Considering what you covered, how well do you think these students
> * would perform:
> *
> * a. on one of the standard ACS organic examinations?
ON EVERY EXAM, I INCLUDED AT LEAST 3 MORE COMPLEX QUESTIONS DIRECTLY BASED ON
THE ACS ORGANIC EXAMINATIONS.(USUALLY THESE WERE NOT MULTIPLE CHOICE
FORMAT, BUT OPEN ANSWER). THESE WERE OFTEN THE HARDEST QUESTIONS FOR MY
STUDENTS.HOWEVER, SOME OF MY STUDENTS DID WELL ON THESE QUESTIONS. BUT
THE MAJOR ACHIEVEMENT OF THIS SPRING WAS THAT NEARLY ALL MY STUDENTS TRIED
TO WORK ALL THE PROBLEMS, INSTEAD OF SKIPPING THE HARDER QUESTIONS.
> * b. The graduate record or MCAT chemistry examination? > *
MANY OF MY STUDENTS ARE SUCCESSFUL CONDIDATES FOR MEDICAL SCHOOL, DENTAL
SCHOOL, PHYSICIANS ASSISTANT PROGRAMS, AND NURSING SCHOOL.FOR MANY OF
THEM, THIS MEANT SUCCESSFUL RESULTS ON THE MCAT EXAM.
> * c. Placement examinations given at some graduate schools? >
AT LEAST ONE OF MY STUDENTS HAS BEEN ACCEPTED IN A PH D. PROGRAM IN
BIOCHEMISTRY.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
THESE ARE GREAT QUESTIONS THAT REFLECT WHAT I OFTEN STRUGGLE WITH. THE
STUDENTS
ENTERING THE SECOND SEMESTER OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY ARE VERY GOOD STUDENTS,
WHO ARE EXTREMELY MOTIVATED. MY GOAL IS TO HELP THEM ACQUIRE A
FOUNDATION, AND TO CUT DOWN THEIR FRUSTRATION LEVEL. I AM CONVINCED THAT
THE MAJORITY OF THE STUDENTS AT THIS LEVEL SHOULD DO WELL IN THIS COURSE.
I BELIEVE THAT THE INVOLVEMENT OF STUDENTS ON THE NETWORKED COMPUTERS
RAISED THE STUDENTS TO A HIGHER DEGREE OF CHEMICAL MATURITY. THE
QUESTIONS ON MY EXAMS WERE MORE SOPHISTICATED THAT IN PRIOR YEARS.
Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 08:17:03 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Start of Discussion
>Carolyn Judd mentioned that her answers to questions for Paper 12
>were sent out before the official announcement to begin discussion was
>received.
>
>Discussion is supposed to begin at 8 AM Eastern Daylight Saving Time on
>the day designated for the beginning of discussion of the paper.
>Frequently, messages are received just a few minutes after they are sent.
>However, sometimes there are delays somewhere in the network. From the
>time indicated on the dateline of Tom O'Haver's messages it is clear
>he is sending out his messages on time. However, his and other messages
>sometimes experience delays.
>
>Authors and participants are urged to begin discussion on or after 8 AMEDT
>on the designated day and NOT to wait for Tom's message which is merely
>designed to be a reminder.
>
>This message is being posted at 9:20 PM (21:20 PM) on August 4.
>
I guess the net is faster than the speed of light -- my receipt time is
21:07!! Presumably my server's closck is out.
>Don Rosenthal
>ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 10:55:15 -0400
From: JOHN WOOLCOCK
Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Subject: Re: Cooperative Learning - Paper 12
Carolyn Sweeny Judd writes:
>I endorse the concept of cooperative learning, which is the goal of using
>the network. Having the networked-computers so that everyone received
>all messages made for a different atmosphere than just a lab filled with
>computers. A real sharing did take place. I can tell you that several of
>the students never did really buy the idea of sharing or cooperation. Can
>you share with us some of the ways that you encouraged team work for
>those who do not understand about working in teams?
One way to use and promote teamwork or cooperative learning is in a lab course.
Many of the lab experiments in our introductory chemistry course (and I suspect
at other institutions as well) are done with the students broken into groups of
two. This is sometimes necessary due to the logistics of the procedure (clock
reactions, thermochemistry, etc.) and other times it is needed because of the
length of the exercise. I also occasionally have the students pool their data
and do a post-lab discussion of the results as recommended by Robert Ricci and
Mauri Ditzler in their excellent article in J. Chem. Educ. 1991, p. 228. I
have also recently been asking my students to finish their report sheets and
hand them in before the lab period is over. This also forces cooperative
learning by making the students rely on me and each other to help them answer
them calculations and questions posed in the lab manual. This approach is not
without its obvious drawbacks. Is it easy to see that copying of the better
student reports in the group is easy in this setting. It is also been my
observation that the poorer students paired with better partners will do not do
as well if their partner misses lab and they must join another group, if they
do it on their own or they are paired with someone else. However, I have also
noticed that in many cases the better student will also explain in detail to
their partner how to do a calculation or answer a question. Thus both will
benefit. As the old saying goes: if you want to learn something well, teach it
to someone else.
While I have been using these techniques in my lab courses I have not been
completely convinced that I am carrying them off in the best way possible. But,
the idea of using cooperative learning more effectively, particularly in lab,
has intrigue me enough to do some digging into this subject. Particularly since
I am going to participate in a "reflective teaching" project here at IUP that
will in part emphasize this aspect of teaching. Anyway, here are few resources
that I have gathered on this subject that might be of value to others
interested in this approach:
1. "Cooperative Learning in the Undergraduate Laboratory" by M. E. Smith, C. C.
Hinkley, G. L. Volk. in J. Chem. Educ., 1991, p. 413.
2. "Cooperative Learning:JIncreasing College Faculty Instructional
Productivity" by D. W. Johnson, R. T. Johnson, K. A. Smith. Available for $17
from ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports, George Washington University, One
Dupont Circle, Suite 630, Washington, D.C. 20036-1183. Telephone: (202)
296-2597.
3. Collaborative Learning Workshop, Sept. 17-18, Penn State Continuing
Education, 409 Keller Conference Center, University Park, PA, 16802-1304. fax:
(814) 865-3749
4. Cooperative Learning: Theory and Practice. A symposium at the National ACS
Meeting, Washington D.C., August 21-26, 1994. Symposium chairs: William R.
Robinson and Susan Nurrenbern, Purdue University.
John C. Woolcock
Chemistry Department
Indiana University of PA
Indiana, PA 15705
Internet: WOOLCOCK@grove.iup.edu
Bitnet: WOOLCOCK@IUP
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 13:21:00 EST
From: "DR. LISA KINTNER CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT, UPJ,
JOHNSTOWN PA"
Subject: Cooperative Learning -- Paper 12
In my reply to Carolyn Sweenney Judds and Robert G. Ford's
questions for paper 12 yesterday, I mentioned that I have developed
exercises that I hope would foster Cooperative learning.
>I've developed problem sets for my general chemistry classes with
>very complex, long, and laborious problems which the students must
>solve as teams. I create the teams based on class performance so
>as to get a mix of abilities in each group. I give them a week to
>work the problems and schedule in one class period in which the
>teams can work on the problem. ...I've also tried this same approach
>as a lab project-- simulating the >environment of a research group.
>It worked best in that >environment. Each student performed one
>small portion of the >experiment. They can only draw conclusions
>when all of the data >and results are combined. This received very
>positive response.
I'm enclosing (in a separate file: "Experiment that Simulated
Research") exerpts from the "experiment that simulated a research
project". In the General Directions I attempt to explain the
colaboratice of "teamwork" aspect of the exercise and I make a point
about the distinction between colaboration and copying (a problem I
wish I didn't have to deal with). I try to include some back-gound on
the descriptive chemistry (still lacking to some extent in the text
books) . I keep the experimental procedure simple. As you will note,
it's rather "cook-book". My hope is that this will draw their focus
toward observation. The directions for the final "Group Conclusion"
are the key, if you will, to the cooperative effort.
I've used this set of experiments twice. The second time (this
summer) worked especially well. I had a small class (22) and the
group dynamics were especially good. Everyone was responsible for
all of the material for the exam. This inducement may have helped
foster additional colaboration. I have to admit that the hardest part
(after I've finished writing up the experiments and prepping all of
the solutions) is to stand back, keep my hands behind my back and
coach, ...but not give them the answers. I guess all of us who
attempt to foster collaborative work encounter this difficulty.
Robert Ford said it nicely:
>When I let a collaborative group work on a project, I have to make
>myself stay out of things as much as possible, to encourage the
>group members to pull together.
I've experienced many of the same dificulties Robert Ford mentions:
>Sometimes--usually--they discover something else, something that
>they think is better. [or] when a group of students are un-equally
>matched, when a group of non-experts contains too great a range of
>possible non-experts for the group to function successfully.
The two biggest obstacles that I face are:
1) Capable students who are affraid that other team members
will sit back and let just one person do the work and "lazy" (less
capable) students that *do* sit back and watch. I have anticipated
that one (cf General Directions). When I circulate during the class
exercise I make sure I "check in" on both of these individuals to see
what they are up to. I try (not always successfully) to entice the
less capable ones and suggest to the "masochist" that she/he
delegate some responsibility.
2) The groups "discover something else, something that >they
think is better". So I ask the questions: "Have you considered the
possibility that ...?" or "How does that related to ...?" or "Does this
*really* explain your experimental observations?" I think you get
the idea. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. (Sometimes,
as parents we succeed in fostering self-reliance and independence in
our children; sometimes we aren't as successful.)
John Wolcock (WOOKCOCK@IUP.BITNET) posted some good references
on the idea of using cooperative learning more effectively. Any
others?
Lisa Kintner
Department of Chemistry
University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
Johnstown, PA
KINTNER@VMS.CIS.PITT.EDU
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 13:23:00 EST
From: "DR. LISA KINTNER CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT, UPJ,
JOHNSTOWN PA"
Subject: Paper 12 -- Experiment that Simulated a Research Project
The following text is excerpted from the material I distribute to my students in
the Experiment that simulates a research project.
PROBLEM SET 2 May 17, 1993
GENERAL DIRECTIONS: This lab experiment will also count as a
lecture assignment and will be done as a team project. The class
will be divided into four teams (4 to 5 students); each team will
work on one aspect of a larger problem. At the end of the lab period
each team will report its results to the class. You will find that you
will need to use all of the chemical knowledge and expertise that
you have accumulated thus far this semester ( and before that ) in
order to complete this project effectively. Don't discount your good
intuition. Be daring and use the index and read ahead in your text
book. Sometimes it takes a little extra research and some creative
thinking to solve the problem. After all, chemistry is "detective
work".
Chemistry is also "team work". All of these projects could be
completed by a single individual. *However*, your learning
experience is greatly enhanced if you work cooperatively as a team.
Note, however, that there is a difference between working as a team
to solve a problem (be it from the book or a laboratory experiment)
and choosing one person to solve the problem for the whole team. It
is *understood* that you will divide the responsibilities and work
as a team.
Each team will examine a different kind of equilibrium. Within each
team you will divide into smaller groups (one or two students). Each
group will carry out one experiment in which the effect of stress
(either by the addition of excess reagent or by the removal of a
reagent) applied to a system at equilibrium will be examined. Make
observations for each set of reactions you examine. When all of the
experiments are complete, regroup with the other members of your
team. In order to draw a conclusion about the equilibria which you
have examined (and no lab is any good without a conclusion), you will
need to work collectively to pool your data, note trends and
deviations and respond to the comments under Group Conclusion.
Once your group has reached a conclusion decide on a strategy to
report the data to the class (ie- Report to Class). Elect a
spokesperson and plan a really great presentation.
You will do the experiments during the lab period on Tuesday, May
18. Lab will not begin until 10:00 AM Tuesday You are encouraged to
meet briefly before that time to distribute responsibilities among
team members. Data sheets are provided; however, you are
encouraged to record your observations, data and results in your lab
notebook. You are also expected to study the procedure carefully
ahead of time. Most of the equipment you will need will be provided.
All of the solutions have been prepared. Be sure to bring your safety
goggles. Note carefully the safety precautions for the experiment
you are to perform. Be it your regular lab session or a class
exercise, safety is a must.
The exercise is worth 25 points and consists of two parts. Part 1
(worth 14 points) includes your data, observations and a summary of
the team's conclusions (all the points under Group Conclusion).
These are due in class Wednesday, May 19, 1993. As usual, submit
the written work on 81/2 x 11 paper and use ink or pencil. Fold the
paper in half along the long edge with the back facing outward; write
your name, the course name, number and meeting time and the date
of submission on the outside (like the cover to a book). Part 2
(worth 11 points) comes from the presentation to the class. Every
member of the team will receive the same number of points;
therefore it is in everyone's best interest to work cooperatively
towards the final conclusion. You may use transparencies, or any
other visuals (see Dr. Kintner for assistance). The group
presentations will be given as the end of the lab period. Each
presentation may last no more than 10 minutes; be thorough but be
concise!
Finally, look over all of the experiments and think about them in the
context of the lecture material. A complete solution set including
data sheets from the experiments will be placed on reserve in the
library by late afternoon, Tuesday.
A final note regarding Academic Integrity. Just as there is a
difference between working as a team to solve a problem and
expecting one person to solve the problem for the whole team, there
is also a difference between submitting a Group Conclusion written
in your own words and choosing to submit exactly the same summary
(word-for-word) as one or more other members of the same team.
Duplicated answers in the Group Conclusion will result in a grade of
zero (0) for Part 2 for the entire team.
STRESSES APPLIED TO SYSTEMS AT EQUILIBRIUM
INTRODUCTION
In this set of experiments you will study changes made on
systems already at equilibrium. By applying LeChatelier's principle
it should be possible to predict the direction which the system will
follow as a result of the applied stress. The experiments will serve
to confirm your predictions.
BACKGROUND TO THE EXPERIMENTS
A SOLUBILITY EQUIIBRIA
When an ionic compound dissolves in water, the compound
dissociates into its constituent ions which are randomly distributed
throughout the solution. For example, in a saturated solution of
potassium nitrate the solution contains only potassium and nitrate
ions. Each ion is surrounded by a cluster of water molecules which
are more or less tightly bound (by intermolecular forces) to the ion.
That is, the ion is 'hydrated' or 'aquated'. In a sparingly soluble salt,
the forces of attraction between the ions are stronger than those
between the ions of very soluble salts. Most sparingly soluble salts
do not completely dissociate. Rather, they interact with one another
to form aggregates (complexes) or react with water to form new
species.
You will examine the solubility of two sparingly soluble salts:
calcium hydroxide and lead bromide and a very soluble salt: sodium
chloride. The role of a common ion in the solubility of all three
salts can be explained in terms of Le Chatelier's principle. The
solubility of a sparingly soluble salt can be affected by changing the
composition of the salt through a chemical reaction.
B COMPLEX ION EQUILIBRIA
The equilibria of complex ions of two transition metals will be
examined. By definition, a complex ion is a metal atom or, more
often, an electron deficient metal ion, with Lewis bases (the ligand)
attached. Because the ion is electron deficient, it is a Lewis acid.
The bond between the metal ions and the ligand is called a
coordinate covalent bond. Most of the equilibria that will be
examined will be between the aquated metal ion in which water
molecules (usually six) are attached to the metal and some other
complex ion of the metal (a ligand other than water). Generally a
distinct color change accompanies the change in equilibrium.
The first equilibrium involves the formation of a deep red iron
thiocyanate complex.
Two nickel complexes will be prepared. The starting solution,
nickel(II) nitrate is really hexaaquanickel(II) nitrate when dissolved
in water. The complex formed is hexaamminenickel(II).
C ACID BASE EQUILIBRIA
You will examine three different equilibria: the protonation of
ammonia, the dissociation of acetic acid and the protonation-
deprotonation of an indicator, methyl orange. (Methyl orange
indicator is red at pH 4.0 and yellow at pH 6.0.) In each case, the
equilibrium of the system is disrupted. By application of Le
Ch telier's principle, the direction of the shift to re-establish
equilibrium can be predicted.
**SAMPLE OF EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE:
**NOTE: the special characters haven't been edited (subcripts,
**superscirpts, etc) I think you get the picture.
B COMPLEX ION EQUILIBRIA
PROCEDURE
1) Prepare a stock solution of the bright red complex ion
[Fe(SCN)]2+ by mixing 10 mL each of 0.005 M iron(III) chloride and
0.005 M KSCN solutions. Pour about 4 mL of the red stock solution
into each of four test tubes. Label the test tubes as 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Test tube 1 is your control .
To test tube 2, add about 1 mL of 0.1 M FeCl3. To test tube 3,
add about 1 mL of 0.1 M KSCN. To test tube 4, add AgNO3 solution
dropwise until a change becomes evident.
On the answer sheet: a) record carefully all of the color
changes observed, b) write the balanced equation for each
equilibrium and c) explain what you observed in terms of
LeChatelier's principle.
2) Add 10 drops of 0.1 M Ni(NO3)2 to a clean test tube.
Add 6 M NH3 dropwise until the color changes and intensifies.
Add 6 M HCl dropwise until the color changes once again.
On the answer sheet: a) record carefully all of the color
changes observed, b) write the balanced equation for each
equilibrium and c) explain what you observed in terms of
LeChatelier's principle.
3) Place 5 mL of stock CoCl2(aq) solution in a large test tube.
Slowly add 10 mL of concentrated HCl. Note any color changes.
Divide the solution between two test tubes.
Add 5 mL of distilled water to one test tube. Note any color
changes.
Add AgNO3 solution dropwise to the second test tube until a
change becomes evident. Note any color changes.
On the answer sheet: a) record carefully all of the color
changes observed, b) write the balanced equation for any chemical
reactions that took place, c) write the balanced equation for each
equilibrium and d) explain what you observed in terms of
LeChatelier's principle.
** Similar procedures for the other experiments.
OBSERVATIONS AND DATA: In your lab notebook: a) note carefully
what you observed, b) write the balanced equation for any chemical
reactions that took place and c) explain what you observed in terms
of LeChatelier's principle. Use the data sheets as a guide.
GROUP CONCLUSION: Within your team you have examined one of
three different types of equilibria and the effects of a stress
applied to each system. Use LeChatelier's principle to explain the
observed shift in the equilibrium composition of each system as a
result of the change. Describe the chemical composition of the
species formed as a result of the change. Be sure to comment on the
interrelated nature of the different parts of the experiment or
problem. Note that the chemical reactions are as important as the
chemical principles. Each team member must turn in a summary of
the Group Conclusion.
REPORT TO CLASS: Everyone will have a copy of the problems and
laboratory experiments. Summarize the purpose and procedure of
the experiment performed; briefly describe your observations
(including balanced equations) and explain them in terms of
LeChatelier's principle. Can you generalize about the types of
equilibria examined? Visuals (in the form of overhead
transparencies, blackboard use, poster board, etc) provide an
effective means of transmitting this type of information.
Lisa Kintner
Department of Chemistry
University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
Johnstown, PA
KINTNER@VMS.CIS.PITT.EDU
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 16:01:04 -0400
From: HARRY PENCE
Subject: Cooperative Learning -- Paper 12
This discussion has prompted several thoughts, which don't seem to fit together
very well, so please excuse a little splatter thinking.
The question of why organic is so hard is one that has fascinated me
for a long time. It seems to me ther are several possible reasons. First,
introductory chemistry is very mathematical, and so people who like (or are
good at) math usually do very well. Thus, students who have done extremely
well in introductory chem are sometimes totally lost in organic. This creates
a general attitude that, "He (or she) got an A in intro chem, and if he or she
can't do organic, it must be impossible!). Most majors build from year to year
on the same types of skills. As you perfect that set of skills, the course
becomes more challenging. Chemistry is the only field I know where the skills
essential for survival in the first year course are quite different from those
in the second year of the program. Of course, the joke is, by the time they
reach Phys.Chem. we're back requiring the math skills that are more like
general than organic.
A second factor may be the fact that students have learned in their
freshman year that survival in biology requires considerable brute-force
memorization. When they come to organic, they try to do the same thing, but
there is so much material, that this doesn't work. You must learn to organize,
or clump, ideas into related parcels, not memorize separate facts. By the time
some students realize this, it's too late to recover and pass the cumulative
exams.
Few organic students have encountered a truly cumulative course
before, and this is probably a contributing factor. Some of the best of them
did very well in intro chem (and most of their other courses) by cramming the
night before the exam. That works OK for the first few exams in organic, but
by the time they're convinced that it doesn't work, it's too late to catch up
with the material.
As I noted in an earlier post, I've been using cooperative learning
very successfully in my general chemistry course. I thnk the approach can be
useful in organic, if only by forcing students to discuss what they are doing,
so that they don't fall into some of the traps I've mentioned above.
By the way, several people have asked for information about what I do
in general chemistry, and I responded off line. I have learned,however, that
my e-mail was down (again), so if you asked and didn't receive, please let me
know so that I can try again.
Harry
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| Harry E. Pence BITNET: PENCEHE@SNYONEVA |
| Professor of Chemistry PHONE: 607-436-3179 |
| SUNY Oneonta FAX: 607-436-2107 |
| Oneonta, NY 13820 |
____________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 16:44:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: Paper 12 - Something Has Got to Give
Paper 12 - Discussion
Re: SOMETHING HAS GOT TO GIVE
> Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 01:06:31 -0500
> From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
> Subject: Re: Paper 12 - Discussion and Questions
> On Wed, 4 Aug 1993, Donald Rosenthal wrote:
> In Section 6.6 of your paper you ask:
>
> > How much material can be cut from a course without discrediting
> > the course?
>
> In your paper you stated:
> > Obviously, not as much material can be covered with this question and
> > answer format.
>
I'm not an organic chemist.
As a student I took organic chemistry many years ago when the texts were
half the size they are now.
I'm not surprised that some students are intimidated and cowed by the
size of some modern textbooks.
There has been a lot of new material added and suggested. Very little has
been deleted. (David Brooks did suggest how some things could be
deleted.)
We've talked in this conference about new innovations (additions) -
molecular modelling, quantum mechanical calculations, spreadsheets,
electronic mail, other software.
In other fields sometimes a different approach is taken.
For example, many colleges teach courses in Shakespere's plays in
which students read all or most of the plays in a single semester.
I remember hearing about one school which offered a course which covered
only one of Shapespere's plays - maybe it was Hamlet -
I'm not sure. Many students believed they got more out of studying one
play thoroughly than they got out of studying many plays superficially.
I'm not advocating that only one or two chapters of a book be covered.
To some extent introductory courses should be surveys. Such courses can
be very difficult and not always enjoyable.
You mention that you cover twenty-six chapters and you're considering
adding five additional chapters in a one-year course. That must be
about one chapter a week. I imagine that's not unusual in organic
chemistry.
The situation isn't very different in general chemistry.
I wonder if some pruning of our courses isn't needed.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 20:04:33 -0500
Reply-To: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Cooperative Learning -- Paper 12
In-Reply-To: <9308052001.AA12041@umd5.umd.edu>
On August 5, 1992, Harry E. Pence wrote:
> As I noted in an earlier post, I've been using cooperative learning
>very successfully in my general chemistry course. I thnk the approach can be
>useful in organic, if only by forcing students to discuss what they are
>doing,
>so that they don't fall into some of the traps I've mentioned above.
I LOVE YOUR COMMENT ABOUT FORCING STUDENTS TO DISCUSS WHAT THEY ARE DOING
IN THE CHEMIISTRY LAB. WE KNOW THAT THIS DISCUSSION OF AN
EXPERIMENT ASSISTS IN REAL UNDERSTANDING BECAUSE IT BRINGS TO THE
FOREFRONT THE PIECES THAT THE STUDENTS MAY NOT UNDERSTAND (OR MAY
MISUNDERSTAND.)
THIS ALSO WORKS FOR LECTURE. SETTING UP A COMPUTER
CONFERENCE WITHIN A COMPUTER LAB FORCED THE STUDENTS TO DISCUSS CONCEPTS.
THERE WAS NO GRADE GIVEN FOR ANY OF THE INPUT FROM THE STUDENTS. BUT IT
BECAME OBVIOUS SOON THAT THE PRINTED COPY OF THE SESSION FOR THE DAY WOULD
CONTAIN NOTHING IF THE STUDENTS DID NOT CONTRIBUTE. BUT ONCE THE STUDENTS
BEGAN TO PARTICIPATE (WHICH HAPPENED THE VERY FIRST DAY), THEY REALIZED
THAT THEIR "LECTURE NOTES" FOR THE DAY WOULD CONTAIN CLARIFICATION OF
MATERIAL IN A VERY PERSONAL WAY.
AS A SPECIAL BENEFIT, AS ROBERT G. FORD SAYS, THERE SEEMS TO BE AN ETHIC
THAT GROWS FROM THE COMPUTER CONFERENCE. DURING THE ENTIRE SEMESTER, I
NEVER HAD A STUDENT SIMPLY COPY SOMEONE ELSE'S WORK AND TURN IN IT AS
HIS(HER)OWN. GIVEN THAT ONE OF THE PITFALLS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING IS
THE TENDENCY TO RECEIVE REPETETIVE RESULTS FROM MEMBERS OF THE TEAM, I
FIND THAT THE CONFERENCING ETHIC IS JUST ANOTHER OF THE GREAT PLUSES OF
COMPUTER CONFERENCING AS A LECTURE TOOL.
IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, GIVE LECTURE CONFERENCING A TRY -- YOU'LL LIKE IT!
Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 20:26:32 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Cooperative Learning -- Paper 12
In-Reply-To: <9308052001.AA12041@umd5.umd.edu>
THANK YOU, DR. HARRY E. PENCE, FOR YOUR ANALYSIS OF THE ORIGINS OF ORGANIC
CHEMISTRY PHOBIA. YOUR POINTS ARE QUITE VALID.
I WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR SHARING WITH ME THE GOOD RESULTS YOU HAVE HAD
USING COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN THE CHEMISTRY LAB OF GENERAL CHEMISTRY.
Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 20:34:58 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Paper 12 - Something Has Got to Give
In-Reply-To: <9308052140.AA18155@umd5.umd.edu>
DEAR DONALD ROSENTHAL,
MAYBE I'M GETTING TOO BRAVE, BUT MAY I SUGGEST THAT IT THE TEXTBOOK THAT
HAS TO GIVE? GREAT SOFTWARE LIKE ORGANIC REACTION MECHANISMS, BY MONTANA
AND BUELL WOULD BE A TREMONDOUS FOUNDATION FOR AN ORGANIC COURSE, COUPLED
WITH SOME FINE DATA BASES, LIKE THE SCHATZ INDEX OR SPECTRABOOK BY PAUL
SCHATZ. DARE WE REALLY LOOK FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT -- AND BETTER!
Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 20:42:35 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Paper 12 -- Experiment that Simulated a Research Project
In-Reply-To: <9308051750.AA03521@umd5.umd.edu>
DEAR DR. LISA KINTNER,
THANK YOU FOR FORWARDING THE EXPERIMENT. I WILL TRY THIS TEAM APPROACH
WITH ONE OF MY CLASSES IN THE FALL, AND THEN CORRESPOND WITH YOU ABOUT THE
RESULTS. SOUNDS GREAT!
Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 20:47:09 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Cooperative Learning - Paper 12
In-Reply-To: <9308051459.AA20666@umd5.umd.edu>
DEAR DR. JOHN WOOLCOCK,
THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT REFERENCES ON COOPERATIVE LEARNING. I WOULD LIKE
TO BE ABLE TO ATTEND THE SEMINARS/ MEETINGS YOU ARE GOING TO PARTICIPATE
IN. PERHAPS YOU CAN SHARE SOMETHING FROM THE MEETINGS WITH THOSE OF US
WHO HAD TO REMAIN AT HOME. TOO BAD THERE ISN'T A COMPUTER CONFERENCE
PORTION OF THE MEETINGS.
Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 22:13:31 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Cooperative Learning -- Paper 12
In-Reply-To: <9308051733.AA02428@umd5.umd.edu>
>From Robert Ford
I just read the collaborative experiment that Lisa Kinter set today. I t
made me think of a worry that teachers using collaborative learning often
have (especially if they haven't really tried this technque in their
classrooms)--and I say this because it seems to me that Dr. Kinter's
explanation is so thorough that it avoids the pitfall I'm about to
mention. It's the worry that a collaborative activity will mean that
they, as teachers, won't be doing the main activity in the classroom.
After all, if a class period is being filled with students talking to each
other, then there's much less time for the focus to stay on the instructor
at the front of the room. It may seem as if the teacher becomes absent,
quiet in the classroom. However, for a collaborative activity to really
work (as it creates an effective transfer and synthesis of information
among these non-experts) there have to be clear goals and objectives.
Establishing those beforehand is the teacher's role. Policing them (even
in as subtle, inobtrusive way as possible) is the teacher's role in
class. It would be so easy to say to a class, "Now, come on y'all
(I write in Texas): let's collaborate!"-- but it wouldn't
really work. The teacher would have to have already thought
through the boundaries of the experiment, what might happen, what
could
absolutely not be allowed, what might be encouraged, what discouraged.
It seems to me easier to just tell our students the truth we know in our
heart . It's soooo much harder to structure an event to lead them to see
our truth or their version/alteration of that truth.
I was impressed with Dr. Kinter's assignment because it's so specific.
She gave specific directions about the goals and working problems
that the students would have to face. She anticipated interpersonal
relationships--and all of their messiness. That anticipation was
important, just as important as making sure that the technical parts
of the experiment--solutions, procedures, safety, etc.--were all
carried out properly. I notice these technical parts because that's
the part of a collaborative project I have less experience in (as an
English teacher) (though of course I require that a collaborative
project produce a piece of writing that meets certain technical
requirements: no major grammatical errors, an appropriate tone,
audience, etc.; those are my controls).
What I do as they are working is crucial. I often think it's what I
don't do--or what I do--but do in such a way that nobody notices.
I too find diplomatic ways to ask students to delegate
duties./ I survey the room carefully to be sure that one
team member is not becoming a dictator. I try to make
everyone feel supported, all the while without seeming too
involved in the project.It's a lot of work. There's a part
of me that thinks before a collaborative project "well,
this will be a day of rest for me; they'll do the
thinking today." Instea, what I find is that I'm more
exhausted after a day of collaboration; for I've had to be active while
seeming passive. I've had to be a controlling, focused teacher, while all
the while seeming to allow them to take care of themeselves. It's sort of
like hosting a party and seeming to have fun but all the while worrying
about the bags of ice left in the fridge.
I love Dr. Kinter's image of the teacher "stand[ing] back, keep[ing] my
hands behind my back and coach[ing] . . . but not giv[ing] them the
answers. It's really an amazing thing to do.
As I said last night, I do think that a network helps with this
collaboration--for it helps the students talk to each other
while breaking through the boundaries of person-hood: voice,
shyness, etc. It also helps the instructor: through a network a teacher
can participate adn observe without being seen. He or she can be
anonymous and inconspicous to help keep the group projects on track. I
feel less as if I'm snooping over someone's shoulder (even though I'm
still of course snooping.
Robert Ford
Central College
Houston Community College
1300 Holman Houston Tex 77004
(713)630-1830
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 01:10:32 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: paper 12 discussion
1. Carolyn wrote about lecture conferencing
"IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, GIVE LECTURE CONFERENCING A TRY -- YOU'LL
LIKE IT!"
There are many ways to get students to learn. Carolyn has
devised a very useful model. Here is included many fine
ingredients that foster critical thinking development. These
include giving students responsibility for their learning,
developing forms of expression that are conducive to learning,
accountability for more than exams, respect for peers as
sources of information, engaging students fully during the
"class time", and many others. These same ingredients can be
incorporated into a variety of courses using a variety of class
formats as appropriate to the goals of instruction, the ability
of the instructor, given the available resources, and other
practical considerations. Most important is that it is
important to DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING rather than maintain the
status quo of passive students in neat rows in formal lecture
classes.
The power of Carolyn's method is that students are forced to
extract and articulate explanations of phenomena in their own
words. We all have the power to make this type of thing work
for us and our students.
----------
2. and Don wrote about
"There has been a lot of new material added and suggested.
Very little has been deleted. "
I think that we are all hearing about the tyranny of the
curriculum (S. Tobias). There will be a session at the next
ACS meeting on physical chemistry curriculum. General
chemistry curriculum is discussed frequently in the journals.
NSF is concerned about the quality of entry level courses and
their mission to a diverse student population. (Organic falls
into the entry level definition as far as I can tell because it
is taught in the second year of the chemistry curriculum.)
Text books get bigger and bigger but my students still wear the
same average hat size. This leaves us with the choice of
surveying much of it at the rapid clip of 1 chapter per week or
doing less chapters but more deeply. If we survey then what
type of exam questions can we ask-- pure recall? Surely we
cannot ethically expect students to do real thinking after such
a poor superficial diet. I think that we are on the right
track when we opt for less but do more. A few less topics will
give time for students to digest information and integrate it
into their past learning and prepare for future learning. Most
important is to foster independent learning leading to lifetime
learning. This instructor's dilemma is discussed very fully in
a recent J.Chem Ed. article by Garafalo and LoPresti, May 1993
p 352.
-------
and Harry wrote about
" The question of why organic is so hard is one that has
fascinated me for a long time."
I too often wondered about this. It didn't seem so hard when I
was a student back using the first edition of Morrison and
Boyd. That was a beautiful book - so clear - so rational - so
orderly compared to general chem which for me was still
descriptive chem an not too much baby pchem.
Perhaps it may be good to look at this from another angle.
Students in Gen Chem are working at algorithms and there is
always one right answer and the teacher dispenses knowledge
like so much cake and candy - neatly wrapped and lined up in
boxes called chapters. If you cross your t's and dot your i's
in the right way you can be a success - well you need a bit of
algebra too, and of course you must do some homework.
The next step up is to organic and the algorithms are not so
simple. Some creativity and insight is required. These are
gained by a more mature approach to learning - something that
most students are not ready to do. They try memorization and
for many that works to get a B - remember the magic flash
cards. If you memorize enough you can be very successful at
multiple choice exams.
Organic is hard because it requires students to be more grown
up in their discipline. This is where Carolyn's method is most
important - it gives students a way to grow intellectually
toward higher order thinking skills. And as Harry said, "You
must learn to organize, or clump, ideas into related parcels,
not memorize separate facts." Doing cooperative learning in
general chem as Harry describes helps prepare students for the
more mature thinking that will be required in future courses.
In pchem the pressure remains. The subject is more abstract
and highly mathematical. Math skills of many students are
notoriously poor and the ability to think abstractly is like
going to the moon - a very energy intensive and impossible
without the appropriate booster rockets. One result is that we
go back to surveying topics shallowly and teaching algorithms
for problem solving. Then Charlie and I wonder why the
students don't understand what an excited state is. If they
know they don't tell and if they don't know they hope no one
will ask. They may not even know how to express it even if
they had a glimmer of an idea of what it is. Of course this is
not all students - but certainly enough of them to make a
teacher prematurely gray or contribute to their high blood
pressure.
---------
Then Harry Ford wrote about misgivings about collaborative
learning especially "I think I know the "best" ways for them
.....And -- it's just hard for them to discover what I think is
"best" on their own."
This is very interesting. It represents the same thoughts that
we all share. Sort of like -- they won't understand it unless
I give them a polished finished product. After many years of
giving away polished finished products and discovering that
they had evaporated into thin air, because they certainly did
not appear in the blue books at exam time, I prefer the rough
hewn hard won products that my students produce on their own.
They wear their own hand made ideas and look kind of funny at
first but it isn't long before their ideas start to look good
enough to wear in public.
Doubts and hesitancy about using collaborative methods in
chemistry and other disciplines are natural when there are so
many profs who preach against it or when we are overwhelmed by
our teaching large ( or many smaller) classes, etc. *** the
torpedoes and full steam ahead. Let's get those little gray
cells in or students' heads hopping out where we can see them
and it doesn't hurt to applaud an especially good number when
we see it.
------
Like Robert Ford, I think that Lisa Kinter hit the nail on the
head with her collaborative learning exercise. He summarized
the major points and pit falls in his most recent message.
Nevertheless I think that many of us who try this must be
prepared for the negative attitude of many colleagues and not
let that turn us away from using this valuable technique in one
or all sessions of a course.
Theresa
Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University
Roszieli@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Chemistry Department
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 09:25:22 -0400
From: HARRY PENCE
Subject: Paper 12 Discussion
Theresa makes so many good points, it's difficult to find something to
add. Perhaps the best summary is a line that Johnson and Johnson (two of the
cooperative learning gurus) often use. "Teachers must decide whether they are
going to be a sage on the stage or a guide on the side." As the author of the
papers makes clear, there are many skills a teacher must learn to use
cooperative learning effectively, but the hardest is to let the student take
control of his or her own learning. Especially in my upper level classes,
where I use larger groups instead of just pairs, I usually go out for a drink
at the beginning of the exercise. As long as I'm there, the students look at
me and expect me to dash over and tell them what to do. The worst of it is
that I WANT to step in; I can't stand to see students suffer, and besides, it
makes me feel essential. Once they know I don't intend to help them, they
begin really learning, not just absorbing what I've already digested for them.
At that point, I can really help them, not substitute for their own efforts.
Harry
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| Harry E. Pence BITNET: PENCEHE@SNYONEVA |
| Professor of Chemistry PHONE: 607-436-3179 |
| SUNY Oneonta FAX: 607-436-2107 |
| Oneonta, NY 13820 |
____________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 08:02:34 -0600
From: "Douglas A. Coe"
Subject: Responses to Short Questions for Paper 13
Short Questions for Paper 13 from Don Rosenthal:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. a. What sort of undergraduate Physical Chemistry course do you teach?
I teach 1st and 2nd semester junior level Physcial Chemistry course
for majors and a Survey of Physical Chemistry Course for mostly
Environmental Engineering majors. I also teach on a less regular
basis senior/graduate level courses in Thermodynamics, Kinetics, and
Theoretical Chemistry.
b. Do you teach physical chemistry to engineering as well as chemistry
majors?
The Physical Chemistry course mentioned above has a significant
population of Petroleum Engineers and Metallurgical Engineers.
The Survey of Physical Chemistry course has primarily Environmental
Engineers with a smattering of Geological Engineers in it.
c. Is diffusion and the diffusion equation normally covered in your
course?
Fick's 1st and 2nd laws are mentioned in discussing transport
properties in the 2nd semester course. I think diffusion is an
important physical process that our students should receive more
exposure to than they probably do. One of the difficulties in
treating diffision in more detail is dealing with the 2nd order
partial differential diffusion equation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2.> The calculations were done on a 486 microcomputer with a math co-
> processor using Borland's Quattro Pro 123 spreadsheet (version 4.0).
a. To what sort of computing facilities do the students have access?
How many students do you have?
We have an undergraduate enrollment of ~1800 FTE. Our students
have access to 6 microcomputer labs plus various other machines
located around campus. Most of these labs have 10-20 386 and 486
machines in them. Some of these labs are open 24 hrs.
Are they all familiar with Quattro Pro 123?
I still enounter physical chemistry students who have not used a
spreadsheet, but the number is declining each year. I set up an
~3 hr outside of class time self-paced tutorial, at which I'm
present, for those students who are interested in Quattro Pro.
We require students to do some of their physical chemistry lab
reports on spreadsheets and we devote the first laboratory period
to a tutorial on using Quattro Pro.
We are in the middle of placing 486 computers in our freshmen lab,
where they will be used for interfacing, etc. In the second lab of
the semester, we have them import into Quattro Pro boiling point of
water data that they collected with the interface in the first week of
lab. They then use the Clausius-Clapeyron equation to calulate the
barometric pressure. In this lab we introduce standard deivation,
since they have 30 boiling points and barometric pressure to work with,
having them use the spreadsheet to work through the formula and then
compare their result with the built in standard deviation function in
Quattro Pro. Finally they use Student's t-test to compare their
calculated barometric pressure with a measured value. We will have them
use Quattro Pro and Word Perfect throughout the rest of the year in this
lab. Since all of our science and engineering majors take this
lab, this will have a major impact on introducing students to
computers and software.
b. Is the development and use of the program assigned as a regular
class assignment?
See answer given immediately above.
What text do you use and where in the text is diffusion considered?
We have been using Noggle in the regular physical chemistry course
and will be using Atkins in the Survey of Phyical Chemistry Course.
Noggle treats diffusion in Chapter 9 on "Transport Properties" and
Atkins treats diffusion in Chapter 24 on "Transport Properties".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3. You ask some good questions. I'd be interested in your answers to these
questions.
> QUESTIONS:
> 1. Are these sort of exercises of any pedagogical value?
I think that having students develop a spreadsheet to do some
particular calculation involves them in the calculation and the
material to a degree that almost no other approach, short of writing
a program would.
> 2. What is the difference between what the student learns if they
> have to construct the spreadsheet versus being given a working
> spreadsheet of this model?
The spreadsheet once constructed (or given a previously prepared
spreadsheet template) provides a marvelous device for investigating
changing parameters in some model. For example, I have had physical
chemistry laboratory students collect data with a interface on the
decrease in temperature with time at the center of a paraffin sphere
and then use the a spreadsheet to compare their data with the
analytic equation (which incidently is a rapidly converging power
series solution) that they programed into the spreadsheet. The
comparison is done visually (there are more precise ways), using the
nearly instantaneous graphing capabilities of the spreadsheet. They
vary the thermal conductivity of the parafin until the analytic and
measured curves match and thus obtain an estimate of the thermal
conductivity of paraffin. If I had provided them with a spreadsheet
already containing the analytic solution, they would not have learned
as much.
> 3. Does the typical undergraduate chemistry student have enough
> knowledge of spreadsheets to build this model. Is this class or
> institution dependent? Is exposure to second order partial
> differential equations a prerequisite?
NO!!!! A fair amount of time has to be devoted to leading the
students through the construction of the model. Actually, if the
students have been using spreadsheets much, the limiting factor is
not a knowledge of spreadsheets, but rather a lack of knowledge of
the numerical techniques involved, e.g., finite difference solutions
of differential equations. Of course introducing students to these
numerical techiniques is one of the goals that I have in the first
place. Students also do not initially know how to implement these
numerical methods in a spreadsheet.
These sorts of spreadsheet exercises should probably not be
introduced until students have had a course in differential equations.
The material is also probably intrinsically more interesting to
engineering students than to pre-meds (here it is good to remember
that Poiseuille was a physician).
> 4. What is the relative educational value of exposing students to (1)
> the diffusion equation, (2) numerical solutions of differential
> equations, (3) an advanced spreadsheet exercise?
(1) I think it is important to expose students to diffusion and the
diffusion equation, since diffusion is a widespread physical process,
that is often given short shrift in our courses because of the
seemingly intractable mathematics.
(2) Differential equations are even more ubiquitous. Many
differential equations have analytic solutions only for special cases.
Exposing students to general numerical solutions of these equations,
should leave them with the impression that these equations can be
practically solved for most situations and not just those special
text book cases where analytic solutions are possible.
(3) These advanced spreadsheet exericizes should leave the student,
who has a only passing familiarity with spreadsheets, with the correct
impression that spreadsheets are powerful tools for doing calulations.
Many exercises that I orginally wrote BASIC programs to do, I have
since redone on spreadsheets. Only where complicated
branching/iterations are involved would I recommend programming over
spreadsheets.
> 5. Some effort is required by the student to construct the
> spreadsheet described in this paper. Is exposing students to
> numerical solutions of the diffusion equation on a spreadsheet
> worth the effort?
I think so (see the above answers for my reasons). I would be
interested in seeing other's viewpoints on spreadsheets. Do others
use spreadsheets in the manner that I have outlined in responding
to these questions and as illustrated by the paper, i.e., are other
teachers using spreadsheets to solve the differential equations that
appear in kinetics, the Schroedinger equation, etc.?
*************************************************************************
Short Questions for Paper 13 from Reed Howald:
Can we get the figures into INDEX CHEMCONF
>I realize that it works better to use anonymous FTP to transfer the GIF files,
>but most of us now have UUDECODE and we need to use it enough to get rid of all
>the bugs. I would like to get and view your figures this way.
I'm not sure why this doesn't work for you. I'll see what I can do
here.
>While I am sending, I will add another short question. A second derivative is
>curvature. With your initial conditions the values are always increasing and
>the curvature is positive everywhere. How hard would it be to set up different
>initial conditions to get both increasing and decreasing regions?
The way I set up the spreadsheet, you would have to change the
formulas in each of the cells representing pressure values at
different positions and times in the membrane. This actually isn't
too difficult, but is a nuisance. In retrospect a better approach
would be to have that part of the IF statement in each cell reference
an initial pressure in a single cell. Changing this initial pressure
would then allow the spreadsheet to be initialized at any pressure.
If the spreadsheet is initialized at some non-zero pressure and the
pressure at the membrane boundries is set to a smaller pressure,
then the plot of pressure versus position in the membrane is
concave upward at every time and the curvature is always negative.
To get a model where the curvature is both increasing and decreasing
would require interfacing two membranes, i.e., would require adding
a third boundry condition. This would require "reprogramming" the
spreadsheet, but in principle would be no more difficult than
setting up the original spreadsheet. If the pressure on the left
of the left membrane was set to zero, the internal pressures in the
left membrane initialized to zero, the pressure at the right of the
left membrane and the left of the right membrane (they are the same
because this is a common boundry) set to some positive value, the
internal pressures in the right membrane set to this same positive
value, and finally the pressure at the right of the right membrane
set to some even higher positive value (confusing isn't it), then
a plot of pressure versus membrane position across the two membranes
would show an inflection point at the boundry between the membranes
and the curvature would change from negative in the left membrane to
positive in the right membrane (whew!!!).
*************************************************************************
Short Questions for Paper 13 from Arthur M. Halpern:
> How 'portable' is the exercise to other physical systems or examples?
>That is, are students given several diffusion coefficients that apply to
>different situations, or do (can) they calculate D to suit a particular system?
The diffusion coefficient, the width of the membrane, the pressure or
conccentrations (depending on the view point you want to take) at
either the left or right face of the membrane, the distance step
across the membrane, and the time step can all be varied by
changing values in single cells and then recalculating the
spreadsheet. Changing the diffusion coefficient would allow
students to explore how differing diffusion coefficients would
affect the rate of diffusion through the membrane. Or, in another
example, students could explore the effect of changing either the
distance or time steps and see how, when the step size becomes too
large, the assumptions that allow the diffusion equation to be
represented by a discrete finite difference algorithm break down.
The diffusion coefficient could also be varied, allowing students
to model experimental data and thus, using the model and the
data, extract the experimental diffusion coefficient.
Note, if you use the binary Quattro Pro 123 file that I provided, I
did not add the pressures at the right side of the membrane. This
is easy to do, just place the cell reference $E$6 in cell W18 and
copy it from cell W19 to W258.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 11:57:56 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: paper13 discussion
The following was extracted from the answers to Paper13
questions.
>> 5. Some effort is required by the student to construct
>> the spreadsheet described in this paper. Is exposing
>> students to numerical solutions of the diffusion equation
>> on a spreadsheet worth the effort?
> I think so (see the above answers for my reasons). I
> would be interested in seeing other's viewpoints on
> spreadsheets. Do others use spreadsheets in the manner
> that I have outlined in respondingto these questions and
> as illustrated by the paper, i.e., are other teachers
> using spreadsheets to solve the differential equations
> that appear in kinetics, the Schroedinger equation, etc.?
I was fascinated by Prof Coe's work with the diffusion
equation. I had avoided teaching this because of the poor math
skills of my students.
The model presented by Prof. Coe appears to be very workable
for students who have not had differential equations. The
effort of creating a spreadsheet reinforces the practical
approaches to solving difficult science math problems. It
links the math to a real process and real graphs in a
systematic set of bit sized units that most students should be
able to understand. I'm ready to give this a try next
semester.
>> 4. What is the relative educational value of exposing
>> students to (1) the diffusion equation, (2) numerical
>> solutions of differential equations, (3) an advanced
>> spreadsheet exercise?
The major reason for exposing students to an advanced
spreadsheet exercise is to teach them that they can do more and
do it better than they ever imagined. It's very mind
stretching. The diffusion equation is important especially
for processes in cells. I would like to hear details of how it
could be used in this way.
I have read an earlier work by Prof. Coe on solving
differential equations numerically in spreadsheet for kinetics
- using consecutive first order reactions. J.Chem Ed. 64, 1987
p 497. The advantage of this pedogogical model as I see it is
the large number of numerical experiments that students can
try. This type of repetition - not possible with pencil and
paper can lead to intellectual growth especiall when coupled to
the 'coach' model discussed in Paper 12.
Furthermore it is the more difficult problems that are more
interesting. Why not get the students involved in these as
early as possible. It's like Lisa Kintner's aspiring young
archetect - a suitable difficult problem presented under
appropriate conditions can open the door to students learning
much more than we dared hope for or could foster under more
agressive modes of instruction.
>> I would be interested in seeing other's viewpoints on
>> spreadsheets.
As I may have mentioned earlier, at NU all pchem lab reports
must be generated with word processors and spreadsheets. Last
year I introduced a Mathcad exercise and it was very
successfull for first order equilibrium and first order
irreversible consecutive reactions. The first few weeks of the
lab are hard because of the learning curves - pchem, lab,
computers, and spreadsheets. But the students swim and I cheer
them on. It works better than anything I ever did before.
I am now trying to clarify my ideas and put this into
perspective with respect to pedagogical principles. As Steve
Lower pointed out one time it is important for students to know
the goals and objectives of an exercise. Furthermore the
method of evaluating/assessing the outcomes is also important.
If we know precisely our goals and objectives then it is
possible to set tasks for students to meet those objectives and
to design appropriate measures for assessing their achievement.
Something like "if you do x then I know you understand y. If
not, you must go back and do it again. If you don't succeed by
z date then your goal is missed. Your grad is F for this
objective. " The trick is to have a reasonable set of x's and
z's and to stick to them with only minor bargaining possible.
Feedback, retrying, accountability, and support - like coaching
are all important.
So these types of exercises are of great pedogogical value,
expecially when coupled to explicit goals and objectives
accompanied with support and accountability.
-------
Like some other teachers many of my students don't know
anything about spreadsheets and some have never touched a
computer for anything other than word processing and then only
when the are forced to do so. Using one of the more popular
spreadsheets is out of the question for me at this time. My
choice for the past several years has been Supercalc 5. It has
a shallow learning curve and does everything that I need for
Pchem lab. The educational price is also good. There is an
excellent tutorial and students like it's easy interface and
creating graphs is a snap, even ones containing up to five
different pairs of x,y data, using the xyxy option.
Theresa
Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University
Roszieli@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Chemistry Department
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 13:28:36 EDT
From: George Loeb
Organization: The American University
Subject: Re: email with students
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
3 Aug 1993 10:58:41 EDT from
The question of using ASCII for specific symbols can be done using the
conventions already familiar with spreadsheet formulae or BASIC notation:
but with a special sign for subscripts, such as ~. The possibilities for such
symbols are apparently endless: I just read an article in the Washington Post w
hich told of several hundred such, which are common among ASCII communicators
(:-))
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 13:57:13 EDT
From: George Loeb
Organization: The American University
Subject: Re: paper 11
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
3 Aug 1993 14:32:05 PST from
I too am an enthusiastic supporter of e-mail, but am not enthusiastic about usi
ng it to substitute for personal contact with an instructor. Most of the reason
for going to a campus is to get that contact, and when students complain about
college, lack of personal contact with a real live
professor is high on the list.
Technology should be used to remove obstacles to personal and interactive
student-faculty contact rather than make it even rarer. For this reason, uses
such as giving out assignments and posting old exams are good uses. Teaching by
e-mail is, in my opinion, going the wrong way.Using e-mail for additional disc
ussion with students is ok provided it is not used as an excuse for eliminating
personal contact time.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 14:25:34 EDT
From: George Loeb
Organization: The American University
Subject: Re: Paper 11: Posting old exams
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed,
4 Aug 1993 09:05:40 -0400 from
To Jack Miller: Could you say a bit more about the software for formatting "att
achments" to email messages
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 14:37:02 -0400
From: "CARL H. SNYDER,
CHEMISTRY; CSNYDER@UMIAMI"
Subject: Re: paper 11
>Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1993 13:57:13 -0400 (EDT)
>From: George Loeb
>Subject: RE: paper 11
writes:
>I too am an enthusiastic supporter of e-mail, but am not enthusiastic about usi
>ng it to substitute for personal contact with an instructor. Most of the reason
> for going to a campus is to get that contact, and when students complain about
> college, lack of personal contact with a real live
> professor is high on the list.
>such as giving out assignments and posting old exams are good uses. Teaching by
>e-mail is, in my opinion, going the wrong way.Using e-mail for additional disc
>ussion with students is ok provided it is not used as an excuse for eliminating
> personal contact time.
I agree emphatically with George. I cannot condone using e-mail as a
*substitute* for office conferences. Instead I think it can be a successful
*supplement* to them. For example, a student who finds an error in a textbook
or in lecture notes can get confirmation by e-mail -- there are probably better
examples -- but a student who wants to probe more deeply into chirality effects
in substitution reactions -- again, better examples are likely -- might prefer
a personal discussion with the instructor.
As for teaching by e-mail, there are clearly various kinds and styles of
teaching, as elaborated by the recent discussion of old and new methods. I
for one certainly wouldn't want to rule out the possibility of some form of
teaching and learning going on by e-mail.
But again, as valuable as personal contact time is, a quick e-mail note from a
student in the heat of inspiration at midnight and an e-mail reply from an
instructor with a fresh thought at 6 a.m. could allow us to move beyond the
pysical and temporal bounds of office visits.
Carl H. Snyder Internet: CSNYDER@umiami.IR.Miami.EDU
Chemistry Department Bitnet: CSNYDER@umiami
University of Miami Phone: (305)-284-2174
Coral Gables, FL 33124 FAX: (305)-285-4571
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 11:40:43 PST
From: "Edward H. Piepmeier"
Subject: Re[2]: email with students
What are some of the ASCII email symbols that are in common(?) use for
subscripts and superscripts, and other chemical symbols?
>From: George Loeb
>Organization: The American University
>Subject: Re: email with students
>
>The question of using ASCII for specific symbols can be done using the
> conventions already familiar with spreadsheet formulae or BASIC notation:
>but with a special sign for subscripts, such as ~. The possibilities for such
>symbols are apparently endless: I just read an article in the Washington Post w
>which told of several hundred such, which are common among ASCII communicators
> (:-))
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 13:43:28 CDT
From: "GARY L. BERTRAND"
Subject: Re: paper 11
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri,
6 Aug 1993 14:37:02 -0400 from
I will be using e-mail office hours in addition to regular office hours in the
coming semester. My experience has been that less than 10% of my white male
students take advantage of regular office hours. The percentages are better
for female students, and even better for minority students both male and female
On the other hand, a telephone call (my students know I work at night) about a
problem is nearly always from a white male student. I completely agree that my
office hours are aimed at personal contact, but the bottom line is teaching.
If email improves the communication (and I don't see how it could fail in this
regard) I'll stick with it.
*************************************************************************
* GARY L. BERTRAND, DEPT OF CHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ROLLA *
* ROLLA, MO 65401. (314)-341-4441 *
* BITNET- GBERT@UMRVMB INTERNET- GBERT@UMRVMB.UMR.EDU *
* "I NEVER WANTED TO BE FAMOUS, I JUST WANTED TO BE GREAT." RAY CHARLES *
*************************************************************************
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 16:13:25 -0400
From: George Long
Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Subject: Re: paper13 discussion
In answer to Dr. Coe's Question, I have used both
spreadsheets (Lotus 123) and MathCad in P-Chem Lab and
lecture, Although the subjects were slightly less complex
mathmatically. For example, I have used MathCad for
calculation of the rotational structure observed in the IR
spectrum of a heteronuclear diatomic (the classic HCl
experiment) from Boltzmann's equation, emmission
characteristics of a blackbody radiator, calculation of non-
ideal gas properties, etc.) Students use Lotus 123
extensively for an experiment in which they calculate the
morse potential diagrams from the uv-vis absorption spectrum
of Iodine vapor.
I find MathCad to be more convenient for the exercises where
students change parameters and visualize behavior (i.e.
changing the temp. and observing the change in the
rovibrational spectrum), but that the spreadsheet works
better when the students need to handle large amounts of
data. In particular, the editor in MathCad can be
infuriating to learn.
The main problem I encountered was the varying degree of
computer literacy within the class. Some students found the
computer part of the exercises trivial, while others had to
be shown explicitly how to perform every step of the
procedure. A more interesting observation, however, was the
limited observations made by most students while using the
programs. For example, students were asked to describe the
effect of temperature on the rovibrational spectrum of HCl.
They could use the MathCad program to observe the behavior.
Typically they said "the absorption band became narrower and
higher." While this is true (sort of), I would have
prefered a more detailed description. The students were not
taking full advantage of the information provided by the
program! In retrospect, I could have asked more pointed,
specific questions, but I didn't think this necessary for
junior and senior chemistry majors. These types of
exercises can provide the students with great insight, but
the students have to be able to use the more detailed and
abundant information provided by these exercises. I wonder
if our standard labs, typical in general chemistry and
organic, in which the information available to the student
is so limited, is training our students to be equally
limited ?
George Long
IUP
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1993 09:09:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Paper 13 discussion: spreadsheets
> What is the difference between what the student learns if they
> have to construct the spreadsheet versus being given a working
> spreadsheet of this model?
I must admit to being somewhat torn between "build-it" and "buy-it".
My feeling is that students always learn more when they build anything
themselves rather that using something built by something else.
This goes not only for spreadsheets, but also for MathCAD documents,
computer simulations, computer programs in general, and even
laboratory equipment. The problem is that it is often not practical
to do so, especially at the undergraduate level, because it may take
too long and may end up focusing too much attention on the mechanics
of the construction process. So we often allow students to use
pre-built systems in the interest of efficienty. But that does not
mean that we shouldn't expect students to know something about how
these systems work internally - at least the general principles and
important concepts. For example, understanding the basis for
numerical solution in a spreadsheet context are more important than
learning how to generate and format a certain kind of graph in a specific
spreadsheet, since they are all a little bit different in that respect.
Spreadsheet construction from scratch can too easily degenate into
trivial twiddling with the mechanics of a particular program. But
having said that, I have personally found that I really understand
something better if I built it myself - although I often speed more time
doing so that I would want my students to spend.
I teach a graduate course on spectrochemical analysis, using Ingle and
Crouch. There the emphasis is primarily on the conceptual basis, less
on the mathematical methods used, and even less on the mechanics of the
computer tools used to implement the mathematics. I use spreadsheets
for several purposes: creating interactive, animated versions of some
of the standard textbook figures, interpreting and processing
experimental data, comparing experimental data to theoretical models,
visualizing of abstract ideas, simulating measurement systems and
instruments, and as an aid in the development of laboratory methods.
The spreadsheets are used either in class for demonstrations or group
projects or outside of class by students working individually or in
small groups in a computer lab, guided by on-line or printed
instructions. For the most part, I provide prepared templates in which
all of the mechanical aspects of spreadsheet construction and scripting
are already done. I expect the students to understand what is behind
the model, e.g. by inspecting cell equations, but I don't expect them
to know about macro programming (scripting). In a typical assignment,
students maniputate but do not construct the spreadsheet: they do
things like select conditions, adjust parameters, observe the effects
of changing variables, discover relationships between factors,
determine under what conditions a certain behavior is observed, explore
the Rparameter spaceS of some system with the goal of optimizing a
response, make decisions based on their observations, compare a
theoretical model to a (real or simulated) set of experimental data,
and judge the appropriateness of the model and estimate the values of
the parameters.
The bottom line is that the students spend their time working with
the concepts that are the subject matter of the course rather than
learning spreadsheet construction. In one sense that's good, but
I still believe thay would understand more if THEY had been the ones
to concieve of and construct the spreadsheets in the first place.
Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1993 11:34:56 EDT
From: "Dr. Jim Beard"
Subject: Re: paper 11
In Message Fri, 6 Aug 1993 13:57:13 EDT,
George Loeb writes:
>I too am an enthusiastic supporter of e-mail, but am not enthusiastic about usi
>ng it to substitute for personal contact with an instructor. Most of the reason
> for going to a campus is to get that contact, and when students complain about
> college, lack of personal contact with a real live
> professor is high on the list.
>Technology should be used to remove obstacles to personal and interactive
>student-faculty contact rather than make it even rarer. For this reason, uses
>such as giving out assignments and posting old exams are good uses. Teaching by
>e-mail is, in my opinion, going the wrong way.Using e-mail for additional disc
>ussion with students is ok provided it is not used as an excuse for eliminating
> personal contact time.
Amen!
Jim Beard
Catawba College
Salisbury, NC 28144
(704) 637-4113
jbeard@library.catawba.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1993 20:56:52 -500
From: Scott VanBramer
Subject: Spreadsheets
In-Reply-To: <9308071539.AA17194@eagle.lhup.edu>
Last spring while teaching Instrumental analysis I was explaining Kovats
Indices to a group of students, their eyes were starting to glaze over and
all of a sudden it struck me. We left the blackboard and walked back to
the data system, in a few minutes I had a spreadsheet window open, THEIR
data pluged in, and presto a log graph, plug in an unknown retention time
and it shows on a graph where the Kovats number comes from, no need to plug
numbers into a magic formula. All of a sudden I had their attention. The
spreadsheet made it easy to use current and relevent data. That night I
made a template with nicely labled graphics etc. After that the students
could teach the idea to each other. This tool now made everything
understandable enough that I could now stand back and watch them learn. I
am sold on the idea and am anxious to impliment it on a wider scale this
next year.
Scott Van Bramer
Lock Haven University
svanbram@eagle.lhup.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1993 15:17:05 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Paper 13 discussion: spreadsheets
> > What is the difference between what the student learns if they
> > have to construct the spreadsheet versus being given a working
> > spreadsheet of this model?
>
> I must admit to being somewhat torn between "build-it" and "buy-it".
> ......
>
> The bottom line is that the students spend their time working with
> the concepts that are the subject matter of the course rather than
> learning spreadsheet construction. In one sense that's good, but
> I still believe thay would understand more if THEY had been the ones
> to concieve of and construct the spreadsheets in the first place.
>
> Tom O'Haver
> U. of Maryland
For everything there is a season. Sometimes it is a good idea to build
from the ground up and other times it is better to use an existing
structure. The goals and objectives of a particular course help us
to choose which one to do. It's just like in our own work - sometimes
we use pre-existing tools and software other times we write our own.
Some only use pre-existing software, others always write their own. Most
function somewhere in the middle. Always a choice must be made
and that choice is determined by the context as we see it and the
values we impose upon it. We can't do it all and neither can our
students.
Theresa
Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University
Roszieli@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Chemistry Department
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1993 09:56:27 EDT
From: "C. H. Lochmuller"
Subject: Re: paper 11
In-Reply-To: <9308071543.AA07370@umd5.umd.edu>; from "Dr. Jim Beard" at Aug 7,
93 11:34 am
I would agree that there is a value to personal discussion time with
students but that is not the value of e-mail. Electronic communication can
occur on or off campus. I had a student begin senior research while in Rome
visiting her State Department employed family. I have students send me
questions over Fall and Spring brakfrom home, at night or over weekends when
a question arises in study and while I am at home working as well.
Yes, electronic cmommunication >CAN< be more impersonal. It can also be
quicker than waiting for "office hours". It can force students to thnk about
their questions. It can force the teacher to answer the student's actual
question and not just give the same answer on " .....confused about standard
states ...." she has used for 20 years. AND learning to use electronic
communication prepares the student for the most common of modern forms,
trains them to write quickly but corrctly and to the point.
Yes. I do believe that "office hours" remain important!
Charles Lochmuller
Duke University
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1993 17:27:39 -0500
From: Rick Moog
Subject: Paper 14 -Short Questions Answers
Answers to short questions for Paper 14:
Adrian College <0005986208@mcimail.com> writes
>1. You mention that the students were experienced MAC users. Had they
>had other sciences using computer in experiment simulation or in
>other implementations?
I refer to our students as experienced Mac users in the sense that they are
familiar with the way a Mac operates in general - menus, buttons, pointing
and clicking in various places to see what happens, etc. We strongly
recommend that our students purchase Macs when they arrive, and almost all
of them do.
>2. How much time do you estimate was spent on the project by the typical
>student and was there any frustration?
My impression was that the students generally spent a few hours on the
project, although it may have been more. Several of them reported that it
took them a little while to figure out what experiments to run, what
initial conditions to use, etc., but that once they understood what to do
it all went fairly quickly. Very few students came to me to ask for
assistance, and those who did seemed to be more confused than frustrated.
John Woolcock writes:
>1. To make the simulation seem more realistic did you consider having the
>students record in lab notebooks the steps they used to run the program
>through the various experiments, spectra and data analysis? This would
>help the those students that are not strong visual learners.
This is an interesting idea. I did not require this, although my guess is
that some students may have taken this approach to keep track of what they
were doing. I pretty much left them to their own devices.
>2. I found that when I used the program for the first time and tried to run a
>spectrum first, I got a system error (#25) and the application quit. If I went
>back and ran an experiment first and it plotted a graph for one run, I
>could then do all the spectra I wanted. Then, when I quit the application
>and came back I could then run a spectrum first. Why? Is the preference file
>in the System Folder being created only when an experiment is run?
I apologize for this bug. Several other people have reported that in some
instances the program has unexpectedly crashed, and then when they tried
again they had no problems. Since I submitted the program to the
conference, we have had a new version which I believe does not have this
difficulty. If anyone would like a copy of this newer version (which also
has some other changes which improve the product) please let me know and I
will get a copy to you.
>3. Why can't (or didn't you want) the spectra to be saved by the students?
I couldn't think of a good reason why the students would want to save the
spectra of the various components. They can be printed out to obtain a
hard copy, and they can be readily generated at any time with the program.
If people in general think that it would be useful to be able to save these
spectra, then I would certainly want to include that function in the final
product. Any comments?
>4. It would be helpful if the program had a more detailed explanation screen
>that would briefly review the features of the program described in Appendix
>1.
>This could also be expanded to include hints on what to do in the exercise
>and create a "guided inquiry" rather than "open inquiry" exercise out of it
>which may be less frustrating for the students the first time they work
>through it.
This is another interesting idea. My thought is that I wanted to provide
an application which individuals could tailor to their own needs. Each
project file can be created with its own explanation screen so that an
instructor could do precisely what you have described.
>5. I have also been able to use JCE: Software's "Grafit" to plot the data from
>saved files. It is substantially cheaper than the commercial graphing
>packages but has fewer bells and whistles. Grafit's import feature always
>expects delimited text files to have column headings. It therefore puts the
>first row of data into the column headings which are not plotted. Since in
>Chemulate this point is (0, 0) this is not a big problem, except when you
>need to get initial rates.
We could easily include column headings in these files if that would be
generally desirable. Opinions?
>6. For me an experiment simulation is in all senses of the phrase: "the next
>best thing". They are better than nothing at all and work best as an
>introduction to a real experiment. Students should be forced to make their
>own solutions, handle troublesome equipment, etc. Making an experiment
>too idealized will not do this. I would most likely use Chemulate as an
>in-class activity as you have described or a pre or post lab assignment. With
> some fine tuning it would even be worth distributing Chemulate
>commercially or through JCE: Software. Particularly if the method that
>allows instructors to set up new exercises is not too difficult.
Answers to more short questions will be coming soon.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 09:21:22 -0500
From: Rick Moog
Subject: Paper 14 - More Short Question Answers
Paper 14 - Answers to Short Questions
Donald Rosenthal writes:
>1. Chemulate would appear to be an interesting and useful application of
> the computer in helping to teach kinetics. Unfortunately, I do not
> have ready access to the Macintosh hardware. For this reason it is
> difficult to visualize exactly what your program is like. In your
> paper (Section II-B) you state:
>
> > Their assignment was to determine which of three possible mechanisms
> > could apply to their system (that is, determine the rate law and
> > which of the three mechanisms could provide that law), and to
> > determine the Arrhenius constant and the activation energy for the
> > constant k.
>
> a. I wonder if you can provide an ASCII file containing a specific
> example, i.e. identify the reaction and list three mechanisms.
>
> b. Were the students expected to deduce the rate expression for each
> of the mechanisms? The examples you cited in Appendix 2-B are
> rather complex, paricularly for an undergraduate just beginning to
> study kinetics.
The assignment I gave was to examine the generic reaction A + B -> C.
Three possible mechanisms are
a) A + B -> C k1
rate = k[A][B]
b) A + A <=> A2 k1,k-1
A2 + B -> C + A k2
rate = k1 k2 [B][A]^2/(k-1 + k2[B]) assuming steady state approx.
= k1 [A]^2 when k-1<>k2[B]
c) B + B <=> B2 k1,k-1
B2 + A -> C + B k2
rate = k1 k2 [A][B]^2/(k-1 + k2[A]) assuming steady state approx.
= k1 [B]^2 when k-1<>k2[A]
The students were expected to derive the rate expressions for each
mechanism, employing the SSA when approprite, and to recognize the limiting
conditions which would lead to the simpler rate expressions shown in b) and
c). Although it would be possible to generate project files for the full
rate expressions obtained for mechanisms b) and c), in reality I provided
files based on the limiting rate laws (mostly because they were simpler to
create). These are the files provided for this conference as ABC files.
The project files described in Appendix 2-B do have rate laws which are
more complex, and I did not assign these to the students. However, these
are experiments which we have had our students investigate in the
laboratory during the second semester of PChem. They are included to show
the versatility of the program - and could be used as an instructor finds
appropriate.
>2. In the oxidation of ethanol example (Appendix 2-B) you indicate the
> rate depends upon the concentrations of HCrO4-, H+ and EtOH. HCrO4-
> is in equilibrium with CrO4= and Cr2O7=. Do the students consider
> these equilibria?
As described above, this file is based on the experiment we have used in
laboratory. In that context, the concentration of acid is high enough so
that essentially no Cr2O7= is present. The equilibrium is not considered
in that project file - an oversight on my part. I'm not sure whether or
not we could account for that in a rigorous way.
>3. In the reduction of hexacyano iron(III) by ascorbic acid (Appendix
> 2-B) there are three rate constants (as you indicate). Were the
> students expected to determine the Arrhenius parameters and
> activation energies for each rate constant?
Again, this project was not assigned to the students. It would be
difficult to find the Arrhenius parameters for each constant. A suggested
use for this project would be to refute or confirm a proposed mechanism, or
to determine the order with respect to a single component under constant
conditions for the others.
>4. In Section 2-F you mention the determination of the initial rate of
> reaction from the initial slope. How accurate were the rate
> constants, and energies of activation which the students obtained
> from the data?
My recollection is that the student results were excellent. (I have spent
the last six weeks searching for my records of how their results compared
to the file values in anticipation of this question and have been unable to
locate them. Perhaps I could blame this on having moved my office twice in
the last year, but I won't tr yto do that.) When I have performed the
experiments, I have been able to reproduce the file values to within a few
percent every time, even when I try to be sloppy. If anyone would like to
know the values for a particular file, I would be happy to provide them.
>5. Generally, a suitable plot of the integrated form of the rate
> equation provides more accurate rate constants than do initial
> rates. Did students use integrated forms of the rate equation? For
> example, the rate of oxidation of ethanol is pseudo first order in
> ethanol under appropriate conditions (and pseudo second order in
> HCrO4- under other conditions).
For the ABC files, students generally used the method of initial rates.
One other note - I have just discovered that, contrary to my suggestion in
the text, the ABC files do not generate any noise on the kinetic runs. I
set the "noise factor" to 0 in these files to test other parts of the
program, and never changed them back. It is relatively easy to do however.
I apologize for any inconvenience/frustration which this may have caused.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 14:14:10 -0500
From: Rick Moog
Subject: Re: Discussion of Paper 14 begins
Well, my contribution has been greeted with thunderous silence. I suppose
I could take that a number of different ways. If there is anyone out there
who has tried Chemulate! but has not previously communicated their opinion
of it to me (either publicly or privately) I would greatly appreciate your
opinion. Is it:
a) uninteresting and not very useful
b) interesting but not very useful
c) uninteresting but useful
d) interesting and useful
e) other
Specific comments reagrding the program would also be appreciated.
Also - what do people think about the usefulness in general of this type of
simulation? Is this an effective use of computers as a pedagogic tool?
Rick Moog Voice: 717-291-3804
Department of Chemistry Fax: 717-291-4343
Franklin and Marshall College E-mail: R_Moog@ACAD.FANDM.EDU
Lancater, PA 17604-3003
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 13:47:07 CDT
From: "GARY L. BERTRAND"
Subject: Re: Discussion of Paper 14 begins
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
10 Aug 1993 14:14:10 -0500 from
I think that this is an excellent program for teaching chemical
kinetics. Ideally, the students can use the program to go through a
complete exercise of determining the order with respect to 2 or more
components, set up "experiments" to determine the rate constant with
maximum precision, and determine the activation parameters.
Under the best of conditions, the students could use the program to
decide on the concentrations they will use in one or more actual
experiments, eliminating the "cookbook" that we all claim to hate, but
use nonetheless. For this purpose, the program should simulate the real
experiment as closely as possible.
While there are many strong points about basing this experiment on
spectroscopic data, I think a stronger case may be made for data output
in terms of concentrations of reactants and/or products - after all,
these are beginners, and concentrations are less abstract than
Absorbancy data.
In using simulations of this type, I have been able to impress
students with the discrepancies between statistical uncertainties
calculated for individual rate constants, and the uncertainty calculated
for replicate measurements.
The real value of this type of program can only be realized if the
students "play" with it to broaden their "experience" with reaction
kinetics after doing real experiments. I have so far been unsuccessful
in getting my students to do this.
*************************************************************************
* GARY L. BERTRAND, DEPT OF CHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ROLLA *
* ROLLA, MO 65401. (314)-341-4441 *
* BITNET- GBERT@UMRVMB INTERNET- GBERT@UMRVMB.UMR.EDU *
* "I NEVER WANTED TO BE FAMOUS, I JUST WANTED TO BE GREAT." RAY CHARLES *
*************************************************************************
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 15:40:17 -0400
From: JOHN WOOLCOCK
Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Subject: Re: Discussion of Paper 14 begins
Gary Bertrand writes:
>While there are many strong points about basing this experiment on
>spectroscopic data, I think a stronger case may be made for data output
>in terms of concentrations of reactants and/or products - after all,
>these are beginners, and concentrations are less abstract than
>Absorbancy data.
I disagree with this. I think that when I use a simulation, I want it to
be as true to the real thing as is practical or possible. When real
spectrophotometric kinetics are done absorbances are typically converted to
concentrations using Beer's Law. Chemulate allows the students to do this part
of the data analysis as well. If I wanted to skip this part with my students
then I would tell them how to do this conversion when the data is transferred
to the graphing program or spreadsheet program by giving them a cell equation
or having them transfer the data to a template or macro that is already
constructed.
John C. Woolcock
Chemistry Department
Indiana University of PA
Indiana, PA 15705
Internet: WOOLCOCK@grove.iup.edu
Bitnet: WOOLCOCK@IUP
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 09:22:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Paper 14 discussion
Gary Bertrand says:
> The real value of this type of program can only be realized if the
> students "play" ...I have so far been unsuccessful in getting my
> students to do this.
I have also found this to be the case, to my dismay. It seems
that simulation programs are especially loved by instructiors,
who do like to play with them and explore. But my students have
often been confused by simulation programs and usually try to
"get through" them as quickly as possible. Relatively few seem to
be caught up in the fun of exploration. Why is that?
Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 09:51:59 -0400
From: Paul Edwards
Subject: Re: Paper 14 discussion
Re: simulations, playing and confusion
Tom asked the question why students don't get caught
up in the fun of the exploration. I'd like to hazard
a guess.
The instructors understand what is being simulated, but why
should the students? We tell them it is a simulation of something,
but they have no experience with the real system or reason
to believe the simulation is accurate. So why should they
view the assignment as anything more than another exercise
to crank through?
I think a variation of this came up on CHEMED-L a year
or so ago. At that time, I think I used the terminology
"from where does a simulation draw its credibility". If the
students are just racing through, maybe they are asking why
they are doing this and why should they believe it.
Paul Edwards
edwardsp@vax.edinboro.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 10:06:51 -0500
From: Rick Moog
Subject: Re: Paper 14 discussion
Gary Bertrand says:
>> The real value of this type of program can only be realized if the
>> students "play" ...I have so far been unsuccessful in getting my
>> students to do this.
Tom O'Haver says:
>I have also found this to be the case, to my dismay. It seems
>that simulation programs are especially loved by instructiors,
>who do like to play with them and explore. But my students have
>often been confused by simulation programs and usually try to
>"get through" them as quickly as possible. Relatively few seem to
>be caught up in the fun of exploration. Why is that?
Here's a conjecture based on my limited experience. Although I will not
claim that my students spent myriad hours enjoying "playing around" with
the program, they did "play around" enough to figure out how to do the
assignment they had been given. The course contained a section on
kinetics, but since there was no lab, there was no context to think about
kinetics problems other than those presented in the text. Many students
commented that using this program made clear to them concepts that they had
not understood previously. At the end of the course, when asked to comment
on the evaluation forms about the merits (and demerits) of the computer
assignment, they were essentially unanimous in being positive about it,
and several mentonoed it as the best aspect of the course. (That may be a
comment on the rest of the course, but...) Here is my guess of why this
seems to have "worked" (in no particular order):
- there was a specific task to perform which included the necessity of
"playing around" to accomplish it
- the exercise was not a simulation of something the students had already
done, but provided a new context to think about material they "needed" to
understand
- they could do the work anywhere (and anytime) they could find a Mac - in
their dorm rooms, at a friend's house, at the computer center, etc.
Rick Moog Voice: 717-291-3804
Department of Chemistry Fax: 717-291-4343
Franklin and Marshall College E-mail: R_Moog@ACAD.FANDM.EDU
Lancater, PA 17604-3003
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 10:46:22 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 14 discussion
My cooeague Ian Brindle replies
>Gary Bertrand says:
>> The real value of this type of program can only be realized if the
>> students "play" ...I have so far been unsuccessful in getting my
>> students to do this.
>
>I have also found this to be the case, to my dismay. It seems
>that simulation programs are especially loved by instructiors,
>who do like to play with them and explore. But my students have
>often been confused by simulation programs and usually try to
>"get through" them as quickly as possible. Relatively few seem to
>be caught up in the fun of exploration. Why is that?
>
>Tom O'Haver
>U. of Maryland
A response to Tom O'Havers comments about "play" time:
Small wonder that kids don't have time to "play" when we structure their
time with assignments, examinations, etc. An undergraduate student with a
full course load, it seems to me, very rarely has the luxury of time to
play. Given time, the student often apply it to those courses where there
is the greatest pressure of work. Given open ended play time, I would
suggest, may seem threatening to an undergraduate (and a frehman graduate
student!)
>>>>>>>>>>> Ian Brindle >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Chemistry Department
Brock University
St Catharines
Ontario L2S 3A1
416 688 5550 Ex 3545
FAX 682 9020
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 09:21:50 -0400
From: JOHN WOOLCOCK
Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Subject: Re: Paper 14 -Short Questions Answers
Since thunderous silence again seems to reign I'll throw in another 2 cents
worth.
I was puzzled by the fact that the implementation in Fall 1992 did not go as
well as in the previous year. I would have expected most students to react
positively to this type of exercise. Perhaps they had come to expect more "sage
on the stage" and when they got a "guide on the side" they felt uncomfortable
with this change is style. Doing several activities of this type during the
semester as you suggest should help to minimize this.
The observations made by the second semester lab instructor: ("Last year the
students just got going right away and seemed to know what they were doing.
This year, they got through it all right, but it seemed to take them longer to
figure out what to do.") I think this points to some important pedagogical
benefits of this type of exercise. First, done as an activity in lecture this
helps to foster a stronger link between lecture and lab. Second, some of the
discovery and planning of an experiment is done before lab begins which allows
the instructor to take the students further than is typical in one lab period.
Also, with more confidence in their understanding of what is expected they tend
to be more willing to examine the experiment and its nuances in more detial.
Finally, A question for the Richard Moog:
In surveying P. Chem lab texts there are a number of kinetics that I would
probably avoid due to the fact that construction of special equipment is
required and I am not an avid tinkerer. Experiments such as flash photolysis,
T-jump and stop flow in which spectrophotometry is used for rate measurements.
Do you think Chemulate can be set up to simulate these types of experiments?
John C. Woolcock
Chemistry Department
Indiana University of PA
Indiana, PA 15705
Internet: WOOLCOCK@grove.iup.edu
Bitnet: WOOLCOCK@IUP
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 10:17:10 CDT
From: "GARY L. BERTRAND"
Subject: Re: Paper 14 discussion
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed,
11 Aug 1993 10:06:51 -0500 from
Some helpful points are being made here. A large part of the
problem has been summed up by Paul Edwards: we understand what's behind
the simulation (both the experiment and the simulated presentation), and
they are just encountering it. This is the point I was trying to make
earlier in suggesting that the output as concentration(s) might be
preferred over absorbance, even though these are interchangeable. I
think that this is even more important if the simulation is being used
separately from the laboratory.
Ian Brindle makes another strong point: "playing" with an experiment
is a luxury that many students do not feel they can afford, especially
if the benefits are not clear and the exercise is not really that much
fun.
We have used simulations for the iodine
clock reaction and viscosity of polymer solutions in PChem Lab for a few
years. The former is used with a "cookbook" and the latter is less
structured. Our students strongly prefer the structured experiment.
Rick Moog makes his simulation available to students to be used at their
"leisure". Certrainly, this has to help. I will try this with an
advanced kinetics class this semester. I'll use Chemulate as well as a
Hypercard program which gives numerical output as concentration(s) vs
time, and see which works better.
*************************************************************************
* GARY L. BERTRAND, DEPT OF CHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ROLLA *
* ROLLA, MO 65401. (314)-341-4441 *
* BITNET- GBERT@UMRVMB INTERNET- GBERT@UMRVMB.UMR.EDU *
* "I NEVER WANTED TO BE FAMOUS, I JUST WANTED TO BE GREAT." RAY CHARLES *
*************************************************************************
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 10:58:31 EDT
From: "R. T. Wilson"
Subject: Paper 14 Discussion:Simulations
Rick Moog, Paul Edwards and Ian Brindle have already commented on remarks by
Bertrand and O'Haver concerning students' lack of enthusiasm for computer
simulations. Tom, I think this goes back once again to the issue of
personality, which has been mentioned in another context earlier. You
mentioned the book by Sheila Tobias, _They're Not Dumb, They're Different._ A
Couple of others I hastily found at our library are: _Learning Styles:
Implications for Improving Educational Practices_, by Charles S. Claxton and
Patricia H. Murrell, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4. Washington, D.C.:
Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1987; and _Please Understand Me:
Character and Temperament Types_ by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates,
Prometheus Nemesis Book Company. Del Mar, Ca., 1984.
Both of these discuss personality and learning styles. Basically,
students tend to be more extroverted than their professors, who love to sit in
front of their computer terminals playing computer games. Students are much
less interested in this, and would rather get it over with so they can get back
where the action is. Of course there are differences between students and
differences between professors. It makes a big difference whether you are
dealing with graduate students in chemistry or lesser mortals.
Terrell Wilson
Department of Chemistry
Virginia Military Institute
Lexington, Virginia 24450
e-mail: fchwilson%faculty%vmi@ist.vmi.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 08:42:50 PST
From: "Edward H. Piepmeier"
Subject: Re[2]: Paper 14 discussion
Tom asked the question why students don't get caught
up in the fun of the exploration.
I wonder if the students need to be assigned problems that can be answered
by doing the simulation, rather than just being given a simulation to play
around with?
Ed Piepmeier
Department of Chemistry
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-4003
piepmeie@ccmail.orst.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 12:37:03 EDT
From: Jim Holler
Subject: Re: Paper 14 discussion
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed,
11 Aug 1993 09:22:00 EDT from
Surprisingly, many are afraid to play. They're afraid they'll screw something
up.
On Wed, 11 Aug 1993 09:22:00 EDT to2 said:
>Gary Bertrand says:
>> The real value of this type of program can only be realized if the
>> students "play" ...I have so far been unsuccessful in getting my
>> students to do this.
>
>I have also found this to be the case, to my dismay. It seems
>that simulation programs are especially loved by instructiors,
>who do like to play with them and explore. But my students have
>often been confused by simulation programs and usually try to
>"get through" them as quickly as possible. Relatively few seem to
>be caught up in the fun of exploration. Why is that?
>
>Tom O'Haver
>U. of Maryland
Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884
Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069
University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Lexington, KY 40506
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 13:02:50 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 14 Discussion:Simulations
>Rick Moog, Paul Edwards and Ian Brindle have already commented on remarks by
>Bertrand and O'Haver concerning students' lack of enthusiasm for computer
>simulations. Tom, I think this goes back once again to the issue of
>personality, which has been mentioned in another context earlier. You
>mentioned the book by Sheila Tobias, _They're Not Dumb, They're Different._ A
>Couple of others I hastily found at our library are: _Learning Styles:
>Implications for Improving Educational Practices_, by Charles S. Claxton and
>Patricia H. Murrell, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4. Washington, D.C.:
>Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1987; and _Please Understand Me:
> Character and Temperament Types_ by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates,
>Prometheus Nemesis Book Company. Del Mar, Ca., 1984.
> Both of these discuss personality and learning styles. Basically,
>students tend to be more extroverted than their professors, who love to sit in
>front of their computer terminals playing computer games. Students are much
>less interested in this, and would rather get it over with so they can get back
>where the action is. Of course there are differences between students and
>differences between professors. It makes a big difference whether you are
>dealing with graduate students in chemistry or lesser mortals.
>Terrell Wilson
>Department of Chemistry
>Virginia Military Institute
>Lexington, Virginia 24450
>e-mail: fchwilson%faculty%vmi@ist.vmi.edu
There is also a cultural and sexual differentiation among students. The
avid computer games players will love to tinker with simulations. Female
studetns appear less likely to -- especially in early years. There is still
a noticable reluctance on the part of females compared to males entering
university to sit down in front of a computer -- though less so than a few
years ago. Prior to a national science fair I had the occasion to give a
lecture to 400 high school students, the point of which was the increasing
importance of the computer in the workplace. Despite the fact that at that
time more women than men used computers at work, the students when they
entered at the computer I had set up to one side, and the first four rows
on that side of the room were entirely male, the front rows on the other
side almost entirely female. An hour later I repeated the talk, swapped the
side on which the computer was set up and the next lot repeated the same
behavior -- males only in front of the computer. Its not as bad now, but
the problem still exists. Simulations are seen as competitive games by some
female students.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 13:12:18 EDT
From: Allan Smith
Subject: Re: Discussion of Paper 14 begins
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
10 Aug 1993 15:40:17 -0400 from
Rick Moog's kinetics program is very similar in concept to a Macintosh
program called KSIMS, which we ported to the Mac six years ago from FORTRAN
code written elsewhere. Students could choose one of 20 elementary
reactions, then set initial concentrations and temperature and run the
simulation. The data could then be plotted in one of several standard ways
to determine the reaction order and to extract the rate constant. I first
used KSIMS with freshmen about ten years ago when we had a roomful of
dumb terminals connected to a mainframe; even in that setting, I believe
students learned something. The only reason I don't use KSIMS now is that
it was written by a programmer hired by the Software Development Group at
Drexel; in the intervening six years, the programmer has left and so has
virtually the entire group ("restructuring", a euphemism for downsizing).
The underlying kinetic equations for this type of problem are quite
straightforward, and are given in most kinetics texts. My approach to
doing this again (when I get around to it) is to put the equations into
an equation solver. When KSIMS worked on the Macs we had, I even used it
in my graduate kinetics course successfully.
I also support the use of absorbances rather than concentrations, at least
for upper level students. It is also very straightforward to deduce
reaction rate laws and rate constants from absorbance data in which more
than one species is absorbing at the monitoring wavelength (see Moore and
Pearson, Kinetics and Mechanism, 3rd Edition, Wiley Interscience, 1981,
Chap 3) [Aside: John Moore, if you're reading this - thanks for this
fine book!]. It is not always possible to find monitoring wavelengths
at which only one species absorbs, but with the Moore and Pearson approach,
this is not necessary. The approach outlined there can also be used to
determine rate constants for a gas phase reaction by measuring total
pressure versus time.
Allan Smith, Drexel University
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 15:07:34 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 11: Posting old exams
>To Jack Miller: Could you say a bit more about the software for formatting "att
>achments" to email messages
On the Brock campus we use the fullowing two programs for PCs and Macs
respectively.
NUPop is available on various internet archive sites and can be downloaded
from the ftp site "ftp.acns.nwu.edu" in the /pub/nupop directory logging in
as anonymous.
Eudora is also available from from the popular internet sites and is also
at "ftp.qualcomm.com".
Both of these programs use the "attachment" or "enclosure" in order to move
formatted documents. They are compatible because both programs use binhex
to encode and decode the document(s).
Both programs are freeware.
Both programs are full blown e-mail packages with many options. One option
is "attach document". When chosen you get a menu to choose folder and then
a file from your Mac (PC) disk, and on responding with a carriage return or
click on the "open" button your word processor, graphic, spreadsheet or
whatever file is identified in your e-mail window as an attachment. When
you send your e-mail message, the attached document goes throgh the bin/hex
converter, is sent in e-mail compatible format and on receipt you get the
messge that there is an attachement and a querry of where you want it saved
and if you want its name changed -- when saved to disk the bin/hex
conversion occurs in the opposite direction and you have the file intact.
since Macs -- or mine as configured can open most MS DOS files it doesn't
matter if it was sent to me from a Mac or a PC, Eudora reading the NuPop
atttached files and visa versa. I then open in Word the file sent by a PC
or a Mac using word orWordperfect or other word processor, and you can
include all sorts of graphics in the word processor file. Certainly super
and sub-scripts are trivial. It works best however if both Macs and PCs are
using the same word processor as the odd bid of formatting doesn't
translate well.
For document purposes, e.g. student assignments the e-mail message would be
simply that assignment 1 is attached. The student would then get assignment
1 saved to their disk and when opened in their word processor all formating
is intact. Answers done in word processors, spreadsheets or data base
programs can be returned to the professor in the same way as an attachment.
There are the equivalent programs that work on a UNIX workstation -- the
only problems are those people who swear by UNIX Mail and vi editors --
relics of the 60's (the software if not the hacker affectionados -- not
dissimilar to those who believe LaTEX is a wordprocessing environment
rather than a Fortran Progrmaers environment as came out in discussion last
month.)
We are running a campus wide Ethenet backbone with PCs and Macs directly
onto nodes in each building or many Macs on a LocalTalk network connectrf
to the ethernet via a gateway in each building. The servers that handle
the e-mail are either the computer center Silicon Graphics 4 processor
Challenge series (as of next week) or local SGI workstations in
departments. Eudora also works for me from home via a modem and Appletalk
remote access (ARA). There are also other serial TCP/IP software packages
that can be used for Macs or PCs to have full internet access loging onto
the campus lines via modem. The ARA is great -- you keep the mac graphical
environment, and I can log into my office Mac or one of the Mac servers
oncampus to get files or run software that is found there -- though large
programs can be quite slow to boot even with 14.2 kbaud modems. However
internet sessions, Gophers etc. are quite friendly even in this slower
mode.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 10:10:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: Paper 14 - Discussion of Simulation
Paper 14 - Discussion of Simulation
Chemulate! A Simulator of UV/Visible Kinetics Experiments for the
Macintosh by Richard S. Moog
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Moog in the QUESTIONS FOR READERS section of his paper says:
> There are varying opinions of the general usefullness and/or
> effectiveness of computer simulations in the teaching of chemistry.
In his Tuesday, August 10 14:14:10 comment he asks:
> What do people think about the usefulness . . . of this type of
> simulation? Is this an effective use of computers as a pedagogic
> tool?
* I can not really comment on the specifics of Professor Moog's
* program. I did not run it.
* I believe what he is trying to do can be useful.
* If this program serves as a substitute for running an actual kinetic
* experiment, I have some of the same reservations as those expressed
* by John Woolcock:
> 6. For me an experiment simulation is . . . "the next best thing".
> They are better than nothing at all . . .
* Chemistry is a laboratory science and I believe that simulations are
* usually a poor substitute for actual laboratory experience.
* Having said that, I still believe simulations can be very useful.
* In a laboratory course it is usually not feasible nor desirable to
* have a student perform a time consuming experiment under somewhat
* different conditions again and again and again.
* For that reason simulation sometimes provides an attractive
* alternative.
* In Chemulate it appears that many simulated experiments can be
* designed by the students and performed so that many rate constants
* can be obtained in a relatively short period of time at different
* concentrations of reactants and at different temperatures. Such data
* are needed to determine the rate expression and energy of activation
* for a reaction.
* SQUALOR - the qual organic simulation program - is an
* interesting simulation, which when used together with some qual
* organic laboratory experiments has considerable pedagogic value.
* I used to teach an advanced undergraduate - graduate course entitled
* "The Analysis of Experimental Data". The course involved numerical
* and statistical analysis - consideration of errors - the testing of
* hypotheses and the design of experiments. I believed it would be
* useful for students to design experiments and collect data. With
* the assistance of a graduate student a kinetic simulation program was
* developed involving the hydrolysis of p-methylphenyl formate. The
* students select the temperature, buffer and its concentration and
* number of runs to be made under these conditions. The program
* provides the pH, the rate constant and its standard deviation.
* Error is introduced.
* In one or two preliminary experiments absorbance vs time data are
* provided so that the pseudo first order nature of the reaction can
* be tested.
* I don't know how much tedium is associated with finding the rate
* constant from data obtained from CHEMULATE. It depends upon how
* many experiments students have to run. It would seem to me that
* after a while little is to be learned from obtaining another initial
* rate or rate constant. In my program designed for advanced
* undergraduates or graduate students one or two sets of absorbance
* were deemed to be sufficient.
* Students used my program (KESIP - KinEtic SImulation Program) for a
* month and were asked to prepare a report summarizing the results of
* their study. I considered it to be an important part of the course.
* I thought it had considerable pedagogic value.
Donald Rosenthal
Clarkson University
ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 08:36:57 -0500
From: Rick Moog
Subject: Re: Paper 14 -Short Questions Answers
I apologize for submitting this response after the discussion of Paper 14
is closed, but I will be out of town next week and unable to respond during
the open discussion.
John Woolcock asks:
>In surveying P. Chem lab texts there are a number of kinetics that I would
>probably avoid due to the fact that construction of special equipment is
>required and I am not an avid tinkerer. Experiments such as flash photolysis,
>T-jump and stop flow in which spectrophotometry is used for rate measurements.
>Do you think Chemulate can be set up to simulate these types of experiments?
I think so, but not in ints current version.
Unfortunately, the former student who is the actual author of the software
is on vacation, so I can't confirm this with him.
The heart of Chemulate! is the ability to take an arbitrary rate law (with
associated parameters for the constants) and a given set of initial
conditions, and calculate the concentration of all species as a function of
time. The observable that is displayed in the current version of the
program is the absorbance (which requires the extinction coefficients for
each species present also). As some have proposed, presenting the
concentration as a function of time might be better. I will point out that
this can be easily done with the current program by simply "defining" the
absorption spectrum of the species to be examined to be 0 at all
wavelengths other than a particular one, setting the extinction coefficient
to be 1 at that wavelength, and then examining the absorbance at that
wavelength as a function of time.
As far as these other experiments are concerned: My understanding is that
if one can produce an analytical expression for the concentration of
species as a function of time (or a method for generating a close
approximation) that we could produce a display of an observable based on
those concentrations as a function of time. Does that answer the question?
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 11:01:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Paper 15: Lab programming systems
> How does one control a computer for the collection of experimental
> data in an instructional chemistry laboratory?
For professional industrial applications, the answer is
increasingly some sort of graphical flow-chart type of programming
system. The most successful and widely used example of is National
Instrument's LabView system, which I have seen in use in several
chemical research and industrial labs for instrument control and data
acquisition applications. The advantange of such systems over
conventional programming is that they don't require programming
skills, which most chemists don't have. For the same reason, I
have heard that LabView has been used in some introductory
chemistry laboratories. It must be admited, however, that LabView
requires modern hardware, whereas the approach described in Paper 15
has the advantage of working on older (earlier 80's vintage)
hardware, which many schools still have.
> Control files are ordinarily in unreadable binary....
Why would that be? Text files are ordinarily much easier to
create, read, write, and edit that binary files. Why would
anyone every use a binary file for such a task?
Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 11:08:43 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Paper 14 - Discussion of Simulation
Paper 14 - Discussion of Simulation
Don Rosenthal writes:
Professor Moog in the QUESTIONS FOR READERS section of his paper says:
> There are varying opinions of the general usefulness and/or
> effectiveness of computer simulations in the teaching of chemistry.
In his Tuesday, August 10 14:14:10 comment he asks:
> What do people think about the usefulness . . . of this type of
> simulation? Is this an effective use of computers as a pedagogic
> tool?
* I can not really comment on the specifics of Professor Moog's
* program. I did not run it.
* I believe what he is trying to do can be useful.
* If this program serves as a substitute for running an actual kinetic
* experiment, I have some of the same reservations as those expressed
* by John Woolcock:
> 6. For me an experiment simulation is . . . "the next best thing".
> They are better than nothing at all . . .
* Chemistry is a laboratory science and I believe that simulations are
* usually a poor substitute for actual laboratory experience.
* Having said that, I still believe simulations can be very useful.
* In a laboratory course it is usually not feasible nor desirable to
* have a student perform a time consuming experiment under somewhat
* different conditions again and again and again.
* For that reason simulation sometimes provides an attractive
* alternative.
_________
I would like to add at this point that simulations are an important part
of modern chemical research. Quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics,
molecular modeling, statistical thermodynamics, monte carlo studies etc.
are all done by chemists whose lab is a room full of computers.
Most of these scientists never handle chemicals and
instruments. I think that somewhere besides the quantum course that
some students take they should have an exposure to the use of
simulations for learning about chemical phenomenon.
Too often students will say "oh, that is just theory, it's not factual"
without realizing the amount of theoretical work that leads to
modern instrumentation. The significance of theory becomes lost.
It becomes equivalent to hypothesis. As we all know theory
and hypothesis are not the same.
________
Don writes further
* In Chemulate it appears that many simulated experiments can be
* designed by the students and performed so that many rate constants
* can be obtained in a relatively short period of time at different
* concentrations of reactants and at different temperatures. Such data
* are needed to determine the rate expression and energy of activation
* for a reaction.
* SQUALOR - the qual organic simulation program - is an
* interesting simulation, which when used together with some qual
* organic laboratory experiments has considerable pedagogic value.
* I don't know how much tedium is associated with finding the rate
* constant from data obtained from CHEMULATE. It depends upon how
* many experiments students have to run. It would seem to me that
* after a while little is to be learned from obtaining another initial
* rate or rate constant.
* Students used my program (KESIP - KinEtic SImulation Program) for a
* month and were asked to prepare a report summarizing the results of
* their study. I considered it to be an important part of the course.
* I thought it had considerable pedagogic value.
_________
I also think that materials like the one described in this paper and
by Don have considerable pedagogical value. But
The concerns and observations raised in the above point out an important
issue that must be addressed. The broader issue of developing
higher order thinking skills in students.
Whenever simulations or other activities are carried out in class
or in lab there must be clear objectives and goals and these should
be made explicit for the students.
At the asme time we need to keep in mind different learning styles
and intellectual developmental levels for our students. Several
references for both topics have been distributed already. It
might be useful to keep in mind that no one model of student learning
will have all the answers to helping us to foster higher order thinking
skill development in our students. A combination will give us insights
that one alone would never do. Since there are about 16 different
types of learning (or so I've been told) it would be impossible
to keep everyone, even in a small class, happy with exercises that
utilize their optimum mode. I guess this leaves us with needing to
develop variety for our classes and this is one reason
why the over dependence on straight lecture is out of favor with
so many educators.
This dove tails with the observation made by Tom O'Haver and others
about why students don't know how to play or get caught up in the
fun of exploration. So many just race through to get done.
Several useful insights into the problem were presented yesterday.
I would like to throw a spot light on one more that was hinted at
but not fully developed.
Jim Holler said that students are afraid to
play because they may screw up. Ed Piepmeier pointed out that students
may need specific problems to solve with a simulation. Jack Miller
reminded us of the special role of the instructor in training both
male and female students. This fits in with the learning styles issue
introduced by Terrell Wilson. And Rick Moog added that a specific
needed learning task that could be done anywhere made simulations
work. And Paul Edwards adds "from where does a simulation draw its
credibility". And Ian Brindle points out that students play where there
is greatest pleasure and that open ended play may seem threatening
to undergraduate and early graduate students.
My addition to this is to ask us to consider the students as
developing along an intellectual spectrum. Our task as teachers
is to move them along by providing the challenges and supports that
allow them to progress. Challenges, like in weight lifting, that are
just beyond their ability, and supports in the form of tasks that
they can successfully complete. They also get support when they
can see us with all our human frailties as we struggle to solve
chemical problems. This moves us out of the realm of deities and
helps put the subject within their reach.
Simulations are a useful way of providing challenge and support.
The early stage in development is one in which students want right
answers and use algorithms almost exclusively. Simulations can
work very well to help these students to learn a topic but then
we must expect them to just grind through it as a task like many
others - plug in the numbers, make it work , and get out of here.
This is OK but one really wants to get the students thinking
about the subject. This is the difficult part. How do we design
an exercise or simulation so that the students must reach out and
strain a bit to get the answer and want to get the answer at the
same time. My first effort in this line is to give structure
in the form of questions that require interpretation of figures
and graphs. Another technique I am trying to develop is to
get students to see things from multiple points of view. What
you think about a topic and the results you get depends on your
point of view. Sort of like doing reactions in different solvents.
The results change. This challenges students up to a relativistic
stage of development -- there are many ways to solve a problem,
all equally valid. Now we want them to move further and learn
to apply 'rules of adequacy' to information, judgements, and
perspectives. Choose the optimum technique for a particular set
of circumstances .
None of this is accomplished in one course. It requires a full
curriculum both in the major and in the other courses a student
takes. It requires continual explicit practice.
Even then many students don't get completely into the
higher stages and it is the higher stages that are essential for
success as scholars, people who get caught up in the fun of
exploration.
Telling students to 'think' causes their mind to freeze. They
usually haven't a clue as to what you mean or want. Better
is to lead them to think, design exercises that steadily
develop thinking skills. A well designed discovery exercise
will develop thinking at a variety of levels and work
for a variety of learning types. It's a tall order, maybe one
that can be accomplished only in pieces and where the pieces that
work for one set of instructors in one type of setting
will not be optimal for another set of instructors in another
type of setting.
Whatever we do it might be useful to consider that
maybe our students need more 'hand ups' and less 'hand outs'.
Theresa
Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University
Roszieli@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Chemistry Department
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 11:20:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Paper 15: standard menu systems
In the discussion of an earlier paper Reed Howald said:
> I am frustrated with menus that require mice, but we can and
> should provide menu eccess to computer information and control
> in a standard way.
> ... the use of standard menus is ... the key to easy access....
Microcomputer software (i.e. software that runs on your local
desktop machine) has already adopted a de-facto standard menu
configuration. Every new operating system and environment
introduced since the middle 1980's has used pull-down menus with
at least a File menu (usually containing New, Open, Save, Save
as, Print, and Quit or eXit) and an Edit menu (containing Undo,
Cut, Copy, and Paste). Other menus vary according to the
program. Such menus can be pointer or keyboard selected. Almost
every program, even some running in character mode, comply
with these standards. Modern programming languages, and even
spreadsheet macros and software construction kits for non-
programmers, have built-in facilities for creating and
modyfying standard pull-down menus.
Software that runs on a remote host and is accessed via vt100
terminal emulation is less standardized, but most of the ones
I've seen allow cursor key movement up and down the menu as well
as numerical selection. They are not very hard to figure out,
but I agree that it would be nice to have more standardization,
for example, in the way to "go back" to the previous menu
(sometimes it's ESC, sometimes "u", sometimes "q", sometimes a
control character). One trend that may help is that some remote
programs are being replaced by client/server systems that are
operated via the local system's standard pull-down menus.
However, client/server systems are much harder to write, and you
would (presumably) need a different client program for every
server, vs a single vt100 terminal program for everything.
Tom O'Haver
U. of Matyland
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 09:37:48 MDT
From: Reed Howald
Subject: paper 15 discussion
I expected there would be some short questions to answer on this paper. In the
absence of these, let me take a stab at the basic question: Why is it worth
the time it takes to write and use "control files"?
>From the discussion of paper 9 we are aware that computers are changing the
ways we think and the ways we do our jobs. My conclusion from that discussion
is that we must show our students computers in action even if we don't have the
best programs and software.
A few of us have had to learn programming to keep up in our research. If one
is at the forefront of a research area the programs must be changed and
improved to accomplish the next step. We are in this position now for teaching
if we agree that being a scientist in 2000 is considerably different from what
it was in 1980. However teachers in general do not have time to learn
programming languages like FORTRAN or C. It might be possible to learn BASIC
with an interpreter and use compiled BASIC for the really big jobs. But when I
put together a good CAI system in interpreted BASIC and found that it was just
too slow to keep student interest I dropped that approach. I now believe that
building and editing control files using menus is worth the effort of learning.
Why?
1. The time investment can be minimal. High school science teachers and
freshman students can learn to use a 15 item menu to build control programs in
under three hours.
2. They are easy to share. Control programs can be limited to the subset of
ASCII characters which can be sent over e-mail with no problems. They can be
easily modified and improved.
3. They can be kept short enough to be understood. Complex jobs can be
accomplished by nesting short control programs.
4. They can be built so they can be read by people as well as by machines. The
program to write my name in large letters on the computer screen in the latest
version (RUNRN.EXE) is:
PRint MessaGe 0 1 1 4 0. 0. Reed A. Howald
PaUse @ 0 0 0 0 0. 0. x
StoP @ 0 0 0 0 0. 0. x
5. There is no limit to what we can accomplish if we work together on this.
Sincerely,
Reed Howald
"uchrh@terra.oscs.montana.edu"
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 11:46:07 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 15: Lab programming systems
>> How does one control a computer for the collection of experimental
>> data in an instructional chemistry laboratory?
>
>For professional industrial applications, the answer is
>increasingly some sort of graphical flow-chart type of programming
>system. The most successful and widely used example of is National
>Instrument's LabView system, which I have seen in use in several
>chemical research and industrial labs for instrument control and data
>acquisition applications. The advantange of such systems over
>conventional programming is that they don't require programming
>skills, which most chemists don't have. For the same reason, I
>have heard that LabView has been used in some introductory
>chemistry laboratories. It must be admited, however, that LabView
>requires modern hardware, whereas the approach described in Paper 15
>has the advantage of working on older (earlier 80's vintage)
>hardware, which many schools still have.
Programs such as LabView alow the end user to use what is known as object
oriented programing - thenew wave in programming at the more basic level as
well as this user friendly (relatively speaking) data acquisition system.
Furthr to earlier questions onthenecessityof "programing languages" this is
the route of "programing" for the "profssionals" as well as "students".
Binary, octal or hexadecimal machine or assembly language programing was
used in theold days as the only way to get the necessary speed out of the
computer to do what the chemist needed. Today's RISC chips and 68040 or
486's or pentium chips can go so much faster than the A?D systems or the
dwell time of counters etc. that the need for programing at this level is
no longer required even in very sophisticated $100,000 data systems on mass
specs and nmrs. High level programs in Fortran or C or even C++ (object
oriented) can deal with 1MHz acquisition rates of relatively cheap UNIX
RISC workstations.
>
>> Control files are ordinarily in unreadable binary....
>
>Why would that be? Text files are ordinarily much easier to
>create, read, write, and edit that binary files. Why would
>anyone every use a binary file for such a task?
If you try to do it with obsolete hardware -- see above.
>
>Tom O'Haver
>U. of Maryland
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 11:57:34 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Paper 15: standard menu systems
>In the discussion of an earlier paper Reed Howald said:
>
>> I am frustrated with menus that require mice, but we can and
>> should provide menu eccess to computer information and control
>> in a standard way.
>> ... the use of standard menus is ... the key to easy access....
>
>Microcomputer software (i.e. software that runs on your local
>desktop machine) has already adopted a de-facto standard menu
>configuration. Every new operating system and environment
>introduced since the middle 1980's has used pull-down menus with
>at least a File menu (usually containing New, Open, Save, Save
>as, Print, and Quit or eXit) and an Edit menu (containing Undo,
>Cut, Copy, and Paste). Other menus vary according to the
>program. Such menus can be pointer or keyboard selected. Almost
>every program, even some running in character mode, comply
>with these standards. Modern programming languages, and even
>spreadsheet macros and software construction kits for non-
>programmers, have built-in facilities for creating and
>modyfying standard pull-down menus.
>
>Software that runs on a remote host and is accessed via vt100
>terminal emulation is less standardized, but most of the ones
>I've seen allow cursor key movement up and down the menu as well
>as numerical selection. They are not very hard to figure out,
>but I agree that it would be nice to have more standardization,
>for example, in the way to "go back" to the previous menu
>(sometimes it's ESC, sometimes "u", sometimes "q", sometimes a
>control character). One trend that may help is that some remote
>programs are being replaced by client/server systems that are
>operated via the local system's standard pull-down menus.
>However, client/server systems are much harder to write, and you
>would (presumably) need a different client program for every
>server, vs a single vt100 terminal program for everything.
>
>Tom O'Haver
>U. of Matyland
With the increasing power of PCs and Macs it is now feasible to run
X-window emulation on these desktop machines so that you can have on the
desktop the same environment you would have if you were running thepackage
on a graphical workstation or an X-terminal connected to it. Since ethernet
(10Mhz) runs over the same twisted pair wiring we used to use for 300-2400
BAUD VT100 terminals, old networks using such slow standards can relatively
cheaply be upgraded. In an ethernet or equivalent environment the windowing
questionis simplified, but only if you wrote windows based software to
start with -- if you are still writng comand line interface software of the
60s and 70s -- easier towrite but much less productive to use -- then a
major shift in thinking is required.
Back to the questionof an earlier paper - do you learn to program in
Fortran and re-invent thewheel or use a moder GUI based package that you
modify toeet your needs.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 12:01:18 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: paper 15 discussion
>I expected there would be some short questions to answer on this paper. In the
>absence of these, let me take a stab at the basic question: Why is it worth
>the time it takes to write and use "control files"?
>
>>From the discussion of paper 9 we are aware that computers are changing the
>ways we think and the ways we do our jobs. My conclusion from that discussion
>is that we must show our students computers in action even if we don't have the
>best programs and software.
>
>A few of us have had to learn programming to keep up in our research. If one
>is at the forefront of a research area the programs must be changed and
>improved to accomplish the next step. We are in this position now for teaching
>if we agree that being a scientist in 2000 is considerably different from what
>it was in 1980. However teachers in general do not have time to learn
>programming languages like FORTRAN or C. It might be possible to learn BASIC
>with an interpreter and use compiled BASIC for the really big jobs. But when I
>put together a good CAI system in interpreted BASIC and found that it was just
>too slow to keep student interest I dropped that approach. I now believe that
>building and editing control files using menus is worth the effort of learning.
>
>Why?
>
>1. The time investment can be minimal. High school science teachers and
>freshman students can learn to use a 15 item menu to build control programs in
>under three hours.
>
>2. They are easy to share. Control programs can be limited to the subset of
>ASCII characters which can be sent over e-mail with no problems. They can be
>easily modified and improved.
>
>3. They can be kept short enough to be understood. Complex jobs can be
>accomplished by nesting short control programs.
>
>4. They can be built so they can be read by people as well as by machines. The
>program to write my name in large letters on the computer screen in the latest
>version (RUNRN.EXE) is:
>
>PRint MessaGe 0 1 1 4 0. 0. Reed A. Howald
>PaUse @ 0 0 0 0 0. 0. x
>StoP @ 0 0 0 0 0. 0. x
>
>5. There is no limit to what we can accomplish if we work together on this.
>
>Sincerely,
>Reed Howald
>"uchrh@terra.oscs.montana.edu"
Students will be bored to tearscompared to the so much more advanced stuff
they would get in other courses or from other departments.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 12:02:34 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: paper 15 discussion
ours.
>
>2. They are easy to share. Control programs can be limited to the subset of
>ASCII characters which can be sent over e-mail with no problems. They can be
>easily modified and improved.
>
Fully formated chemistry manuscripts can be exchanged by e-mail so why the
worry over simple ASCII subsets -- see earlier discussions.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 11:26:25 MDT
From: Reed Howald
Subject: paper 15 binary, Labview, subscripts, etc.
>Control files are ordinarily in unreadable binary
>Why would that be?
Binary is the direct language of computers. Thus almost all compilers produce
binary output. So that's the way things are now, by default. Also some
programmers don't want people to have access to the programming, and distribute
only binary executable code. I agree, the kind of control files we want must
be readable by people as well as by the machines.
I agree that windows control of instrumentation in systems like LabView is
wonderful. There is however a need for a cheaper and simpler system.
Subscripts
The biggest problem in sharing exam questions by e-mail in chemistry is what to
do with subscripts and superscripts. Unfortunately every word processor and
most printers use different coding for this. The simplest dot matrix printers
use an escape character followed by a particular letter to move the paper up or
down half a line. I can build ASCII files with this coding, but I can't send
and receive files with the escape character in them by e-mail. Our current
departmental software uses [ and ] as in H[2]PO[4]]-[ for the down and up
movements, and this is okay if you don't need those characters. Jack Martin
Miller says that there are standards here. What are they? What we need are
agreed standards. I would like to put into RUNRN.EXE shifts up and down on the
screen coded in some "agreed standard" form. Then we can get printer drivers
to interpret this correctly also.
Jack Martin Miller also comments on "If you try to do it with obsolete
hardware".
I am impressed with the future of multimedia, with complete computer control of
optical systems and high definition television. I would like to be supported
by the likes of IBM with such hardware and software. But what I learned years
ago at an ACS meeting is that the common people in education can only afford
something after it has become a business success. If you don't have a computer
controlled CDROM in your lecture room you can still do a good job with
videocassettes and short clips, and with any IBM compatible to do demonstration
experiments. The titration of phosphoric acid with base can be perfomed in
front of a class as fast as the base flows from a buret (or separatory funnel
fitted with a finer tip) as fast and I think better than a computed simulation.
>students will be bored to tears
I agree that students expect visual excitement. Color is almost a necessity
now, although we chose monochrome monitors for our freshman laboratories 6
years ago and are currently stuck there. We need lots more pictures and
graphs. I am putting gray scale pictures from a Canon video still camera into
the p-chem laboratory manual now. I am working on the display of color
pictures on computer screens. Unfortunately this is another area where there
is not enough standardization. The program still crashes on some systems. But
I am not too worried about boring students if we can keep the systems simple
enough that they can play with them. We may get flashing obscene messages on
our computer screens if we show them how to write there own name in large
letters across the screen, but they will learn faster than us old fogies.
Reed Howald
"uchrh@terra.oscs.montana.edu"
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 13:50:47 EDT
From: "R. T. Wilson"
Subject: Paper 15 Discussion
Reed, I am still a little uncertain about exactly who is using your stuff and
what they are doing with it. If it is being used in general chemistry, what
are the students'majors, how many students are there, how many computers are
there, what experiments are they used for, when do they use the computers, and
what kind of output do they generate? Could you elaborate a little on some of
these details?
Terrell Wilson
Department of Chemistry
Virginia Military Institute
Lexington, Virginia 24450
e-mail: fchwilson%faculty%vmi@ist.vmi.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 14:18:41 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: paper 15 binary, Labview, subscripts, etc.
In response to Reed Howard
>>Control files are ordinarily in unreadable binary
>>Why would that be?
>
>Binary is the direct language of computers. Thus almost all compilers produce
>binary output. So that's the way things are now, by default. Also some
>programmers don't want people to have access to the programming, and distribute
>only binary executable code.
Almost every vendor of scientific equipment will make available the
interface coding in a higher level language or offer a module that lets you
alter the interface parameters. Those that say they won't actually will if
you refuse to buy their equipment unless they do so. The only exceptions
that I know of are for some EPA mandated routines. In some cases however,
the acquisition programing is firmware -- burned into EPROMS in the
instrument but even there you can sometimes get access. If they are only
available in binary, you as a researcher may have to read them, but it is
pointless to teach it to your undergraduates.
I agree, the kind of control files we want must
>be readable by people as well as by the machines.
>
>I agree that windows control of instrumentation in systems like LabView is
>wonderful. There is however a need for a cheaper and simpler system.
Simpler you won't find if you want it to do real work. I agree "cheaper" is
needed and there are cheaper menu driven alternatives that are less
flexiblethan LabView, typically being aimed at a specific technique. It
also depends on whether you are after instrument control or just data
acquisition. The latter is easy and cheap and many programs have interfaces
which typically tie in with a standard spreadsheet package which is used
for the calculation and plotting. Many are available.
>
>Subscripts
>The biggest problem in sharing exam questions by e-mail in chemistry is what to
>do with subscripts and superscripts. Unfortunately every word processor and
>most printers use different coding for this. The simplest dot matrix printers
>use an escape character followed by a particular letter to move the paper up or
>down half a line. I can build ASCII files with this coding, but I can't send
>and receive files with the escape character in them by e-mail. Our current
>departmental software uses [ and ] as in H[2]PO[4]]-[ for the down and up
>movements, and this is okay if you don't need those characters. Jack Martin
>Miller says that there are standards here. What are they? What we need are
>agreed standards. I would like to put into RUNRN.EXE shifts up and down on the
>screen coded in some "agreed standard" form. Then we can get printer drivers
>to interpret this correctly also.
The defacto standards are out there and have nothing to do with the printer
codes. What printer you print to is taken care of by the installed printer
drivers inyour computer of for DOS with the word processor you are using.
The document contains generic code of the word processor, not generic to
the printer if you use 1990's software.
Defacto is relative but somewhere between 80 and 90% (if I remember
corectly) of the PC and MAC word processing is done with Word Perfect or MS
Word. They can read each other's files and Macs can read and write PC
compatible files. The printer is not defined by the file that you exchange
but is chosen on your Mac or PC. You are talking computers that cost only a
little over $1,000. and academic prices for the Word Processors is in the
range of $100. or less! No reason to use LaTEX or old ASCII word
processors. There are standards on most campuses for use in University labs
so students can gain access even if they don't have their own computer, or
you offer the hard copy option.
>Jack Martin Miller also comments on "If you try to do it with obsolete
>hardware".
I was referring to the necessity of binary acquisition coding.
>I am impressed with the future of multimedia, with complete computer control of
>optical systems and high definition television. I would like to be supported
>by the likes of IBM with such hardware and software. But what I learned years
>ago at an ACS meeting is that the common people in education can only afford
>something after it has become a business success. If you don't have a computer
>controlled CDROM in your lecture room you can still do a good job with
>videocassettes and short clips, and with any IBM compatible to do demonstration
>experiments. The titration of phosphoric acid with base can be perfomed in
>front of a class as fast as the base flows from a buret (or separatory funnel
>fitted with a finer tip) as fast and I think better than a computed simulation.
>
>>students will be bored to tears
>
>I agree that students expect visual excitement. Color is almost a necessity
>now, although we chose monochrome monitors for our freshman laboratories 6
>years ago and are currently stuck there. We need lots more pictures and
>graphs. I am putting gray scale pictures from a Canon video still camera into
>the p-chem laboratory manual now. I am working on the display of color
>pictures on computer screens. Unfortunately this is another area where there
>is not enough standardization. The program still crashes on some systems. But
>I am not too worried about boring students if we can keep the systems simple
>enough that they can play with them. We may get flashing obscene messages on
>our computer screens if we show them how to write there own name in large
>letters across the screen, but they will learn faster than us old fogies.
Students will be bored if Chemists teach in antiquated ASCII when
biologists and geologists and Physicists and computer scientists and
mathemeticians are all using GUIs, and any computer hacker will see the
text based stuff as things they did in grade 8. Even if it works
pedagogically, which I doubt, since todays students are forever asking
about relevance and how it will help them get jobs, if we make Chemistry
look like an antiquated discipline we will loose our best students to
Physics and biology. It is nothing to do with colour, but everything to do
with output that looks like it was printed by an old teletype on newsprint
in line after line of unformatted nearly unreadable text.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 14:27:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: Paper 15: Lab programming systems
In-Reply-To: <9308121613.AA20238@umd5.umd.edu>
> "Control files are ordinarily in unreadable binary..."
Can you define exactly what you mean by a "control file"? How
does a control file differ from an executable binary? I am a
little confused, because it is not, to my knowledge, a standard
term. I get the idea from your paper (Paper 15) that control
files are something like "scripts" or "macros" or "source code
files", that are written by the user in order to "tell their
computers what it is that they want the computers to do". Such
files are not useful by themselves - they are not stand-alone
executable files - but rather they require processing by a
compiler or interpreter, which is itself a stand-alone executable
binary. In almost all programming environments I am aware of, the
scripts, macros, or source code files are TEXT files, not binary
files. As an example, take a familiar commercial general-purpose
programming environment such as Turbo Pascal. The Turbo Pascal
compiler itself is an executable binary, with a file name that has
an ".EXE" extension. The programs that you write in the Turbo
Pascal language - the "control" files, as you put it - are TEXT
files, not binary files. So, whereas the compiler itself is
an executabel binary - the "direct language of computers" - the
"control files" are naturally in text - the direct language of
humans. That is why I am confused by your statement that
"Control files are ordinarily in unreadable binary..."
Tom O'Haver, U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 14:11:40 MDT
From: Reed Howald
Subject: paper 15 discussion control files
>exactly what do you mean by a "control file"?
I mean by a "control file" a computer file which tells the computer what to do.
At present most such files are the executable binary from compilers. As such
they are difficult to change: one must edit the source code and recompile. I
mean by "menu driven programming" writing simpler text "control files" which
let teachers supply instructions to computers without endless syntax errors.
>I am still a little uncertain about exactly who is using "your" stuff
and what they are doing with it.
I describe two generations of control files in the paper. The first one is not
mine, although I was one of fifteen or so people who helped in its development.
This software is now licensed by Montana State University to SCI Technologies
Inc. It is limited to controlling the interfaces they make and some older
versions, but it is quite widely used. I use it in p-chem lab for about two
thirds of the experiments the students do in 16 student laboratories. It is
used in our two large general chemistry laboratories, in laboratory rooms with
11 computers and 20 students working in pairs. There are well over 100 of
these instruments in Montana schools, with maybe half of them in active use.
The chemistry 121, 131, and 132 classes here involve all majors and about 900
or more students each semester. We have 5 laboratory rooms with computers each
of which can be scheduled for up to 15 three hour laboratories a week. Here
are the current chem 131 experiments:
1. getting started (introduction to DOS, introduction to the MSU interface
system, using the spreadsheet, designing an experiment-the thermistor as a
measuring device, and a temperature measurement-boiling point of pentane
2. live graphs, spreadsheets, and amtifreeze
3. matches, flames, and light in chemistry (using a photocell and a block
colorimeter)
4. qualitative analysis
5. quantitative analysis
6. flames, heat, calories, and specific heat
7. heats of solution
8. periodicity: a database exploration
9. molecular geometry
10. Boyle's law and Charles' law
11. phase changes of carbon dioxide
12. individual projects
experiments 4, 5 and 9 make essentially no computer use, and 8 uses KCDISCOVER
but doesn't involve the interfaces. Computer collection of data with control
files is central in the other eight experiments (and projects).
In the p-chem lab we use the same interfaces and software for colorimetry,
potentiometry, and thermodynamics of the hydrophobic interaction. Adding a
conductance cell and a pressure sensor allows additional experiments on
conductance, kinetics of hydrolysis, enzymatic decomposition of hydrogen
peroxide, vapor pressure, and the gas law. I use 50 temperature measurements
taken with a thermistor in the first experiment to introduce errors and
standard deviation. There are just a few experiments like density and the
spectrophotometry of iodine in the p-chem lab that don't yet involve
interfacing and computer collection of data.
Version 2 is under development and is not currently being used except by me.
RUNRN.EXE is being freely distributed with this conference, and will soon be
available as shareware from Montana Interface Incorporated, P. O. box 6567,
Bozeman MT 59771. It is not too late to specify additional features you would
like to see incorporated into this software.
sincerely,
Reed Howald
"uchrh@terra.oscs.montana.edu"
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 08:08:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: REVISED EVALUATION FORM
Subject: PLEASE SAVE THIS MESSAGE
To: ALL CHEMCONF '93 PARTICIPANTS
From: Thomas O'Haver
Conference Organizer and Manager
301-405-1831
TO2@UMAIL.UMD.EDU
and
Donald Rosenthal
Chair, ACS Division of Chemical Education's
Committee on Computers in Chemical Education
315-265-9242
ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET
Re: REVISED EVALUATION OF THE COMPUTER CONFERENCE
Date: August 12, 1993
A conference evaluation form is appended.
We view the Conference evaluation process to be as
important as the Conference itself. We would appreciate knowing the
extent to which you participated, what you liked and didn't like, and
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IN ORDER TO MAKE THIS MEETING AVAILABLE TO A WIDER SEGMENT OF THE
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MEETING INCLUDING THE PAPERS AND DISCUSSION.
WE MAY WISH TO INCLUDE YOUR PAPER OR DISCUSSION. PLEASE USE THIS REVISION
************************
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*******************
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EVALUATION FORM FOR CHEMCONF '93
1. NAME ________________________________ DATE _________________________
2. ADDRESS AT WORK _____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
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9. Hardware used for e-mail ____________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
STATISTICS
SESSION 1
----------- PAPER NUMBER -----------
- 1 - - 2 - - 3 - - 4 - - 5 -
10. READ All,Most or None _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
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PAPER (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
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asked questions or
participated in
discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
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(in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
15. Total Time Devoted (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
----------------------------------------------------------------------
SESSION 2
----------- PAPER NUMBER -----------
- 6 - - 7 - - 8 - - 9 - - 10-
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11. TIME SPENT READING
PAPER (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
12. Number of times you
accessed discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
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asked questions or
participated in
discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
14. Amount of time you
devoted to the discussion
(in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
15. Total Time Devoted (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
----------------------------------------------------------------------
SESSION 3
----------- PAPER NUMBER -----------
- 11- - 12- - 13- - 14- - 15-
10. READ All,Most or None _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
11. TIME SPENT READING
PAPER (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
12. Number of times you
accessed discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
13. Number of times you
asked questions or
participated in
discussion _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
14. Amount of time you
devoted to the discussion
(in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
15. Total Time Devoted (in hours) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____
----------------------------------------------------------------------
EVALUATION
Evaluation - Scale 1 to 5 - 1 is Poor, 3 is Average and 5 is excellent
16. Overall evaluation of papers ____
17. Overall evaluation of discussion _____
18. Overall evaluation of trial meeting ____
19. I consider Paper #____ best. Evaluation (1 to 5) ____
20. I considered the discussion of Paper #____ best.
Evaluation (1 to 5) ____
21. Explain your answers to Questions 19 and 20 ________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
22. What did you like most about the computer conference? ______________
________________________________________________________________________
23. What did you like least about the computer conference? _____________
________________________________________________________________________
24. What changes could be made to improve the computer conference?
(Papers, Short Question Sessions, Discussion Sessions, etc.)
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
25. Compare this Conference with the usual conference.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
26. ___ Yes ___ No You have my permission to publish my Paper # ___
___ Yes ___ No You have my permissission to publish my
Short Questions and Discussion
27. Other suggestions and recommendations
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
(Continue if you need more space)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Please return this form to Thomas O'Haver (TO2@UMAIL.UMD.EDU) between
August 16 and August 20
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
We hope this will be the first of many conferences.
Topics for future computer conferences are not restricted to
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=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 09:20:28 -0500
From: "Alfred J. Lata"
Subject: Paper 14 Simulation
I concur with Rosenthal and Woolcock:
>* If this program serves as a substitute for running an actual kinetic
>* experiment, I have some of the same reservations as those expressed
>* by John Woolcock:
>> 6. For me an experiment simulation is . . . "the next best thing".
>> They are better than nothing at all . . .
>
>* Chemistry is a laboratory science and I believe that simulations are
>* usually a poor substitute for actual laboratory experience.
>* Having said that, I still believe simulations can be very useful.
Simulations (and other computer activities) have their place, and their
place should be recognized: both the right place and the wrong place.
Those activities, such as simulations, which cannot be done in another
more effective way (or cannot be done at all!) : simulations of dangerous
compounds or equipment, or probhibitively expense equipment. Further,
the opportunity to introduce an experiment more effectively and efficiently
than in another method (would film or TV be better: is it available).
Another principle of simulation is to give the student the opportunity to
examine other situations, or (important!!) practice the logic of a 'system'
which has been examined previously in lab (qual, IR or NMR analysis) in
a time-efficient manner.
As has been stated before, and effectively: Chemistry is an Experimental
Science. What goes into the book comes from the laboratory. There are
aspects of our science that can only be realized in the laboratory, altho
we endeavour to simulate these (random errors, etc.), altho how do you
simulate (with impunity) the wrong reagent?(the student will say "I would
never do that!!") Brenda Laurel, in her book 'The Computer as Theater'
has the phrase "the experience of failure". We all learn from our mistakes:
students assume that mistakes should, and are, never made.
"And the worst offenders here are teachers, who present crisp, clean
batches of knowledge to their student, and look as if they themselves
learned that knowledge in a crisp, clean way. It didn't happen that
way, but the teachers don't admist it, and the students groan inwardly,
feeling so hopelessly dumb." Pamela McCorduck "Machines Who Think"
Freeman 1979 quoting Seymour Papert
(spelling 'admist' = 'admit')
Alfred J. Lata
Dept of Chemistry
Univ of Kansas, Lawrence KS
lata@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 09:17:13 -0700
From: Stephen Lower
Subject: Re: paper 15 subscripts
>The biggest problem in sharing exam questions by e-mail in chemistry is what to
>do with subscripts and superscripts. Unfortunately every word processor and
>most printers use different coding for this.
>Miller says that there are standards here. What are they? What we need are
>agreed standards. I would like to put into RUNRN.EXE shifts up and down on the
>screen coded in some "agreed standard" form.
[Reed Howald]
There IS a standard, known as SGML (standard generalized markup language).
Unfortunately, its use seems to be restricted to the commercial publishing
industry; if there is software available for converting between SGML and
ordinary word processor files, I am not aware of it.
There are also some de-facto standards: TeX/LaTeX, which some people love
to dismiss as obsolete, 1980's technology, is still widely used for
distribution of scientific documents worldwide (I use it for sharing
some of the text materials I have developed and have placed on our
ftp server), and it is implemented on virtually every type of computer.
PostScript is yet another working standard. Of course none of these
addresses the problem of screen display (except Display PostScript,
which I presume is still a part of NextStep for the PC).
----------
Steve Lower - Vancouver, Canada
Dept of Chemistry - Simon Fraser University - Burnaby BC V5A 1S6
lower@sfu.ca 604-291-3353 FAX: 604-291-3765
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1993 06:49:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: General discussion period now open.
COMPUTER CONFERENCE
ON
APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING CHEMISTRY
I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank everyone who
has been involved in this conference: the authors, for their thought-
provoking papers; the participants, for their stimulating discussion;
the Committe of Computers in Chemical Education, for their sponsorship;
and the University of Maryland Computer Science Center, for its generous
computer support. I believe that this has been a very successful
experiment indeed.
The next conference planned for the CHEMCONF conference system is the
International Chemometrics InterNet Conference (InCINC), scheduled
for October of 1994. For further information, contact Barry M. Wise
Molecular Science Research Center K2-12, Battelle Pacific Northwest
Laboratories, P.O. Box 999, Richland, WA 99352 (bm_wise@CCMAIL.PNL.GOV).
Prof. Thomas C. O'Haver
CHEMCONF organizer and manager
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1993 15:40:34 -0400
From: George Long
Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Subject: Re: Paper 14 Simulation
I believe some of the recent discussion concerning the use
of simulations is interesting given the audience, i.e.
people interested in applying modern technology to chemistry
education. The discussion has seemed to me to focus on when
not to apply simulations (don't replace "real" laboratory
experiments with the simulations). I believe the more
interesting questions are 1) What considerations are most
important in designing a useful simulation experiment?, 2)
Where in the curriculum can simulations be used to greatest
advantage? 3) What part of the laboratory curriculum can be
sacrificed in order to add simulations ? (there are some bad
general chemistry labs that ARE NOT better than good
simulation experiments). 4) How can lecture and lab be
better integrated by the application of computer technology?
(I wonder if this distinction-lecture classes and laboratory
classes in chemistry, isn't an artifact from a bygone era).
While some of these ideas have been mentioned in the
discussion, there has been little elaboration. Instead the
discussion has focused on the perceived inadequacies of
simulations. I don't believe anyone would advocate doing
only simulations in lab, but I believe their place in the
curriculum is wider than many of the comments suggest.
Simulations are an important laboratory technique, they will
become even more important in the future, Our courses
should reflect this by including simulations as standard
parts of all courses, not as a novelty or a next best thing
as many have suggested.
George Long
Indiana University of PA.
GRLONG@grove.iup.edu
or IUP.BITNET
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1993 17:21:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: Paper 14 Simulation
In-Reply-To: <9308141941.AA01913@umd5.umd.edu>
Personally, I love computer simulations. Writing a good
one really forces you to think clearly and quantitatively
about the inner operations of experiments and measurements.
I always come away with a deeper appreciation of the fine
points.
> Where in the curriculum can simulations be used to greatest
> advantage?
Simulations are best when they are better in some way than
reality. One of the big problems in chemistry is that so
much is invisible. Most actual laboratory experiments show
only the outer, macro-level effects, leaving you to imagine
the inner workings. A simulation can sometimes show the inner
workings in a way that a real experiment can not.
I teach a course in spectrochemical analysis, where we cover
atomic absorption. One of the difficulties is understanding
how the spectroscopic properties of the light source, atom
cell, spectrometer, and detector relate to each other and to
the measured absorbance. In particular, the spectroscopic
effects of background absorption and the various methods for
background correction are especially difficult to visualize.
So I wrote an atomic absorption simulation which shows the
(simulated) emission, absorption and transmission spectra on
which the measured absorbance is based. Using a simple
direct-manipulation interface, students observe the relation
of the hollow cathode lamp emission profile and the atomic
absorption profile, observe the effect of changing line
widths, attempt correction of background absorption by the
continuum-source method, discover the overcorrection caused
by structured background absorption, and investigate the
effect of non-absorbing lines, line-overlap interferences,
finite line widths and hyperfine structure. In this case a
weakness of a real instrument is that it can not show
absorption spectra (since the hollow cathode lamp can't be
tuned and the resolution of the spectrometer is low). So the
simulation is actually clearer than the real thing.
Tom O'Haver
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1993 20:57:19 -0400
From: Judith Faye Rubinson
Subject: Re: Paper 14 Simulation
I agree with George Long's comment that there are situations where simulations
are not only as useful, but are better that wet labs. Some examples I have
found are pH vs component fraction for di- and triprotic acids, electrochemical
mechanisms, pM-pH or pM-pX diagrams, effect of temperature on excited state
populations for spectroscopy, and effects of variations in A,B, and C in gas
chromatography HETP calculations. In such cases, simulations allow control of
one variable separately from all others--something that is not so easy for most
real systems.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1993 10:13:39 CDT
From: Brad Thompson
Subject: Re: Simulation
IMHO there's an important place for simulations in the entire
picture of a chemistry course or program. When a student does a lab
experiment or sees a demonstration, his/her attention will be on the
details of what is done. This is proper -- attention to detail is an
important part of what scientists do. However, the "why" of what is
done is often not as clear. A part of that "why" involves how the
particular experiment fits into a larger picture. The right kind of
simulation can allow "experimentation" over a much wider range of
variables and situations than can ever be exerienced in lab or
lecture.
This gets us to another part of the simulation discussion:
Should simulations be "realistic", as to what's observed, the detail
needed to "do" it, etc., OR should they be made more "user friendly"?
As long as the "or" is in the preceding question my answer is NO!
There's a place for quite precise imitations of the exerimental
environment, and there's a place for programs that allow a rapid
testing of lots of ground.
Suppose we "covered" less in our first courses, but gave some
challenging problems which students could explore, first with programs
that simulated ranges of conditions, etc., and then, when they had
learned some of the why's, with lab experiments or more precise
simulations as safety and other requirements dictated? Wouldn't our
students learn more about being a scientist?
H. Bradford Thompson [Brad]
Scholar in Residence, Chemistry & Physics
bradt@gac.edu Gustavus Adolphus College
Saint Peter, Minnesota 56082
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1993 15:48:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: Paper 14 - Simulations
Paper 14 - Discussion of Simulation
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2
> Date: Wednesday, August 11 10:10 EDT
> From Donald Rosenthal
>
> I used to teach an advanced undergraduate - graduate course entitled
> "The Analysis of Experimental Data". The course involved numerical
> and statistical analysis - consideration of errors - the testing of
> hypotheses and the design of experiments.
> . . . a kinetic simulation program was
> developed involving the hydrolysis of p-methylphenyl formate.
> Students used my program (KESIP - KinEtic SImulation Program) for a
> month and were asked to prepare a report summarizing the results of
> their study. I considered it to be an important part of the course.
> I thought it had considerable pedagogic value.
The program and its use was discussed in an article:
"Simulation of Experimental Data, the Design of Experiments, and the
Analysis of Results"
Donald Rosenthal and David Arnold, J. Chem. Educ., 54(5), 323-325 (1977).
Donald Rosenthal
Box 5810
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699
ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1993 19:46:07 -0400
From: HARRY PENCE
Subject: Paper 14 - Discussion of Simulations
I strongly agree with many of the points which Theresa Zielinski made
in her recent post. I won't repeat them (since I can't improve on most of
them), but I would like to emphasize one idea. Simulations have become an
essential part of chemical research. Unfortunately, it students don't
spontaneously understand simulations, and so they deserve a place in the
curriculum where first we teach our students what they are all about and then
we ask the students to use simulations to answer specific questions.
Tom O'Haver and others have commented that students don't tend to be
willing to explore a simulation. I think part of the problem is the fact that
we're (including myself) don't really understand fully how to teach the concept
of a simulation. It's so clear to us, but it isn't that simple to our
students. I'd love to have some comments on how people introduce the idea of a
simulation into their lectures before they students actually have to use one
for lab or homework.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| Harry E. Pence BITNET: PENCEHE@SNYONEVA |
| Professor of Chemistry PHONE: 607-436-3179 |
| SUNY Oneonta FAX: 607-436-2107 |
| Oneonta, NY 13820 |
____________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 10:47:49 +1000
From: Damon Ridley
Subject: Re: REVISED EVALUATION FORM
1. Damon Ridley 16 August
2. School of Chemistry, Univ Sydney NSW 2006 Australia
3. Professor
4. ridley_d@summer.chem.su.oz.au
5. yes
6. organic chemistry - all years
7. 3 (average) to 4
8. regular daily user since mid 80's
9. Macintosh IIci
All other questions:
I was at conferences overseas June-early Uly (ACS, Montana, then
Macrocyclic Chem, Enschede, Holland) and when I returned I had
180 e-mail messages (most from conference online).
Basically this phased me out and I never got into the swing of
things.
I was aware that I could blank out discussion perionds, but never
got around to it.
The paper which most interested me was paper 12 (organic chemistry),
but as of today I have yet to get the opportunity to read all the
details. I have, however, copied all information and I leave
for the U.S. on Wednesday and will read it al on the plane.
After all, it's 13 hours non-stop from Sydney to LA!
I guess that I am just too busy when I am here in Sydney and
just don't have time to cope with endless e-mail. (Besides teaching
and research, I am Pro-Dean of Faculty of Science - a huge position,
and indeed have been Dean these last two weeks).
The other reasons for my non-involvement have related mainly
to the fact that I am an organic chemist and paper 12 was the only
one vaguely in my are of interest. I really don't have time nor
the expertise to think about non-organic matters.
I did, however, copy some of the info for my non-organic
colleagues but they haven't been back to me with comments.
So basically I will spend about 5 hours on paper 12 and precious
little on the other papers.
22. I am quite enthusiastic about the concept of such
conferences, it is just that this one came at a bad time and
nearly all of the papers didn't interest me.
23. I should have blanked out time periods of interest.
as it was I just trashed most of the discussion (apart from
paper 12) (that is, after trying to catch up with the initial
backlog - see above).
24. I think the organisation of the conference was
excellent and cannot think of what else one could do.
25. Two problems with this type of conference
a. it is hard to give full attention to a conferenced a
while at the same time keeping on with usual work. As
it is I work 60+ hours a week.
b. the social, informal parts of a usual conference
were missing.
Other
I am very interested in teaching Organic Chemistry at all
levels (including its promotion to secondary schools and to the
general public) and indeed have been given a teaching excellence
award from Sydney Univ. This has led to many openings in
teaching organic chemistry.
Currently I am very much involved with a "Talented Students Program"
in Chemistry in which the top students each year are given much
less formal courses (and quite different and innovative practical
work).
I would be interested in a conference on teaching in organic chemistry
(paper 12 goes into this in part, although I have many interesting
extensions working here in Sydney).
So I look forward to reading all the discussions relating to
paper 12 and perhaps will follow up a few things later.
I shall be at ACS Chicago (Hotel Marriott) and would welcome talking
to anyone involved with the conference (the online one).
So I am sorry I did not contribute more on this occasion. Perhaps
next time.
Regards,
Damon
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1993 22:04:36 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Paper 14 - Discussion of Simulations
In-Reply-To: <9308152345.AA22780@umd5.umd.edu>
Dear Harry,
Organic Chemistry students need to know how to interpret NMR Spectra. We
do not have an instrument, and rely on printed spectra or excellent NMR
spectrum simulation computer programs to teach spectral analysis. However,
learning seems to be difficult. Because I suspected that the lack of an
actual instrument might be part of the problem, I am developing in
interactive computer program which features quick-time movies of the
instrument and researchers from the Texas Medical Center who explain both
the instrument parts, how to run a sample, and spectral intrepretation.
It is my hope that after working with this program, the students will
learn faster using the spectral interpretation programs.
The program will be ready for use in the fall semester with my organic
chemistry class. I have received great assistance from our Office of
Information Technology with the development of this multimedia program.
Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 07:14:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Simulations
Do simulations belong in general chemistry? Or do students require
some degree of scientific maturity before they can appreciate and
profit from simulations?
Alperson and O'Neil (Alperson, Jay R., and O'Neil, Dennis H., "The
Boxscore: Tutorials 2, Simulations 0", Academic Computing, 1990, 4:5
February, 18-19 and 47-49.) performed a comparative evaluation of
the effectiveness of tutorial and simulation formats in teaching
lower division undergraduate students in anthropology and
psychology. They found that beginning students learn more from
tutorials than from simulations, based on multiple-choice test
scores and student evaluations. They conclude that simulations are
more effective for upper division undergraduate and graduate
students who already know the fundamentals of the discipline, who
are more self-motivated and who have the required conceptual
framework to direct their own learning. Weyh and Crook (Weyh, John
A. and Crook, Joseph R., "CAI Drill and Practice: is it really that
bad?", Academic Computing, 1988, 2:7, June, 32-36 and 52-54) found
that the use of well-designed drill and practice programs
significantly improved test scores in an introductory chemistry
course dealing with writing and balancing equations, stoichiometric
relationships, and chemical equilibrium.
Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 08:14:34 MDT
Reply-To: bagaddis@uccs.edu
From: bagaddis@HAPPY.UCCS.EDU
Subject: Re: Paper 14 - Discussion of Simulations
I am very much interested in learning details about your venture into
interactive NMR programs using QuickTime. What kind of videocard are
you using? Did you videotape segments first and then clip them into
QuickTime? Or record right on the computer? How much memory and what
kind of computer are you using to develop this program? What storage
media are you using -- aren't the QT files too big for floppies?
Exactly how did the Office of Info. Tech. help you with this project?
How will the students use the program -- as a supplement to lab or
lecture? As an assigned lab project? What authoring program was
this developed in? It sounds like a great idea. Will this program
be available for others to use or to purchase? I am looking forward
to hearing from you. Thanks.
Barbara Gaddis
Science Learning Center
U. C.C.S/
Colorado Springs, CO 80933
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 11:05:53 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Simulations
Tom O'Haver writes
> Do simulations belong in general chemistry? Or do students require
> some degree of scientific maturity before they can appreciate and
> profit from simulations?
>
> Alperson and O'Neil (Alperson, Jay R., and O'Neil, Dennis H., "The
> Boxscore: Tutorials 2, Simulations 0", Academic Computing, 1990, 4:5
> February, 18-19 and 47-49.) performed a comparative evaluation of
> the effectiveness of tutorial and simulation formats in teaching
> lower division undergraduate students in anthropology and
> psychology. They found that beginning students learn more from
> tutorials than from simulations, based on multiple-choice test
> scores and student evaluations. They conclude that simulations are
> more effective for upper division undergraduate and graduate
> students who already know the fundamentals of the discipline, who
> are more self-motivated and who have the required conceptual
> framework to direct their own learning. Weyh and Crook (Weyh, John
> A. and Crook, Joseph R., "CAI Drill and Practice: is it really that
> bad?", Academic Computing, 1988, 2:7, June, 32-36 and 52-54) found
> that the use of well-designed drill and practice programs
> significantly improved test scores in an introductory chemistry
> course dealing with writing and balancing equations, stoichiometric
> relationships, and chemical equilibrium.
>
These are interesting results indeed.
I interpret them to mean that beginning students are being drilled
in algorithmic modes of learning and tested for their mastery of
algorithms. The study does not tell us how to move away from
algorithms for beginning students and get them started at higher
levels of reasoning. This may be why organic chem and pchem
are so hard. Students are not prepared for anything but algorithms
when they use drill exclusively. I don't recommend abandoning drill
entirely. But I think that earlier introduction of simulations will help
students to develop more quickly. Again like in athletic training
you must exceed your level in order to make progress.
I might also be useful to consider that the greatest drop of majors
occurs in freshman year. Could algorithms and their mindless
repetition in drill be part of the problem?
Sheila Tobias makes some interesting observation in her
book about stalking the second tier.
Educational drill like athletic training should have a purpose.
The athlete knows his goals and trains with purpose. do our
beginning students know their goals and what is needed to achieve
those goals? Premeds know that they need xx courses
and must get yy grades so they do what is needed but do they
understand the deeper purpose for courses xx? I don't think so.
If they did they would study differently. If we did we would teach
differently (I know we know the purpose but do we effectively
communicate it (by actions as well as words)?).
In all humility I must admit that I have more questions than
answers. I have been reading allot about teaching strategies
over the last 15 months. It seems that there is a great concern
about how and what students are learning and how effective
traditional methods of instruction are with the current generation
of students - students who can't believe that some of us are
old enough to remember living without a TV because the industry
was in its infancy.
All of my colleagues are great lecturers and good scientists.
Some are even very entertaining in class. But they are working
under the older paradigm of education, the one that most of us
learned under. Is this paradigm working with our students?
Will this paradigm enable us to educate (not train) the chemists
and informed citizens of tomorrow?
So what do I think is needed. Well for a start as Ed mentioned
yesterday, and I may be misparaphrasing him since I don't have his
comment in of me, we need new ways to teach. New strategies
that may at first seem to sacrifice content. We also need more
careful assessment. Assessment that is ongoing throughout a course.
The type that helps us to revise our teaching strategies quickly
and frequently. the type that helps us to find out what the students
hear when we tell them something. Do we say zzzzz and they hear ddddd.
It happens as you all know.
I also know that this is not a trivial task for any one teacher.
I am only just trying to figure out how to write meaningful explicit
objectives for each lesson. Some of you are way ahead of me on this.
Next would be to write out the specific tasks to accomplish each
objective. This is followed by assessment tools for each step of the
process. This is coupled to developing a repertoire of misconcepts
that can be used to diagnose student difficulties. We all know
about misconcepts and handle them intuitively. What I mean is
a written list and some analysis on how they appear from what we
say. Bodner has done good work in this area.
My current estimates say that I will need several years to do this
adequately for one course. This includes using what ever I can
beg borrow or ---- from the journals and colleagues, most of
which must be careful adapted for student use in order to
optimize learning.
On last remark. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
Do our students want to be like us?
Theresa
Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University
Roszieli@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Chemistry Department
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 10:58:00 EDT
From: "Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694"
Subject: simulations
The recent exchanges on simulatins vs real labs prompts me to report on a
project combining features of both both which is being developed by Bob
Minard, my colleague here at Penn State who runs the organic instructional
labs. This is a large University and Bob therefore must run large classes.
The introductory organic lab has two or three sections each semester; each
section has about 150 students. In order to make instruments, such as GC's,
available to them and give them the necessary operating instructions Bob is
developing a "Computer-Assisted Laboratory Instrument Operation and Principles
Explanation" (CALIOPE) system which uses a computer (Mac) which is coupled
to the instrument (with LabView) to guide the student through the operation
of the instrument
The program for the gc first shows the student how to set the instrument,
including the temperature programming. Then the student is shown (via
illustrations on the computer screen-eventually these will be replaced
by QuickTime movie clips) how to fill a microliter syringe and inject the
sample. When the program detects that the injection has been made success-
fully it shows the student how to start the temperature program. It then
starts a "principles of gc" tutorial while simultaneously displaying the
chromatogram as it develops. At the end, the student gets a hard copy of
the chromatogram. Thus the tutorial aspect and the data acquisition and
analysis are combined in one program, the student gets to do a real experiment,
and the instructors do not have to teach each student how to use the
instrument. Similar programs are under development for other instruments
such as UV/VIS and FTIR. These programs are being developed in collaboration
with Penn State's Learning Technologies Group/Computer-Based Education Lab.
Eventually we will have an instrument lab with a number of Caliope-driven
instruments that will be available to students in all of our instructional
labs. This will enable us to make the instruments available for many hours
each week and, hence, to more students per instrument. it will emphasize
to the students that instruments are used in all areas of chemistry-there
are not "organic" instruments or "analytical" instruments. And it will
bring students in lower-division courses into contact with students using the
same instruments in upper-level courses.
For further information contact Bob Minard directly: RDM5@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 11:56:19 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: paper 15 subscripts
Steve Lower says;
>
>There are also some de-facto standards: TeX/LaTeX, which some people love
>to dismiss as obsolete, 1980's technology, is still widely used for
>distribution of scientific documents worldwide (I use it for sharing
>some of the text materials I have developed and have placed on our
>ftp server), and it is implemented on virtually every type of computer.
Yes -- but most don't display it as a readable formula -- you get a string
of Fortran like text.
>PostScript is yet another working standard. Of course none of these
>addresses the problem of screen display (except Display PostScript,
>which I presume is still a part of NextStep for the PC).
>----------
Joint the windows generation -- you don't need displaypostscript -- your
Word for Window, Word for Mac or equivalent Motif or X-windows UNIX
wordprocessing package will all display on screen the e-mail attachment
sent in Word Processor format. The same applies to word perfect and you can
move files between them -- the display isn't always perfect but it is
publishable quality but is clearly readable and formulae and diagrams are
intact.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 09:42:16 MDT
From: Reed Howald
Subject: the place of simulations
There is one time tested method of teaching that works, apprenticeship. Note
that all Ph.D. programs in science work this way. As far as I know there are
no schools that recruit more chemistry majors per year than twice the number of
chemistry faculty. Apparently close personal contact is more important than
size and quality of the student body in recruiting scientists. One thing this
conference shows is that with e-mail we can increase the range of our contacts,
but I agree it cannot replace face to face contact.
When the control menus for using interfaces here at MSU were originally written
six years ago John Amend insisted on including a simulation option. When you
select "Perform an Experiment" you are given a choice of where the data is to
come from: "The Interface" or "From a Computer File". The simulation option
was used in a half life experiment since providing students with a wide range
of radioisotopes with different short half lives was not safe or feasible. I
don't know of any other case where it was actually used in the instructional
laboratory.
In the last two hundred years we have learned that some things can be taught
through books. This certainly includes names and facts about dinosaurs. One
can learn ablout science from books, and many of our fourth to sixth graders
are interested in being scientists. However our school system generally kills
their interest and enthusiasm before they get to high school.
I think this can be changed. I know it will take contact with fifth and sixth
grade teachers who are enthusiastic about doing science. I can't imagine the
requisite excitement coming from any kind of conputer simulation of science.
Fortunately computers and interfacing provide a way to make actual scientific
experiments affordable for schools. Probably we as college scientists will
have to develop the experiments for general science teachers to introduce to
thier classes, but the students and their teachers will need the capability to
modify the experiments if it is to be at all like real science today and
tomorrow.
Like most of the participants in this conference, I believe that electronic
access to imformation will be a major part of scientific work in the future.
The major conclusion I have reached from the discussion is that we must now be
introducing our students to this, enev if it doesn't yet work as well as it
should. I am adding computer processed photographs to the p-chem lab manual
even if we don't have the quality of high definition video affordable yet. I
also like using KCDISCOVER in class because it is an affordable example of a
database in spite of its shortcomings. In this sense I am strongly in favor of
"simulation".
sincerely,
Reed Howald
Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 15:21:47 +0000
From: Ray Johnson
Subject: Re: General Chem baby P. Chem
Earlier in this conference a great deal of discussion centered around the
physical chemistry content of general chemistry. My daughter will be
attending the University of Edinburgh, Scotland this fall (divinity, not
chemistry) but I looked over the description of the chemistry courses in their
catalog and thought that conference participants who are considering a change
in General Chem. might be interested in their chemistry course sequence.
Their first three years were described approx. as follows:
Chemistry 1 (first year)
8 lectures of basic chemistry (atomic and molecular structure)
20 lectures in Inorganic (ionic compounds, lattice energies, intro to elements,
groups)
24 lectures in Physical (gases, internal molecular motion, elementry
spectroscopy, equlibria, and kinetics)
24 lectures in Organic (compounds, reaction types, functional groups)
Chemistry 2 (second year)
Organic (aromatics, stereochemistry, reaction mechanisms)
Physical (thermodynamics, solution chemistry, electrochemistry)
Inorganic (main group elements and transition metals)
Chemistry 3 (third year)
50 lectures in advanced inorganic, organic, and physical, and 20 lectures in
analytical
Inorganic (structure determination, transition and main group compounds)
Organic (structure, mechanisms, synthesis, and bio-organic)
Physical (spectroscopy, kinetics, structure, bonding, stat. thermo, phases,
and interfaces)
Analytical (techniques of analysis, chemical composition)
Fourth year seemed to include Chemical Physics (quantum mechanics,
mathematical methods, etc.)
I don't know if this approach is common in the UK or just at Edinburgh but I
was quite interested in the fact that they offer several areas of chemistry
each year instead of a single area for a whole year. I am sure that having
the inorganic and organic in the first year would be more interesting to the
student than having baby P. Chem. for a whole year. It also allows the
integration of the sub-disciplines of chemistry over the three years rather
than offering a different area each year with very few connections between the
areas.
If anyone from the UK would care to answer, I would be interested in knowing
the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, how it is taught (team
taught, etc.?), what kinds of textbooks are used, and how you would compare
it to the U.S. system.
Ray L. Johnson
Hillsdale College
Hillsdale, MI 49242
ray.johnson@ac.hillsdale.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 16:29:15 -0500
Reply-To: "theodore p. labuza"
From: "theodore p. labuza"
Subject: evaluation
I hope that you have some way to make sure we don't get bombarded with everyones
evaluation form. I received someone's already.
Dr Ted Labuza tplabuza@EPX.CIS.UMN.EDU or tplabuza@staff.tc.umn.edu
Department of Food Science & Nutrition
136 AMLMS U of Minnesota
St Paul, MN 55108
Home Fax 612-633-0627
Voice 612-624-9701 UM Fax 612-625-5272
"SURFING THE WAVES OF CYBERSPACE"
___
||
| \|
|__|
|
---|----
/ \
|___/__/\_____/
\ /\ /\ /\/\/\/\ /
\ /\ / \/ \ /\/ \ /
\/ \/ \/ \/
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once". Except in
my office which exists in a time warp!!!
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 21:44:31 +22306404
From: "Dr. John A. Pojman"
Subject: Simulations
On a more epistemological note:
If a simulation is designed to train a student to run a real experiment,
which they do eventually do, they the simulation plays the same role
as flight simulators for training pilots.
If, however, a simulation replaces the experiment, then we are abandoning
our fundamental nature of chemistry -- it is an experimental exploration of
the natural world.
Visiting a planetarium can not replace looking at the night sky.
An interesting suggestion I once heard regarding the (stunted) development
of greek astronomy went as follows: The Greeks developed sophisticated
mechanical devices for predicting the position of planets (e.g., the
Antikythera mechanism) based on the geocentric model of the universe. Perhaps
they became so enamored with their models that they neglected to continue
the real exploration of the natural world and never went beyond
geocentrism.
In fact, you can't do a real experiment with a computer model (unless it
is so complex or inherently chaotic). The answer is already built in.
You can learn about the model that is being simulated, but not about
the real world.
Anyway, my concern is out of concern for cost, we neglect our real mission.
This is not to say simulations can not play a role, but they should
not replace experimentation.
--
John A. Pojman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
The University of Southern Mississippi
Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5043
(601) 266-5035
FAX: (601) 266-5829
INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu
or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 10:11:46 +0000
From: Mark_Winter
Subject: Re: General Chem baby P. Chem
>I don't know if this approach is common in the UK or just at Edinburgh but I
>was quite interested in the fact that they offer several areas of chemistry
>each year instead of a single area for a whole year. I am sure that having
>the inorganic and organic in the first year would be more interesting to the
>student than having baby P. Chem. for a whole year. It also allows the
>integration of the sub-disciplines of chemistry over the three years rather
>than offering a different area each year with very few connections between the
>areas.
This type of course structure is the norm in the UK. I don't know what
'baby P. chem' is, but I suspect that if we announced to the student body
that as of next year courses will only cover one branch of chenistry per
year, they'd all leave pretty sharpish.
>
>If anyone from the UK would care to answer, I would be interested in knowing
>the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, how it is taught (team
>taught, etc.?), what kinds of textbooks are used, and how you would compare
>it to the U.S. system.
There are any number of models. Typically a number of lecturers would be
involved with each main branch. As for textbooks, speaking as an inorganic
chemist, it's not easy to find good books. We currently dip in to a number
of books, including those by Shriver, Atkins, and Langford; Butler and
Harrod; Huheey; Cotton and Wilkinson; Decock and Gray, etc.
Dr Mark J Winter: Dept of Chemistry, The University, Sheffield S3 7HF, England
tel: +44 (0)742 824498 fax: +44 (0)742 738673 e-m: M.Winter@sheffield.ac.uk
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 11:02:20 RSA
From: Leslie Glasser <009LGZS@WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA>
Subject: Re: General Chem baby P. Chem
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon,
16 Aug 1993 15:21:47 +0000 from
I am responding to Ray Johnson's query re the teaching program at UK univeritie
s. I feel able to reply as we teach according to the UK program, and I have bo
th UK and US experience although I live and teach in South Africa.
Both in high school and in tertiary education, it is usual to provide a mix of
courseware in each year. At university that means a team teaching approach wit
h a planned curriculum (altho' each member of the team may well pull in his/her
own direction - it is not always a simple program!). Our texts here are usual
ly from the US, tho' there are some UK texts. Our 1st year is very general, co
vering the whole spectrum of Chem (we use Gillespie), while the UK will start w
ith rather better-prepared students. From 2nd year, the Chemistry becomes more
specialised - in PChem we use Atkins. Labs are in (rough) parallel with the l
ectures, and each student takes each lab, so that the courses are complete year
-long programs, and are examined both at half-year and at year-end (we run from
Feb-Nov/Dec, being in the southern hemisphere. We are considering a more
modular 'topic' system.
I would say that the principal advantage is that students grow naturally in the
subject and can relate topics across the board (tho' not as successfully as
one would hope/expect). They are themselves maturing over the period and can't
be expected to treat their subjects maturely in their first year or so.
Our standard program is over 3 years (for a B. Sc. degree - B.S. to you), then
2-year M.Sc. and 2/4 year Ph. D. We have a large cadre of disadvantaged studen
ts, and provide them with a 2-year College of Science curriculum. If successfu
l they enter the 2nd year of the B. Sc., being able to graduate in 4 years.
This is unique to our situation in SA, and is not done in the UK.
I would be happy to provide more detail in particular areas, if requested.
Leslie
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Prof.) Leslie Glasser Dept. of Chemistry
E_MAIL: 009LGZS@WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA University of the Witwatersrand
Tel: (011)-716-2070 WITS 2050
FAX: (011)-339-7967 South Africa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 06:27:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: How to return evaluations
Please, mail your completed evaluation forms directly to me
(to2@umail.umd.edu), NOT to the list address (CHEMCONF). We
don't want to bombard everyone with all those long evaluation
forms. (It's OK to bombard me; I can handle it!).
And, incidently, thanks to all those who have already returned
their evaluations forms. These evaluations are important for
planning the next on-line conference.
Tom O'Haver
to2@umail.umd.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 09:49:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: Post Conference Discussion and Publication
MEMORANDUM
To: Participants in the Conference on
"Applications of Technology in Teaching Chemistry"
From: Donald Rosenthal
Box 5810
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699
315-265-9242
ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET
and
Thomas O'Haver
University of Maryland
TO2@UMAIL.UMD.EDU
Date: August 17, 1993
Re: Post Conference Discussion and Publication
On July 25 Ted Labuza stated:
>> Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1993 21:51:41 -0500
>> From: Ted Labuza
>> I hope the conference organizers
>> can take 10 or so ideas from these discussions and start a Listserv
>> to continue the discussion. I certainly have benefited from it
>> (the conference) . . . . Perhaps 2-3 weeks of
>> discussion on each (topic) with several of us volunteering to collate
>> the thoughts into pros, cons and others and write it up for some
>> publication such as J. Chem. Education. That might help to make it a
>> lasting and impactful piece. If we do that, I would ask that where
>> appropriate, references to other works be detailed, for use in
>> publication.
Writing a paper which represents the collective wisdom of many
conference participants is an interesting and challenging idea.
Tom O'Haver and I have discussed this (via electronic mail - of course),
and I have volunteered to explore the possibilities.
(Ted Labuza appears to have disappeared. Are you there Ted??)
I am suggesting the following:
I. CHOICE OF TOPICS
It seems to me that ten topics is too many. I suggest four.
Topics which generated considerable discussion during the meeting
include the following:
A. New Tools vs. Old Methods
B. The Use of Networks and Electronic Mail in Chemical Education
C. What Students Need to Know about Computers and Computing
D. The Use of Simulations
I can envision one article being written on each of the above
topics.
In order for a topic to be viable, we will need one (or more)
volunteer to agree to work as FACILITATOR and be responsible for
preparing an article for publication on the topic.
Any topic which does not have at least one facilitator will be
dropped.
Additional or substitute topics may be suggested.
II. SOME UNIQUE OPPORTUNITIES AND DIFFICULTIES
A. FACILITATORS must attempt to provide a balanced synthesis of the
discussion rather than presenting just one point of view. Some
participants may feel their point of view has not been adequately
presented - they may disagree with some of the statements in the
article or they may believe that certain ideas have been omitted.
However, the facilitators will have the responsibility of making final
decisions - trying to be fair and even-handed but realizing that not
everyone is likely to be satisfied.
B. I'm not certain that all contributors can be listed as co-authors of
the papers and I'm not sure it would be appropriate or convenient to
quote every contributor. One possibility for handling authorship
would be to identify the volunteer as follows:
Richard Jones (facilitator) and participants in the On-Line Computer
Conference on "Applications of Technology in Teaching Chemistry"*
The individual contributors to the discussion could be footnoted if
not too many names are involved and if the journal is willing.
C. Some of the topics may be closely identified with one or more Conference
papers. The authors may wish to use the fruits of the discussion in
preparing a revised version of their paper for publication or they
may wish to "author" the article resulting from the discussion. I
believe we should provide the author with an opportunity to pursue
either course. If an author wishes to use the discussion for his
own purposes or to serve as facilitator, (s)he needs to notify us
THIS WEEK.
D. We will need to get permission from authors and participants,
particularly if they are to be quoted. Permission statements have
been included in the revised evaluation form.
III. STRATEGY AND PROPOSED SCHEDULE
CHEMCONF will serve as the LISTSERV. Those wishing to participate
should remain signed on.
A. Week of August 16
The topics to be used must be chosen and participants must volunteer
to serve as "authors" or FACILITATORS.
It is important that volunteers perform their duties expeditiously.
- They must make a definite commitment. A draft of the paper must be
available by January 3, 1994 (?).
If there is more than one volunteer, one volunteer will be selected
as primary FACILITATOR.
Discussion of proposed format and schedule. Any changes will be
announced on or before August 30.
B. Week of August 30
Additional discussion of the first topic (Possibly I-A)
It would be a good idea if relevant discussion from the Conference
and papers could be distributed at the beginning of discussion of
the topic. I'm not certain how feasible this is.
C. Discussion of other topics will proceed on a weekly basis.
D. On Monday, January 3, 1994 drafts of the papers (one paper per topic)
will be distributed. There should be an indication that the paper
originated as a result of papers presented at the Conference and
discussion during and subsequent to the Conference.
E. Week of January 10
Discussion of the paper devoted to the first topic.
F. In subsequent weeks there will be discussion of the other papers.
G. The papers will be submitted for publication by March 1.
IV. QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION DURING THE WEEK OF AUGUST 16
A. CHOICE OF TOPICS AND NUMBER OF TOPICS (ONE, FOUR OR MORE?)
B. VOLUNTEER AUTHOR - FACILITATORS
C. COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION OF THE FORMAT
D. COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION OF THE SCHEDULE
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 12:37:41 -0400
From: "CARL H. SNYDER,
CHEMISTRY; CSnyder@umiami.ir.miami.edu"
Subject: Re: Post Conference Discussion and Publication
Don Rosenthal and Tom O'Haver wrote:
>Writing a paper which represents the collective wisdom of many
>conference participants is an interesting and challenging idea.
>
>Tom O'Haver and I have discussed this (via electronic mail - of course),
>and I have volunteered to explore the possibilities.
One of the topics suggested was:
> B. The Use of Networks and Electronic Mail in Chemical Education
This would require someone to act as facilitator:
> In order for a topic to be viable, we will need one (or more)
>volunteer to agree to work as FACILITATOR and be responsible for
>preparing an article for publication on the topic.
>
> Any topic which does not have at least one facilitator will be
>dropped.
Topic B is close to my heart, and is the focus of Paper 11 (Snyder/Shelley)
I have mixed feelings about serving as facilitator for this topic. On the
one hand I feel strongly that the proceedings of this electronic symposium
must be published, very much along the lines described by Don and Tom, and
I would very much like to promote the use of electronic mail in courses.
On the other hand I have some very time-consuming commitments coming up
between now and early 1994. These weaken my resolve a bit.
Having written all this, I would like to volunteer, but question the wisdom
of adding another commitment to my schedule for the next few months. I
wonder, then, if anyone else shares my enthusiasm for this topic? I wonder
if anyone else would like to supervise the preparation of the paper, with
or without some contribution from me? Is anyone interested?
Carl H. Snyder Internet: CSNYDER@umiami.IR.Miami.EDU
Chemistry Department Bitnet: CSNYDER@umiami
University of Miami Phone: (305)-284-2174
Coral Gables, FL 33124 FAX: (305)-285-4571
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 12:11:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: Facilitator
I will be happy to serve as Facilitator for topic D. "The use of
Simulations". I have saved most, but not all of the comments on this
matter, but I assume that they are available on the Listserver.
Gary
***********************************************************
* GARY L. BERTRAND, DEPT OF CHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ROLLA *
* ROLLA, MO 65401. (314)-341-4441
*
* BITNET- GBERT@UMRVMB INTERNET- GBERT@UMRVMB.UMR.EDU *
* "I NEVER WANTED TO BE FAMOUS, I JUST WANTED TO BE GREAT." RAY CHARLES *
***********************************************************
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 15:41:40 -0400
From: "Mr. Science"
Subject: Re: Post Conference Discussion and Publication
I would be more than happy to actas a facilitator for any of the topics
suggested, though I am personally drawn to the topics of simulations and
necessary computer knowledge by students. However, I will gladly work on
any of the four topics.
Regards,
Anthony Rosati
georgetown university
Date this awe-inspiring message was sent: 17-AUG-1993 15:39:18
*-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-*
| Anthony V. Rosati | |
| Department of Chemistry, | "A nation that cannot think, |
| Georgetown University | cannot survive." |
| Washington, D.C. 20057-2222 | |
| ROSATI@GUSUN.GEORGETOWN.EDU | - Norman Mailer, 1992 |
| A_ROSATI@GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU | National Press Club |
# ======== # ======== # ======== # ======== # ======== # ======== #
| Information Exchange Coordinator and Member, Board of Directors |
| National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) |
| 1993 - 1994 |
*-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-*
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 16:03:23 -0400
From: Paul Edwards
Subject: Re: Post Conference Discussion and Publication
Carl:
If you'd like a co-facilitator, I'll volunteer. I don't have the
same level of experience as you; I'm still at the front edge of
the learning curve. Obviously that makes it silly for me to be a
sole facilitator -- but if you need a spare set of hands and a sounding
board ....
Paul Edwards
edwardsp@vax.edinboro.edu
Edinboro Univ. of PA
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 13:09:11 -0800
From: "Richard J. Stolzberg"
Subject: paper 14/ simulation
One unintended value of simulation that has not been
discussed is that it allows the professor to readily see how a
particular group of upper level undergraduates responds to the
suggestions that they _experiment_. That is, we can gauge the
ability of our students to do some sort of designed experiments to
solve a given problem. If they do well, we can construct exercises
that allow students to "learn some chemistry" via efficient
simulation. If they have little idea what to do (which happened
last September in our senior Instrumental Method lecture class!),
we are most likely able to bring them up to speed before the next
semester when they are in Instrumental Methods laboratory. From
my perspective, it is a great deal less expensive to discover this
fact prior to an advanced lab course than during the course.
Given the traditional nature of many chemistry courses, it
does not surprise me, in retrospect, that some students have no
idea that it is possible or desirable to study variables, perhaps even
more than one variable simultaneously. One of our goals should be
to introduce students to this notion as early in their education as
possible. My choice is sophomore analytical chemistry, if not in
general chemistry.
--------------------------------------
Richard J. Stolzberg
Chemistry
University of Alaska
Fairbanks, AK
FFRJS@ALASKA.BITNET
---------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 16:10:15 MDT
From: Reed Howald
Subject: discussion - testing
I am dissapointed that there is not more substantive discussion going on this
week in the conference.
There does seem to be interest in publishing material from the conference and
the discussion.
One item discussed but not on the Rosenthal-O'Haver list of topics is the
sharing of examination questions to get quantitative information on outcomes of
teahcing strategies. I am interested enough in this area to serve as
"facilitator" if there is enough interest to establish some standards and start
doing this. I am sure that we can document that some of the available drill
and practice programs can improve student performance on certain classes of
examination questions. We can certainly document differences between textbooks
in use. I think it is important that we chemists collect some data with more
validity than student evaluations for deans to look at.
If you are interested we need a way to use electronic communication to pass
information between sites. It has been suggested that we use binary
attatchments to e-mail. Do people know how do that sucessfully? I am not sure
that it is a good idea to have exam question files available on anonymous FTP.
It would certainly encourage students to become proficient in this use of the
network if they knew their professors were getting exam questions this way.
If we do use binary attatchments, what word processor should we pick? I have
not moved to a windows operating system. Is word perfect 5.0 or 5.1 available
at most sites? Can we agree on an ASCII code for superscripts and subscripts?
What would most teachers find useful in a documented file of machine gradable
exam questions?
Sincerely,
Reed Howald
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 20:03:53 -0500
From: Ken Loach
Organization: SUNY at Plattsburgh, New York, USA
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
Date sent: 17-AUG-1993 19:58:56
>...............................................................I am not sure
>that it is a good idea to have exam question files available on anonymous FTP.
>It would certainly encourage students to become proficient in this use of the
>network if they knew their professors were getting exam questions this way.
>
>Reed Howald
Why not encrypt such files? The decryption keys could be distributed by
ordinary mail. Encryption/decryption utilities are fairly widely available
now.
Ken W. Loach, Chemistry Department, Hudson 319c (518) 564-2116 or -4116
S.U.N.Y College, Plattsburgh, NY 12901, USA. splava::loachkw (local DECnet)
LOACHKW@SNYPLAVA.BITNET loachkw@splava.cc.plattsburgh.edu (Internet)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 22:07:26 -0400
From: Judith Faye Rubinson
Subject: Re: Post Conference Discussion and Publication
Like an earlier participant "I am still early in the learning curve" when it
comes to the topics, but the simulation and necessary computer background
topics are both of interest. I would be willing to work with someone with more
expertise as a co-author or simply as an interested correspondent--Faye
Rubinson, Department of Chemistry, College of Mount St. Joseph, 5701 Delhi Rd.,
Cincinnati, OH 45233-1670. RUBINSON@UCBEH.SAN.UC.EDU
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 06:39:41 -0400
From: "CARL H. SNYDER,
CHEMISTRY; CSnyder@umiami.ir.miami.edu"
Subject: Re: Post Conference Discussion and Publication
>Paul Edwards
>edwardsp@vax.edinboro.edu
>Edinboro Univ. of PA
writes:
>Carl:
>
>If you'd like a co-facilitator, I'll volunteer. I don't have the
>same level of experience as you; I'm still at the front edge of
>the learning curve. Obviously that makes it silly for me to be a
>sole facilitator -- but if you need a spare set of hands and a sounding
>board ....
Sounds good! OK, Paul, let's join up for the facilitation of the
networking and electronic mail topic. With two (or more?) working on this
it should fit more easily into the fall semester schedules. I'm
deliberately replying to the list rather than directly to Paul so as to
reach anyone else who may be interested.
Carl H. Snyder Internet: CSNYDER@umiami.IR.Miami.EDU
Chemistry Department Bitnet: CSNYDER@umiami
University of Miami Phone: (305)-284-2174
Coral Gables, FL 33124 FAX: (305)-285-4571
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 14:57:12 GMT+2
From: Dr Zeno Apostolides
Organization: University of Pretoria
Subject: simulation - post conference discussion
Hallo,
I have followed the discussions on simulations and noticed a
valuable that has been missed. Gagne has a appropriate definition for
learning.. "learning has occurred when the candidate has developed a
strategy for himself with which he analyses all similar problems".
This "strategy developing" value of simulations has, I believe, has
been missed. I have several years experience with using simulations
in biochemistry. My students and I find this aspect of simulations
useful, because it forces the students to think at the higher
cognitive levels of synthesis and evaluation. The benefit of this is
reflected in the exam answers from students who have used the
simulation versus the control group, who have not.
Regards Zeno
I have a reference that may be useful,
Gage R M (1982). Developments in learning psychology. Educational
Technology June 11-15.
Dr Z Apostolides TEL (27)-(012)-420-2486
Department Of Biochemistry FAX (27)-(012)-43-2185 or 342-1449
University of Pretoria e-mail InterNet:bio0@navi.up.ac.za
Pretoria 0002
South Africa
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 11:01:04 -0400
From: Mary Swift
Subject: Facilitator Volunteer
Another one at the beginning of the learning curve, I would like to
volunteer for the "what students need to know about computers and
computing" group.
Mary L. Swift
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
College of Medicine
Howard University
Washington DC 20050-0001
e-mail mswift@umd5.umd.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 11:10:19 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
>I am dissapointed that there is not more substantive discussion going on this
>week in the conference.
>
>There does seem to be interest in publishing material from the conference and
>the discussion.
>
>One item discussed but not on the Rosenthal-O'Haver list of topics is the
>sharing of examination questions to get quantitative information on outcomes of
>teahcing strategies. I am interested enough in this area to serve as
>"facilitator" if there is enough interest to establish some standards and start
>doing this. I am sure that we can document that some of the available drill
>and practice programs can improve student performance on certain classes of
>examination questions. We can certainly document differences between textbooks
>in use. I think it is important that we chemists collect some data with more
>validity than student evaluations for deans to look at.
>
>If you are interested we need a way to use electronic communication to pass
>information between sites. It has been suggested that we use binary
>attatchments to e-mail. Do people know how do that sucessfully? I am not sure
>that it is a good idea to have exam question files available on anonymous FTP.
>It would certainly encourage students to become proficient in this use of the
>network if they knew their professors were getting exam questions this way.
>
>If we do use binary attatchments, what word processor should we pick?
Word is the most popular for the Mac and Word Perfect for the PC. They can
usually read each other's formats and the Macs can read and write from the
DOS and WINDOWS formats.
I have
>not moved to a windows operating system.
Nupop is a DOS program and it handles its attachments and does bin/hex
encoding the same way the mac does so Nupop and Eudora -- both freebies --
can exchange documents between Macs and PCs. Just this morning I came
across a problem of someone sending an attached document using Microsoft
Mail from a Pc to a colleague with a Mac. It didn't work. Havn't explored
the reason why yet but my guess is that Microsoft mail used a proprietary
encoding. If you WP for DOS can import a WP for windows file, I presume
your superscripts and subscripts will be handled as they are in you DOS
environment.
Since Chemistry is full of formulae and structures and thus visual clues
are so important to what we do it is imperative if computers are to be of
maximum benefit for both teaching and research that we adopt GUI
standardsand get away from text only software and old comand line
interfaces. A picture (diagram, formula) is worth a thousand words and
perhaps a simulation/animation/little movie worth several thousand.
Is word perfect 5.0 or 5.1 available
>at most sites?
It is our PC standard. Most Mac users prefer MS Word. I do -- I find it
much more flexible than WP.
Can we agree on an ASCII code for superscripts and subscripts?
Is it worth bothering to try -- by the time we have an acceptable ASCII
standard almost everyone will be in a GUI mode, whether windows, mac,
X-windows or Motif.
>What would most teachers find useful in a documented file of machine gradable
>exam questions?
>
>Sincerely,
>Reed Howald
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 11:35:11 -0400
From: "Frank W. Darrow"
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
I am interested.
WordPerfect is the standard at Ithaca College.
----------
Frank W. Darrow, Chemistry Dept., Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY 14850
Darrow@Ithaca.BitNet (607) 274-3991
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 11:59:42 -0400
From: George Long
Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Subject: Re: Facilitator Volunteer
I would like to volunteer as a (co)facilitator for New tools
vs Old methods, I, like others, am at the front end of the
learning curve, so any help will be greatly appreciated. Is
anyone else interested in this topic?
George Long
Dept of Chem
Indiana Univ of PA
Indiana, PA 15705
GRLONG@grove.iup.edu
(412)357-2575
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 13:07:14 -0400
From: HARRY PENCE
Subject: POST CONFERENCE DISCUSSION AND PUBLICATION
Like Carl, one of the topics is near to my heart but my schedule for
the fall looks rather heavy. I'll volunteer to be the facilitator for
A. New Tools vs. Old Methods
and offer a fervent prayer that there's someone else who shares my enthusiasm
and will volunteer to be a co-facilitator.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| Harry E. Pence BITNET: PENCEHE@SNYONEVA |
| Professor of Chemistry PHONE: 607-436-3179 |
| SUNY Oneonta FAX: 607-436-2107 |
| Oneonta, NY 13820 |
____________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 13:30:00 EDT
From: "Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694"
Subject: discussion - testing
I would certainly be interested in a further discussion of the topics
suggested by Reed Howald including exam questions, drill and practice
programs,and current textbooks.
The problem of how to exchange files is a difficult one and I'm not sure I'm
even aware of all of the problems that are involved. Suppose I create a
file in WinWord2 on my PC, upload it to my local mainframe and send that
file electronically to another site. The recepient then downloads my file
to her PC. If she also has WinWord2 can she then read the file? If so,
why do I need NUPop? If not, why not?
Relatively few people in our department use WordPerfect and most of them are
administrators. Among the faculty, Microsoft Word, in either its Mac or
Windows version (I use both), is the most common. The heaviest Mac usage is
among the younger faculty. We find that it is not easy to share files even
between Word for the Mac and WinWord if they have symbols, arrows, or
anything else that isn't straight text and I am therefore somewhat skeptical
of claims to the contrary.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 14:11:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Some examples of simulations
Quite a few participants in this conference have expressed an interest
in computer simulations. I have placed on info.umd.edu, in the path
ChemConference/Software/Spreadsheets, several examples of simple
interactive worksheets that I have written for my analytical chemistry
courses, most of which feature some aspect of simulation. These are
presented as examples of the sort of "home made" simulations that can
be developed by instructors using modern object-oriented programming
systems. (I wrote these myself and I am most certainly not a
professional programmer). Most of these things were written in
Informix's Wingz, a little-known but excellent object-oriented
spreadsheet which is available for Windows and for the Macintosh.
One could do much the same using Borland's Quattro for Windows.
The files ending in ".wkz" are binary files that can be read by either
the PC or Mac version of Wingz. Those ending in (MathCAD) are MathCAD
binaries (Macintosh version). The files ending in ".instructions"
are text versions of the instructions given to students. a brief
description of the main worksheets is attached to this message
Tom O'Haver
U. of Maryland
----------------------------
Simulation Worksheets (Wingz Spreadsheets)
Animated grating; Animated Czerny-Turner
Two "animated figure" models that help students understand diffraction
gratings in stationary and Czerny-Turner mountings. Students vary
wavelength, angle of incident light, ruling density and observe
diffracted beams in orders 0, 1 and 2.
Atomic Absorption
The spectroscopy of a line-source atomic absorption measurement with
continuum-source background correction in a steady-state (i.e. flame)
atomizer. The purpose of the simulation is to make it clearer how the
various spectroscopic aspects relate to each other and to the measured
absorbance. Students observe relation of hollow cathode lamp emission
profile atomic absorption profile, observe effect of changing line
widths, correction of background absorption by continuum-source (D2)
method, overcorrection caused by structured background absorption, the
effect of non-absorbing lines, line-overlap interferences, and
hyperfine structure.
Beer's Law Deviations
Numerical integration of light absorption. Students observe graphically
how the spectral distribution of the light source and the absorbers
influence the transmitted light profile and the calculated absorbance,
discover under what conditions Beers law is obeyed, observe and
measure the Beers law deviation caused by polychromatic radiation and
unabsorbed stray light.
Ca Electrode
Simulation of the standard addition method for calcium determination by
ion-selective electrode. The simulation demonstrates the ability of
the standard addition method to correct for an unknown reference
potential and ionic strength (and thus activity coefficient). It
includes two sources of error: the effect of the addition of standard
on the ionic strength and activity of calcium, and effect of voltage
reading error.
Capillary
Shows how a difference between the distribution coefficient of two
components can lead to separation in capillary gas chromatography.
Students select column length, column internal diameter, thickness of
stationary phase, diffusion coefficient in mobile phase, viscosity of
carrier gas, flow rate, ambient temperature, column temperature;
observe resulting effect on phase ratio, capacity factor, selectivity,
linear velocity of carrier, retention time of unretained peak,
retention time of component, plate height, efficiency (plate count),
peak base width, and resolution. Displays plot of simulated
chromatogram showing two component peaks and an unretained peak.
ChromModel (Discrete contact equilibrium model of chromatography)
Shows how chromatography can be modeled as a large number of discrete
equilibrium steps, each one a simple partitioning between mobile and
stationary stages, similar to a series of solvent extraction
operations. Graphically shows how Gaussian bands evolve.
Error propagation in analytical calibration methods
(Single External Strandard, Single Addition, Bracket, Standard
Addition, etc.)
A set of spreadsheets that perform a Monte-Carlo simulation (e.g.
random-number driven) of the precision of analysis based on widely used
calibration methods including single standard, bracket, and standard
addition methods. Simulation includes additive and multiplicative
interference and random errors in signal and volumetric measurements.
Versions with linear and non-linear analytical curves. Students
observe how errors combine, attempt to optimize precision and accuracy
of the measurement.
Fluorescence
Simulation of room temperature prompt fluorescence spcetrum of two
non-interacting fluorophors in aqueous solution with right angle
geometry in a standard cuvette, measured with a corrected dispersive
spectrofluorometer. Students measure the wavelengths of maximum
excitation and emission, Stokes shift, detection limits, observe
Raleigh and Raman scatter, dark current, noise, background
fluorescence, non-linearity caused by self-absorption, determine
frequency of the vibration causing the Raman peak, compare absorption
to fluorescence measurement, optimize measurement of two-component
mixture by selective excitation and synchronous fluorescence method.
Line on Background
Simulation of a "classical" signal-to-noise optimization problem. Bar
graph shows how the contribution of the three primary noise sources
(flicker, photon, and detector) changes as the spectrometer slit width
is changed. Students attempt to find the slit with that gives best
signal-to-noise ratio.
Line Wing Overlap
This worksheet demonstrates how the Lorentzian line wings caused by
collisional broadening of an intense matrix line can cause a
background spectral interference even if the analyte line is many
line-widths away from the interfering matrix line. This particular
worksheet is set up for the example of the analysis of Mg at 285.21
nm in the presence of variable amounts of Na, which has a line at
285.28 nm.
Photomultiplier
Measurement of light intensity by a photomultiplier tube. Effect of
load resistance, integration time, wavelength, light flux, applied
voltage, and phototube temperature on signal and signal-to-noise ratio
of light intensity measurement with photomultiplier tubes. Students
compare difference types of phototubes, measure spectral
characteristic, observe effects of amplifier overload, display
resolution limits, phototube overload, determine lowest flux that can
be measured, attempt to improve the SNR by cooling the phototube.
Versions for DC and AC (chopped) operation.
Temperature of Blackbody
Shows how spectrum of a blackbody depends on the temperature and
emissivity. Students measure temperature and emissivity of experimental
data set by adjusting model to best fit the data.
Triprotic Titration (Titration data analysis)
After performing a pH titration of a weak polyprotic acid, students
type their pH/titrant volume data into a spreadsheet that contains an
exact algebraic model of the titration curve. For a triprotic acid,
that is a quintic equation -- too complex to evaluate by hand but easy
for a spreadsheet to handle. By adjusting the parameters of the model
and observing graphically the fit between the experimental data
(circles) and the calculated model (line) they can estimate the unknown
parameters, such as the pKs of the acid. A dynamic model like this
allows interactive investigation of such questions as: "What is the
weakest acid that gives a discernible inflection at the endpoint?", or
"Can titration be used at trace concentration levels by using a very
dilute titrant?", or "Is the inflection point always exactly at the
equivalence point?"
----------------------------------
Development utilities
Control demo
This sheet shows several working examples of WingZ control objects and
the scripts that were used to create them. Incudes vertical and
horizontal sliders, number wheel, a popup menu, radio buttons, check
boxes, scrolling list, standard pull-down menus, color, line, and
patters pickers. (Buttons and fields are not included because they can
be created directly using the tool palette). Has complete built-in
instructions.
Control maker
An attempt to automate the creation of custom control objects. Has
built-in instructions.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 14:35:26 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
>I would certainly be interested in a further discussion of the topics
>suggested by Reed Howald including exam questions, drill and practice
>programs,and current textbooks.
>
>The problem of how to exchange files is a difficult one and I'm not sure I'm
>even aware of all of the problems that are involved. Suppose I create a
>file in WinWord2 on my PC, upload it to my local mainframe
You have to know how to upload to the mainframe server - a step eliminated
if using a user friendlyfron end on the Mac or PC
and send that
>file electronically to another site.
You have to know how to log into the central server and how to send UNIX
mail or how to FTP files.
The question is -- how to you send it electronically to another site. If
you FTP it may or may not be a problem if you use the right ftp protocols.
If you e-mail it it will be sent as an ASCII text file which will loose all
the formatting information including sub and superscripts. If it is long it
will be broken into multiple parts. If you don't have software to
automatically reassemble it you will almost certainly, if you do it by
hand, have some errors.
The recepient then downloads my file
>to her PC. If she also has WinWord2 can she then read the file? If so,
>why do I need NUPop? If not, why not?
see above and refer to all th;e discussion early in this conference of the
difficulty in getting readable files with graphics etc. Fetch was made
available for the non ftp literate mac users to make access to the files
simple -- it worries about whether it is binary or text which you otherwise
have to specify if FTPing. Eudora and Nupop make for relatively seemless
exchange of Mac and PC word processor and other graphics files which is
what we are talking about for students submitting assignments etc. No one
is, I hope, still using a word processor on a central server.
>
>Relatively few people in our department use WordPerfect and most of them are
>administrators. Among the faculty, Microsoft Word, in either its Mac or
>Windows version (I use both), is the most common. The heaviest Mac usage is
>among the younger faculty. We find that it is not easy to share files even
>between Word for the Mac and WinWord if they have symbols, arrows, or
>anything else that isn't straight text and I am therefore somewhat skeptical
>of claims to the contrary.
The easiest way is if the Mac users save as a DOS or Windows file and send
it to the PC friends. With Access PC or even with Apple File Exchange the
stuff moves reasonably well -- its not perfect but is almost alwarys
readable. We've never had trouble with super or sub scripts. If one has
included diagrams the text size isoften wrong and in the wrong font but
still readable. Our department is about 60% mac/40% PC with the secretary
using a Mac LCIII and she gets files inboth word and Word perfect from the
PC users and I do it all the time -- usually get asked to translate the
harder bits from one format to another if people have problems, but it is
certainly an order of magnitude better than sending straight ASCII e-mail.
It helps if both environments are using the same type since often special
symbols differ between for example Times and Helvetica. It also helps if
both are using Postscript laser printers. Microsoft has a Rich Text Format
(RTF) that you can save in for easier exchange -- if all else fails try
that though I've not needed to for some years. Some people move their stuff
to UNIX boxes via Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) or straight postscript
files. This worked to print some complex chemical drawings done on a PC
which wasn't hooked to a laser printer - the EPS files were moved to a Mac
and printed from there, though the EPS itself wasn't readable.
All I can say is that we do it routinely -- not perfectly but better than
either retyping or FAXING or running across campus with a printout.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 11:57:03 PST
From: "Edward H. Piepmeier"
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
Reed Howald asks:
>If we do use binary attachments, what word processor should we pick? I have
>not moved to a windows operating system. Is word perfect 5.0 or 5.1 available
>at most sites? Can we agree on an ASCII code for superscripts and subscripts?
>What would most teachers find useful in a documented file of machine gradable
>exam questions?
Word or WordPerfect can read each others files so either should do. I have also
read DOS WordPerfect files into MAC WordPerfect via DOS floppy disks (but not
yet after they have been transported across a network).
However, my network node or gateway does not use binary conversion routines and
I still need to use uuencode/uudecode for such files, which seem to be limited
to about 20Kbytes (probably enough).
I suggest using the underline _ for subscripts and ^ for superscripts as
is done in the WordPerfect equation editor. These characters seem to have
no other use in email document (ASCII) equations - although I have seen the
underline used for emphasis, but that use should not conflict with its use in
equations.
Ed Piepmeier
Oregon State University
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 15:05:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: Facilitator Volunteer
In-Reply-To: <9308181631.AA07101@umd5.umd.edu>
Don Rosenthal's call for volunteer facilitators, and the quick
response from CHEMCONF participants, is a wonderful example of
cooperative work being facilitated by network technology. It's
also likely that all ar most of the work involved in this task
can be carried out via network communication. It is my feeling
that the quality of the communication that has gone on in this
conference, especially in the discussions, is too good to limit
to only ourselves and to other of the "connected elete".
SO far we have the following topics and volunteer facilitators:
A. New tools vs Old methods
Facilitators: George Long and Harry Pence
B. The Use of Networks and Electronic Mail in Chemical Education
Facilitators: Carl H. Snyder and Paul Edwards
C. What students need to know about computers and computing
Facilitators: Mary L. Swift and Judith Faye Rubinson
D. The use of Simulations
Facilitators: Gary Bertrand and Anthony Rosati
Do we any other volunteers or suggestions for topics?
Sometime late this week I will download all the discussion
logs from LISTSERV, edit them lightly to eliminate the "stray
dog" messages and pacing messages, and post them on info.umd.edu
in convenient chunks - perhaps by week. This may make it easier
for the facilitator teams to extract what they need.
So far there have been over 500 discussion messages, amounting
to just over 1.5 Mbytes (about 500 pages) of discussion. Folks, we
have written a fair-sized book! I consider it high-grade gold ore;
in need of a bit of refining but full of valuable substance.
Tom O'Haver
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 15:39:54 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Facilitator Volunteer
Congratulations to Tom and Don
It is my feeling
>that the quality of the communication that has gone on in this
>conference, especially in the discussions, is too good to limit
>to only ourselves and to other of the "connected elete".
>
>Do we any other volunteers or suggestions for topics?
>
>Sometime late this week I will download all the discussion
>logs from LISTSERV, edit them lightly to eliminate the "stray
>dog" messages and pacing messages, and post them on info.umd.edu
>in convenient chunks - perhaps by week. This may make it easier
>for the facilitator teams to extract what they need.
>
>So far there have been over 500 discussion messages, amounting
>to just over 1.5 Mbytes (about 500 pages) of discussion. Folks, we
>have written a fair-sized book! I consider it high-grade gold ore;
>in need of a bit of refining but full of valuable substance.
When have any of you been to a conference with that volume of discussion
for 15! papers
Just the questions asked have been greater than one would typically hear in
a week long conference attending 20 papers a day for 5 days.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 15:48:32 -0400
From: JOHN WOOLCOCK
Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Subject: Re: Facilitator Volunteer
George Long has asked me to share the facilitators duties with him here at IUP
for the New Tools vs. Old Methods discussions and I have agreed, as long as
Harry Pence doesn't mind.
John C. Woolcock
Chemistry Department
Indiana University of PA
Indiana, PA 15705
Internet: WOOLCOCK@grove.iup.edu
Bitnet: WOOLCOCK@IUP
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 15:52:11 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
>Reed Howald asks:
>>If we do use binary attachments, what word processor should we pick? I have
>>not moved to a windows operating system. Is word perfect 5.0 or 5.1 available
>>at most sites? Can we agree on an ASCII code for superscripts and subscripts?
>>What would most teachers find useful in a documented file of machine gradable
>>exam questions?
>
>Word or WordPerfect can read each others files so either should do. I have
>also
>read DOS WordPerfect files into MAC WordPerfect via DOS floppy disks (but not
>yet after they have been transported across a network).
>
>However, my network node or gateway does not use binary conversion routines and
>I still need to use uuencode/uudecode for such files, which seem to be limited
>to about 20Kbytes (probably enough).
>
Your node or gateway may not but if you tried Eudora from a Mac or NuPop on
a PC and let it do the bin/hex (rather than uuen, (which is the UNIX
standard), - the advantage of these programs is that they use the same
codeing for both Macs and PCs) encoding/decoding for you I suspect it might
work. Since they are Freeware it should be easy enough for you to try.
The trick is to find software that does whatever coding is needed invisibly
on your PC or Mac and that the party at the other end has the same or
compatible software. NuPop and Eudora meet this standard.
>I suggest using the underline _ for subscripts and ^ for superscripts as
>is done in the WordPerfect equation editor. These characters seem to have
>no other use in email document (ASCII) equations - although I have seen the
>underline used for emphasis, but that use should not conflict with its use in
>equations.
>
>Ed Piepmeier
>Oregon State University
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 10:12:19 EDT
From: "R. T. Wilson"
Subject: General Discussion
There seems to be a dazed silence in response to the call for general
discussion. Perhaps everyone is dazzled, as I am, by the incredible richness
and variety of the many different ideas presented during this conference. Let
me first extend my thanks to the conference organizers, Don Rosenthal and Tom
O'Haver, for the hard work they did to make it possible. I am sure "Chemconf"
is a landmark which will not be forgotten.
My only disappointment is hearing that I have nothing to look forward
to until 1994, when Chemconf will apparently rise Phoenix-like from its own
ashes to spring to life once more. My first question is: Why shut it down?
Why not use Chemconf for _ALL_ ACS meetings and conferences? Are the
logistics unmanageable? I can see the advantages of conducting meetings in
two parallal formats: electronic and regular. The electronic format makes the
meeting instantly accessible to anyone anywhere in the world who has network
access. Those who are able to attend could go; those who are not there can
still read papers, ask questions and even communicate with the authors
personally. This is mind-boggling to me. It is like having consciousness
suddenly expanded electronically by orders of magnitude.
Tom, I enjoyed reading the background material you pointed out at
info.umd.edu in your response of July 21 to one of my earlier questions. I
didn't know it was there until then. Is it there all the time? I would
suggest you include reference to it in instructions to future conference
participants. You might even continue to expand it gradually and wind up with
a pretty good textbook of basic computer technology.
I will end with an embarrassingly simple and completely trivial
question. I know nothing about e-mail systems other than my own, which is
Banyan Vines. Some people have quoted so extensively from other peoples
communications, I wonder how you are doing it? Does your mail system permit
that? As far as I know, the only way I have to do that is to transfer the
material to a
disc file, massage it with word-processing software, then transfer it back to
mail. Is there another way?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 20:56:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: General Discussion
In-Reply-To: <9308190002.AA13009@umd5.umd.edu>
R. T. Wilson (FCHWILSON%Faculty%VMI@IST.VMI.EDU) says:
> My first question is: Why shut it down?
Well I have no intention if shutting it down. Anyone can "sign off"
if they wish, of course, at any time. But the listserv and the FTP
site will be "kept running" for a while, at least, to allow
any remaining discussion and to accomodate those who find out about
the conference only after the fact and wish to read what we have done
here.
> Why not use Chemconf for _ALL_ ACS meetings and conferences?
> .... This is mind-boggling to me. It is like having consciousness
> suddenly expanded electronically by orders of magnitude.
Ha! That would be great, No? Maybe some day it will be. But I am
afraid that this is too radical an idea. The routine use of e-mail
and other network services is still the exception, rather than the
rule, among most of the chemistry community - especially in the
corridors of power. You folks are at the bleeding edge, in at least
this respect. So spread the word about the CHEMCONF concept; talk to
your local ACS local section people and representatives. Share what
you have learned here; help your friends learn to use their mail systems
efficiently. Don't let it stop here.
Tom O'Haver
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 21:39:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: General Discussion
In-Reply-To: <9308190002.AA13009@umd5.umd.edu>
R. T. Wilson (FCHWILSON%Faculty%VMI@IST.VMI.EDU) says:
> Some people have quoted so extensively from other peoples
> communications, I wonder how you are doing it? Does your mail
> system permit that?
Most mail systems can quote an ENTIRE message when you use the Reply
command to reply to a previous message, but that's not what you are
talking about here. To quote PORTIONS of a previous message, and
insert your own text in between the quoted passages, you need to be
able to edit the quoted message. Most mail systems also have a
built-in editor for composing and editing messages, but if your
system is a host-based system that you access via a vt100 terminal
program, then its editor is likely to be very limiting and crude by
modern standards. Client-server systems, like Eudora or NuPop, or LAN
mail systems, are a big improvement. But if your mail system does
not have a Reply command and a built-in editor, there is a simple
way to quote and edit portions of earlier messages, IF your desktop
maching runs a contemporary windowing OS (e.g. Macintosh, Windows,
Unix GUI). Just use the mouse to select (drag over) the portion of
the message that you want to quote, copy it to the "clipboard", and
paste it into an open text editor window (e.g. MacSink on Macintosh,
or Windows Write, or any old editor that you are comfortable with).
Then edit as you wish, add ">" marks to indicate quoting, add your
own message, etc. Then select the whole mess, copy it, go back to the
terminal window, start a new message (or reply to one), and paste
your message into the terminal window at the place where you would
ordinarily type a message. Zip...the text spits out at great speed.
When it's done, just type whatever keystroke(s) indicate the end of a
message, and you are done. Remember, pasting text into a terminal
window is just like typing it (at light speed).
It may sound complicated, if you have never done this. But believe
me, this select/copy/paste stuff is so incredibly general and useful
that it soon becomes absolutely second nature and essential to just
about everything you do with a computer these days. It's infinitely
faster and more versatile than the old cursor-key, control-key
business, once you get the hang of it. You can even use your word
processor as a text editor - although it is overkill for simple ASCII
text e-mail and you have to remember to type return every 70 or so
characters and not to use all those nice non-ASCII characters (like
the "degree" symbol and the "mu" charater (for micro) that makes a
modern word processor so much better than a typewriter.
c.f. Appendix 5d of the Instructions for Participants.
Tom O'Haver
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 21:48:42 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: Facilitator Volunteer
I too volunteer for 'New Tools vs. Old Methods'
I have sufficient time to co-facilitate with Harry Pence and George Long
Theresa
Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University
Roszieli@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Chemistry Department
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 21:22:27 CST
From: "John W. Moore"
Subject: Re: Paper 14 Simulation
I've lost track of when it is appropriate to discuss things, so I apologize
if this is too late, but here goes anyway.
In Message Sat, 14 Aug 93 23:31:48, : George Long wrote
>I believe some of the recent discussion concerning the use
>of simulations is interesting given the audience, i.e.
>people interested in applying modern technology to chemistry
>education. The discussion has seemed to me to focus on when
>not to apply simulations (don't replace "real" laboratory
>experiments with the simulations). I believe the more
>interesting questions are 1) What considerations are most
>important in designing a useful simulation experiment?, 2)
>Where in the curriculum can simulations be used to greatest
>advantage? 3) What part of the laboratory curriculum can be
>sacrificed in order to add simulations ? (there are some bad
>general chemistry labs that ARE NOT better than good
>simulation experiments). 4) How can lecture and lab be
>better integrated by the application of computer technology?
>(I wonder if this distinction-lecture classes and laboratory
>classes in chemistry, isn't an artifact from a bygone era).
I am trying to get answers to some of these questions. Last spring in my
350-student gen chem course I used a simulation similar to Moog's Chemulate
as a precursor to a laboratory experiment in which students did kinetics by
photometric measurements. The program runs on MS-DOS and was written by Dick
Ramette of Carleton College. I used the program to teach students how to do
initial rate and integrated rate law analysis of data. Only initial rate
methods were described in the textbook, so they had to learn the integrated
rate law method from the program. They did pretty well, considering that it
was a program still under development and it was the first time I tried
this. I believe that the simulation helped students learn how to handle the
real data they obtained later on in their experiment. (I should mention that
they use computers to collect and analyze their experimental data as well as
their simulation data, so it is pretty obvious to them that the simulation
is relevant.) An important part of this is that the simulation was something
for which they could see a subsequent use--namely analysis of lab data to
come.
This fall I will be doing an evaluation of the use of another simulation,
Lake Study by David Whisnant and James McCormick, JCE: Software, 5B(1),
1992. We have been using this as a means of introducing students to the
scientific method by presenting a simulated, relevant problem and providing
via the computer tools for solving the problem. The evaluation is directed
toward the integration of the program into our course, not the program
itself. This is the point I want to make--I agree that we need to be
thinking a lot more about how these things fit into the curriclum and less
about their shortcomings. We can certainly list shortcomings of books and
lectures as well, but we still use them (and should use them) for the things
they do well. The same applies to computers.
I don't think we need to sacrifice part of the lab to do simulations. Both
of the ones described above were done as part of the lecture. The full
complement of lab work was done as usual. So I would widen that question to
"What parts of the curriculum can be sacrificed so that we can include
simulations?" The distinction between lecture and lab is a chasm in our
curriculum, and we need badly to bridge it. STudents see essentially no
connection at all, and as much as we value lab (we cannot substitute
simulations for the real thing!) it is largely lip service unless we
integrate the lab with the theoretical approach in lecture.
>
>While some of these ideas have been mentioned in the
>discussion, there has been little elaboration. Instead the
>discussion has focused on the perceived inadequacies of
>simulations. I don't believe anyone would advocate doing
>only simulations in lab, but I believe their place in the
>curriculum is wider than many of the comments suggest.
>Simulations are an important laboratory technique, they will
>become even more important in the future, Our courses
>should reflect this by including simulations as standard
>parts of all courses, not as a novelty or a next best thing
>as many have suggested.
Obviously, I agree with this paragraph.
>
>George Long
>Indiana University of PA.
>GRLONG@grove.iup.edu
>or IUP.BITNET
John Moore
U Wisconsin-Madison
JWMoore@macc.wisc.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 21:44:08 CST
From: "John W. Moore"
Subject: Re: Simulations
>
>Do simulations belong in general chemistry? Or do students require
>some degree of scientific maturity before they can appreciate and
>profit from simulations?
>
>Alperson and O'Neil (Alperson, Jay R., and O'Neil, Dennis H., "The
>Boxscore: Tutorials 2, Simulations 0", Academic Computing, 1990, 4:5
>February, 18-19 and 47-49.) performed a comparative evaluation of
>the effectiveness of tutorial and simulation formats in teaching
>lower division undergraduate students in anthropology and
>psychology. They found that beginning students learn more from
>tutorials than from simulations, based on multiple-choice test
>scores and student evaluations. They conclude that simulations are
>more effective for upper division undergraduate and graduate
>students who already know the fundamentals of the discipline, who
>are more self-motivated and who have the required conceptual
>framework to direct their own learning. Weyh and Crook (Weyh, John
>A. and Crook, Joseph R., "CAI Drill and Practice: is it really that
>bad?", Academic Computing, 1988, 2:7, June, 32-36 and 52-54) found
>that the use of well-designed drill and practice programs
>significantly improved test scores in an introductory chemistry
>course dealing with writing and balancing equations, stoichiometric
>relationships, and chemical equilibrium.
>
>Tom O'Haver
>U. of Maryland
Gee, Tom, I thought you loved simulations.
It seems to me that if you want to teach students to do well on
multiple-choice tests, simulations are not the way to go. However, that's
not what I want to teach students to do, or not the only thing. The big
problem as I see it is to find a way to test what simulations can teach,
which is much more complicated than
" writing and balancing equations, stoichiometric
>relationships, and chemical equilibrium"
as I am sure you agree. One of the goals of the evaluation of Lake Study
that I mentioned earlier is to see if we can determine whether students have
improved their knowledge and understanding of the scientific method
(whatever that is). It is a pretty nebulous goal, and much harder to measure
than if we wanted to know if they could name inorganic compounds. On the
other hand, I think it is more important, too.
John Moore
U. Wisconsin-Madison
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 21:58:23 -0600
From: "Gary L. Bertrand"
Subject: Re: Paper 14 Simulation
John Moore quotes and adds strengths to George Long's
>> I believe the more interesting questions are 1) What considerations are most
>>important in designing a useful simulation experiment?, 2)
>>Where in the curriculum can simulations be used to greatest
>>advantage? 3) What part of the laboratory curriculum can be
>>sacrificed in order to add simulations ? (there are some bad
>>general chemistry labs that ARE NOT better than good
>>simulation experiments). 4) How can lecture and lab be
>>better integrated by the application of computer technology?
>>(I wonder if this distinction-lecture classes and laboratory
>>classes in chemistry, isn't an artifact from a bygone era).
I wholeheartedly agree. I have gotten my best results with simulations in
using them as demonstrations within a lecture - very little prep time, and
it works every time! A simulation of the iodine clock reaction written
years ago for the Apple IIe has been particularly useful. One "real life"
demonstration so that they have a touch of reality, then run through the
standard "experiment" in 10 minutes. You can answer their "what if?"
questions immediately and graphically. The laboratory time can then be
used for another experiment that can't be brought into the classroom. This
flexibility in how we deliver our "goods" is an important tool in breaking
the distinction between lab and lecture.
My present problem is that I'm embarrassed to bring my old IIe into the
classroom (The students say, "Hey, we had one of those in Middle School!"),
and I haven't been able to get good colors into my HyperCard version - but
I'm working on it.
***********************************************************
* GARY L. BERTRAND, DEPT OF CHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ROLLA *
* ROLLA, MO 65401. (314)-341-4441
*
* BITNET- GBERT@UMRVMB INTERNET- GBERT@UMRVMB.UMR.EDU *
* "I NEVER WANTED TO BE FAMOUS, I JUST WANTED TO BE GREAT." RAY CHARLES *
***********************************************************
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 23:32:35 -0400
From: theresa Julia Zielinski
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
I have just been catching up with my e-mail and the discussion
about testing where there was expressed some concern about
students discovering the source of our questions and having
access to this source.
I wonder why we are so concerned with secrecy for hour exams etc.
True exams such as the ACS publishes are confidential but other
sources of questions don't need to be. Many fine questions
are published in J. Chem. Ed. and students can look there if
they want to. I have yet to discover a student doing so.
Frankly I think they are too busy and too inexperienced.
For the occasional student who has more initiative - well
let them look at all the questions they wish to see.
Perhaps they will study the one I will use on an exam. Well-
I'll take studying any way I can find it.
Using exams for assessment is another interesting topic.
Assessing outcomes of teaching strategies in quantitative ways
would be very difficult and possibly not the real reason for the
current interest in assessment that is spreading across campuses.
The most important aspect of assessment in class is to determine
whether or not the students have 'gotten it' while there is time
to implement a new strategy to get them to 'get it'.
Then there is the issue of what will be assessed quantitatively.
Will it be content? Will we reduce our teaching to meet new
standards of content acquisition? Will it be critical thinking
- as a chemist would think? This is not so easy. One must
train students in critical thinking and this is a four year process.
Current measures of critical thinking that I have heard about from
colleagues show that little or no change occurs after one course
in one semester. Some studies that I have heard of show only a
little progress in critical thinking development over 4 years.
A lot of literature exists on different methods of teaching. These
include: cooperative learning, case studies, mastery learning,
simulations, problem based learning, group learning etc.
I think that what is missing in chemistry is more examples of
these strategies in practice. Paper 12 was a good example of an
innovative way to teach organic chemistry. The author of paper
12 asks several important questions wrt alternate teaching methods.
"Can non-experts learn from each other?" I think so expecially
when there is a teacher/director who orchestrates the learning
environment and who acts as a recourse and model for learning.
"Can writing lead to understanding?" Of course - we all write
to learn - letters, essays, homework of all kinds, but expecially
lab reports where we discover what a students understands because
the student must articulate their knowledge. You don't know it
unless you can explain it to someone else. Then, "Do we serve as
teachers if we only help provide the directional signposts?" Of
course we do. In fact I think that this is the most important role
of the teacher. We must provide the support and direction for the
students, like trail guides, so that the students hike the trail
themselves. (They are really too big to carry like papooses).
We can see this by comparing the word professor to the word
educator (e+duc = to lead out).
Theresa
Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University
Roszieli@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Chemistry Department
Niagara University NY 14109
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 13:50:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: What Every Chemist Needs to Know . . .
On Saturday, July 3 I sent a survey form to participants accompanied
by the following message:
> Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1993 19:29 EDT
> From: Donald Rosenthal
> Subject: POLL OF PARTICIPANTS ABOUT WHAT EVERY STUDENT SHOULD KNOW
>
> PAPER 1
>
> WHAT EVERY CHEMIST NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT COMPUTERS AND COMPUTING
>
> There has been considerable discussion during the first session of
> this Computer Conference about this topic. In some schools computer
> courses are required. In other schools there is no requirement. Some
> chemistry departments include much of what students learn about
> computers and computing in their chemistry courses. In other schools
> much is taught by other Departments. Some students have learned a great
> deal about computers and computing before they enter college.
>
> I would be interested in learning what PARTICIPANTS think EVERY
> undergraduate and EVERY graduate student needs to know. I realize that
> your answers may be quite subjective. Also, depending upon what a
> student does he may use or need to know much more or much less about
> computers and computing than what we teach.
>
> Please fill out and return the following form to ME at
> ROSEN2@CLVM.BITNET (NOT TO CHEMCONF) by JULY 16. I will summarize the
> results and send the summary out during the General Discussion period
> between August 16 and August 20.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thirteen participants responded to my request and returned the form.
The respondents (in alphabetical order) were:
1. Gary Bertrand - University of Missouri - Rolla, Missouri
2. Hugh Cartwright - Oxford University, Great Britain
3. Doug Coe - Montana Tech., Butte, Montana
4. Fred Hagemeister - Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
5. H. Homeier - Univeritaet Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
6. Reed Howald - Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana
7. I. Brindle - Brock University, St. Catherines, ON, Canada
8. Truman H. Jordan - Cornell College, Cornell, Iowa
9. Jack M. Miller - Brock University, St. Catherines, ON, Canada
10. Gerald Morine - Bemidji State University, Bemidji, Minnesota
11. Donald Rosenthal - Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York
12. Mary L. Swift - Howard University, Washington, DC
13. Gary Williams - The University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Austr.
I would like to thank those who responded. I have summarized the
individual responses below and "averaged" (AVE.) these responses.
Please note the individual responses to the survey questions are
NOT listed in the same sequence as the alphabetical sequence
presented above. This was done to preserve the anonymity of each
individual's responses. However, it may not be difficult to identify
the responses of some respondents.
Some participants who did not respond to my survey proposed a
list of concepts, e.g. see discussion of July 21 (Paper 9).
======================================================================
WHAT SHOULD EVERY CHEMISTRY STUDENT KNOW ABOUT COMPUTERS AND COMPUTING?
In answering the following questions you are being asked what is the
MINIMUM an undergraduate and a graduate student needs to know about
computers and computing. Use the number 1 to indicate that all
chemistry students should be REQUIRED to learn about this.
1= REQUIRED, 2 = RECOMMENDED. 3 = PERHAPS. 4 = NO
How much should the student learn? A = A LOT. B = SOME. C = A LITTLE.
For example, as an answer to question 1, 2-C for undergraduates would
mean you RECOMMEND that students learn a LITTLE. 1-B for graduate
students would mean you would REQUIRE that graduate students know SOME
(but not a LOT).
I have asked what PERCENT of your time WHICH YOU
DEVOTE TO COMPUTING IS DEVOTED TO THIS PARTICULAR ACTIVITY. For
example, in answer to 1, if you indicate 10%, this means that 10% of the
time you devote to computing involves programming in a high level
general purpose programming language.
======================================================================
RESPONDENTS
A : B : C : D : E : F : G : H : I : J : K : L : M :AVE.
=====================================================================
1. HIGH LEVEL GENERAL PURPOSE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
Undergraduate Students
2B : 3C : 2C : 1B : 1B : 2C : 3B : 2C : C : 2 : 3B : 0 : 2B :2.1 B-
Graduate Students
1B : 2B : 1B : 1B : 1B : 1C : 3B : 1A : B : 1 : -- : 10 : 2B :1.5 B
You (%)
15 : 20 : 26 : 21 : 3 : 15 : 10 : 49 : 0 : 16 : 5 : 0 : 5 : 14.2
Which language(s)? C, BASIC, PASCAL, Hypertext, UNIX, FORTRAN
======================================================================
2. SPREADSHEETS
Undergraduate Students
1A : 4 : 4 : 3B : 1A : 2A : 1B : 1A : C : 1 : 1B : 20 : 2B :1.9 B
Graduate Students
1A : 2B : 3C : 3B : 1A : 2A : 1B : 1A : B : 1 : -- : 20 : 2B :1.7 B+
You (%)
49 : 0 : 0 : 11 : 16 : 5 : 20 : 5 : 5 : 22 : 30 : 60 : 5 : 17.5
Which spreadsheet(s) EXCEL, LOTUS 123, QUATTRO PRO, any
======================================================================
RESPONDENTS
A : B : C : D : E : F : G : H : I : J : K : L : M :AVE.
=====================================================================
3. DATABASES
Undergraduate Students
2B : 4 : 2C : 2B : 3B : 4B : 2C : -- : C : 3 : 2C : 10 : 2C :2.6 C+
Graduate Students
2A : 1B : 1B : 2B : 3B : 4B : 2C : -- : B : 3 : -- : 0 : 2C :2.4 B-
You (%)
4 : 5 : 3 : 4 : 1 : 3 : 0 : 0 : 5 : 5 : 0 : 0 : 2 : 2.5
Which? Paradox for Windows, Chemical abstracts, ERIC, CD-ROM, on-line,
Literature, Gopher, NetNews, Oracle, FOXPRO, D-BASE, any
======================================================================
4. NUMERICAL METHODS SOFTWARE
Undergraduate Students
2C : 3C : 2C : 3B : 2B : 4C : 1B : -- : C : 3 : 2B : -- : 2B :2.4 B-
Graduate Students
2B : 2B : 1B : 3B : 2B : 4C : 1B : -- : C : 3 : -- : 0 : 2B :2.4 B-
You (%)
10 : 5 : 8 : 4 : 2 : 0 : 10 : 0 : 5 : 5 : 5 : 0 : 5 : 4.5
Which? MathCad, TableCurve, Peak Fit, Maple, Mathematica, Derive
======================================================================
5. STATISTICAL METHODS
Undergraduate Students
1B : 4 : 2C : 2B : 2B : 1A : 2B : -- : B : 2 : 1B : 10 : 2B :1.9 B
Graduate Students
1B : 1B : 1B : 2B : 1A : 1A : 2B : -- :A-B : 1 : -- : 10 : 1B :1.3 B+
You (%)
10 : 5 : 0 : 4 : 1 : 5 : 0 : 0 : 5 : 5 : 5 : 30 : 5 : 5.8
Which? deviations, uncertainties, sampling, t-test, least squares,
SigmaStat, Quattro Pro, Systat, Statview, SAS, Super ANOVA
======================================================================
RESPONDENTS
A : B : C : D : E : F : G : H : I : J : K : L : M :AVE.
=====================================================================
6. MOLECULAR MODELLING
Undergraduate Students
1B : 4 : 2C : 1B : 1B : 3C : 2B : -- : B : 2 : -- : -- : 2B :2.0 B-
Graduate Students
1A : 1B : 1B : 1B : 3C : 2C : 2B : -- : A : 1 : -- : 0 : 1B :1.7 B
You (%)
10 : 11 : 0 : 7 : 3 : 1 : 0 : 0 : 10 : 5 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 3.6
Which? Huckel, one of the semi-empiricals, Hyperchem's dynamic
simulations, Molview, Chemdraw, Chemedit, PC Model, MM2,
Alchemy, Cem 3D+, BIOGRAPH, Spartan, any
======================================================================
7. PLOTTING
Undergraduate Students
1A : 3C : 2C : 1B : 3B : 1A : 1B : 1A : B : 2 : -- : -- : 2B :1.7 B
Graduate Students
1A : 1B : 1B : 1B : 3B : 1A : 1B : 1A : B : 1 : -- : 0 : 1B :1.5 B+
You (%)
-- : 0 : 1 : 4 : 1 : 10 : 10 : 10 : 5 : 5 : 0 : 0 : 5 : 4.3
Which? Harvard Graphics, Cricket Graph, Deltagraph Pro, SigmaPlot
Excel, spreadsheets, my own, any
======================================================================
8. GRAPHICS
Undergraduate Students
2B : 4 : 2C : 3C : 2B : 2C : 3C : -- : B : 1 : 1A : -- : 3C :2.3 B-
Graduate Students
2B : 3C : 1B : 2B : 2B : 1C : 3C : -- : B : 1 : -- : 0 : 3C :2.2 B-
You (%)
4 : 11 : 0 : 4 : 2 : 10 : 10 : 0 : 5 : 10 : 20 : 0 : 0 : 5.8
Which? Surfer, Neopaint, MacDraw, Corel Draw, First, Quattro Pro,
Graphical Analysis, Cricket Graph, my own, any
computer design/drawing (ChemWindow)
======================================================================
RESPONDENTS
A : B : C : D : E : F : G : H : I : J : K : L : M :AVE.
======================================================================
9. OPERATING SYSTEM(S)
Undergraduate Students
1B : 4 : 2C : 4 : 1B : 2C : 3C : 2B : B : 3 : 3C : -- : 2C :2.5 C+
Graduate Students
1B : 3B : 1B : 2B : 2B : 2C : 3C : 1A : B : 3 : -- : 0 : 2C :2.2 B-
You (%)
NA : 0 : 26 : 14 : 3 : 3 : 0 : 24 : 5 : 5 : 5 : 0 : 2 : 7.3
Which? UNIX, MSDOS, X11, Windows NT, MAC System 7, VAX VMS, OS/2
======================================================================
10. UTILITIES PROGRAMS
Undergraduate Students
1B : -- : 2C : 2B : 2C : 3C : 2B : -- : C : 4 : 4 : -- : 2C :2.4 C+
Graduate Students
1B : -- : 1C : 1B : 2C : 3C : 2B : -- : C : 4 : -- : 0 : 2C :2.2 C+
You (%)
NA : -- : 6 : 4 : 4 : 2 : 5 : 0 : 5 : 5 : 5 : 0 : 0 : 3.3
Which? Windows File Manager, Norton Utilities, compiler, makefiles,
a2ps, dvips, calendar manager, mailtool, filemanager,
conversion of graphic formats, Norton Commander, X-Tree,
Sidekick, UUtool
======================================================================
11. ELECTRONIC MAIL
Undergraduate Students
3B : 3C : 3C : 1C : 3C : 2C : 1B : 2B : B : 1 : 1B : -- : 2B :2.0 B-
Graduate Students
2B : 1A : 2B : 1B : 3C : 1A : 1B : 1A : A : 1 : -- : 0 : 2B :1.7 B+
You (%)
4 : 7 : 6 : 4 : 5 : 8 : 10 : 5 : 5 : 5 : 10 : 10 : 24 : 7.9
Which? Ethernet, Internet, Aarnet, Unix mail, ean, pmail, HP ELM,
Pathworks, Eudora, Spartan, Bitnet, any
======================================================================
RESPONDENTS
A : B : C : D : E : F : G : H : I : J : K : L : M :AVE.
======================================================================
12. NETWORKS AND NETWORKING
Undergraduate Students
3C : 4 : 3C : 4 : 3C : 4C : 1C : 3C : C : 1 : 4 : -- : 2B :2.9 C
Graduate Students
3C : 3C : 1B : 4 : 3C : 3B : 1C : 3C : B : 1 : -- : 0 : 2B :2.5 C+
You (%)
NA : 5 : 6 : 11 : 3 : 3 : 0 : 1 : 5 : 10 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 3.7
Which? Internet, Novell, ftp, Telnet, Gophers, Archie, Veronica,
MAC, NFS (NSF ?)
======================================================================
13. ON-LINE SEARCHING
Undergraduate Students
2B : 4 : 2C : 1C : 1B : 1C : 1B : -- : C : 2 : 2C : -- : 2B :1.8 B-
Graduate Students
2B : 1A : 1B : 1B : 1A : 1A : 1B : -- : B : 1 : -- : 0 : 2B :1.5 B+
You (%)
4 : 11 : 3 : 4 : 2 : 3 : 5 : 0 : 5 : 0 : 5 : 0 : 2 : 3.4
Which? Chemical Abstracts Online, ERIC, Gopher, STN, DIALOG, ORBIT,
Turbogopher, Hytelnet, Telnet, Fetchit, Books in Print,
mailing lists
======================================================================
14. OTHER LANGUAGES OR SOFTWARE
Undergraduate Students
-- : 4 : 2C : 4 : 1A : 3C : 1B : -- : A : -- : 4 : -- : -- :2.7 B-
Graduate Students
-- : 4 : 1B : 3C : 1A : 3C : 1B : -- : A : -- : -- : 0 : -- :2.4 B-
You (%)
0 : 4 : 13 : 0 : 50 : 3 : 20 : 0 : 20 : 0 : 0 : 0 : -- : 8.5
Which? WORD PERFECT, MS WORD, TeX, desktop publishing,
======================================================================
RESPONDENTS
A : B : C : D : E : F : G : H : I : J : K : L : M :AVE.
======================================================================
15. COMPUTER INTERFACED INSTRUMENTS
Undergraduate Students
2B : 4 : 2C : 1C : 1A : 1B : 3C : 2B : B : 3 : 1C : -- : 2B :2.0 B-
Graduate Students
1B : 2B : 1B : 1C : 1A : 1B : 3C : 1A : A : 2 : -- : 40 : 2B :1.5 B+
You (%)
0 : 5 : 0 : 4 : 1 : 8 : 0 : 5 : 5 : 2 : 5 : -- : 0 : 2.9
Which? PSL, interfacing experiments, use interfaced instruments,
SCI technologies, National Instruments, Montana Interface Inc.
UV-Visible Specrtrophotometers, almost all instruments, Apple
Interface by Vernier
======================================================================
16. COMPUTER HARDWARE AND ARCHITECTURE
Undergraduate Students
2C : 3B : 3C : 4 : 3C : 3C : 3C : 3C : C : -- : 4 : -- : 2B :3.0 C+
Graduate Students
2C : 2B : 2B : 4 : 3C : 2B : 3C : 2A : B : -- : -- : 0 : 2B :2.4 B-
You (%)
NA : 0 : 0 : 0 : 1 : 5 : 0 : 1 : 5 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 1
Which? Basics, needed for interfacing, general principles with
specifics as required by their research, fundamentals of
CISC and RISC chips
======================================================================
17. INTERFACING
Undergraduate Students
2C : 4 : 3C : 1C : 2B : 1B : 3C : 3C : B : -- : 1C : -- : 2C :2.2 C+
Graduate Students
2C : 3C : 2B : 1C : 2B : 1B : 3C : 2A : B : -- : -- : 20 : 2C :2.0 B-
You (%)
NA : 0 : 0 : 4 : 1 : 8 : 0 : 0 : 5 : 0 : 5 : 0 : 0 : 1.9
Which? Needed for interfaced instruments (15)
======================================================================
RESPONDENTS
A : B : C : D : E : F : G : H : I : J : K : L : M :AVE.
======================================================================
18. OTHER COMPUTER SKILLS OR SOFTWARE
Undergraduate Students
-- : -- : 2C : -- : 3C : 2A : 3C : -- : -- : -- : 1C : -- : 1B :2.0 B
Graduate Students
-- : 1A : 1B : -- : 1A : 2A : 3C : -- : -- : -- : -- : -- : 1A :1.5 A-
You (%)
0 : 11 : 3 : 0 : 1 : 8 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 0 : 45 : 5.2
Which? Ability to evaluate hardware and software as a basis for
purchasing decisions, editors, chemical equilibrium programs like
PHREEQUE, MINTEQ, typing, word processing, making tables, using
files, word processing using Word Perfect or MS WORD.
======================================================================
GENERAL QUESTIONS
QUESTION 19
On the average how many hours do you spend on all the above
listed computer activities each week?
38 : 15 : 30 : 25 : 25 : 40 : 18 : 28 : 20 : 8 : 10 : 2 : 20 : 21.5
======================================================================
QUESTION 20
Some universities have accepted demonstrated proficiency
in computing or a computing language as fulfilling the requirement for
one foreign language. Is this desirable?
No : No : No : No : Yes: Yes: No : Yes: Yes: Yes: No : Yes: Yes:
======================================================================
RESPONDENTS
A : B : C : D : E : F : G : H : I : J : K : L : M :AVE.
======================================================================
======================================================================
BRIEF ANALYSIS AND CRITIQUE
I will not attempt to analyze the responses in any detail, I leave
that task to the individual participants.
The responses to Question 19 indicate that respondents spend from
2 to 40 hours per week with the average being 21.5 hours. There was
considerable variation about how each respondent allocated his time
(as one would expect).
The survey results need to be considered together with the answers to
Question 19. For example, respondent L who spends 60 percent of his time
working with spreadsheets actually is spending 1.2 hours per week on this
activity. Respondent D spends 11 percent (2.8 hours) and respondent E
spends 16 percent (6.4 hours) working on spreadsheets.
Respondents I, J and L did not use the evaluation system I expected.
(Teachers as well as students don't always follow directions.) I
"averaged" their responses as best I could along with the others.
Respondent L indicated percent of computing time which graduate and
undergraduate students should devote to each activity.
Individual responses to some of the survey questions varied widely.
For example, spreadsheets would be required of undergraduates by six
respondents, and were not recommended by two respondents.
In retrospect, I should have listed word processing. Word
processing was listed be some respondents in response to either question
14 or 18. Others didn't list it at all. Respondent D indicated that
33 % of his weekly 25 hours was devoted to word processing. Other reports
of word processing useage:
Respondent C (12 %), E (50 %), F (15 %), G (20 %), I (20 %), M (45 %).
The average is 29 % (6.7 hours per week).
As answers to the question Which? ( mostly software) - respondents
indicated either the software they were using and/or what they were
recommending for student instruction.
PERHAPS SOME OF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD TO THE LIST OF RECOMMENDED
SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE. IF SO, PLEASE DESCRIBE IT BRIEFLY AND INDICATE
WHERE IT COULD BE INCLUDED IN THIS SURVEY CLASSIFICATION SCHEME, I.E.
SPREADSHEETS, UTILITY PROGRAMS, ELECTRONIC MAIL, ETC.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 08:08:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: Simulations
In-Reply-To: <9308190323.AA01564@umd5.umd.edu>
John W. Moore:
> Gee, Tom, I thought you loved simulations.
I still do, actually. I was just pointing out some contrary evidence
(other people's, not my own). The scientific method, you know....
It does show, however, how far our thinking has evolved in just a
few short years, since the time of those papers.
I agree with you and with others who have voiced the opinion that much
depends on what we test for. It does no good to pay lip service to
critical thinking, higher-order thinking, the scientific method, learning
how to learn, etc, if we continue to test for ths same old stuff. Too
often, the bottom line that people want to see is improved scores on the
standardized examinations. We can re-make our courses; can we re-make
our standardized examinations?
Tom O'Haver
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 08:35:21 -0400
From: Robert Nelson
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
Several participants have expressed concerns about the "security" of
exam questions sent across a network. Given that many instructors
place copies of old exams on reserve in the library - including in my
case the final which is NOT RETURNED to the students, I see no problem
in placing copies of exams on the network. It would be different if
we were actually administering the exam over the network, then many
problems of both security and time constraints become important.
Robert N. Nelson Assoc. Prof. of Chemistry Ga. So. Univ.
Chemistry - 8064 Statesboro, GA 30460-8064 912-681-5675
rnnelson@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 08:42:37 EDT
From: "R. T. Wilson"
There seems to be a dazed silence in response to the call for general
discussion. Perhaps everyone is dazzled, as I am, by the incredible richness
and variety of the many different ideas presented during this conference. Let
me first extend my thanks to the conference organizers, Don Rosenthal and Tom
O'Haver, for the hard work they did to make it possible. I am sure "Chemconf"
is a landmark which will not be forgotten.
My only disappointment is hearing that I have nothing to look forward
to until 1994, when Chemconf will apparently rise Phoenix-like from its own
ashes to spring to life once more. My first question is: Why shut it down?
Why not use Chemconf for _ALL_ ACS meetings and conferences? Are the
logistics unmanageable? I can see the advantages of conducting meetings in
two parallal formats: electronic and regular. The electronic format makes the
meeting instantly accessible to anyone anywhere in the world who has network
access. Those who are able to attend could go; those who are not there can
still read papers, ask questions and even communicate with the authors
personally. This is mind-boggling to me. It is like having consciousness
suddenly expanded electronically by orders of magnitude.
Tom, I enjoyed reading the background material you pointed out at
info.umd.edu in your response of July 21 to one of my earlier questions. I
didn't know it was there until then. Is it there all the time? I would
suggest you include reference to it in instructions to future conference
participants. You might even continue to expand it gradually and wind up with
a pretty good textbook of basic computer technology.
I will end with an embarrassingly simple and completely trivial
question. I know nothing about e-mail systems other than my own, which is
Banyan Vines. Some people have quoted so extensively from other peoples
communications, I wonder how you are doing it. Does your mail system permit
that? As far as I know, the only way I have to do that is to transfer the
material to a
disc file, massage it with word-processing software, then transfer it back to
mail. Is there another way?
(Please excuse me if you receive this message twice; our mail system has been
down for modifications. Perhaps things have not been as silent as I thought.)
Terrell Wilson
Department of Chemistry
Virginia Military Institute
Lexington, Virginia 24450
e-mail: fchwilson%faculty%vmi@ist.vmi.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 09:05:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Buried in e-mail
A number of people have made comments to the effect that they have
been overwhelmed with the volume of correspondence on ChemConf. We
did generate an amazing amount of discussion, didn't we?
Fortunately, everything that happened in CHEMCONF is saved and can
be accessed after the fact. First of all, you can access the papers
themselves by sending an e-mail message to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU or
LISTSERV@UMDD.BITNET (whichever one works for you) in which the
message body contains one or more of the following lines:
GET CHEMCONF WELCOME
GET PAPER1 TEXT
GET PAPER1 FIGURE1
GET PAPER1 FIGURE2
GET PAPER2 TEXT
etc.
To get a more complete listing of all available files, send the
message INDEX CHEMCONF.
Secondly, you can get a complete transcript of all discussions by
sending a message (again to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU or to
LISTSERV@UMDD.BITNET) containing one or more of the following lines:
GET CHEMCONF LOG9306
GET CHEMCONF LOG9307
GET CHEMCONF LOG9307D
GET CHEMCONF LOG9307E
GET CHEMCONF LOG9308A
GET CHEMCONF LOG9308B
GET CHEMCONF LOG9308C
These transcripts will include all notices, questions, answers, and
discussion so far in the conference, in chronological order. LOG9306
is June, LOG9307 is the first three weeks of July, LOG9307D is the
4th week of July, LOG9308A is the first week of August, and so forth.
Note that these messages must be sent to the LISTSERV host
computer (LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU or LISTSERV@UMDD.BITNET), and
NOT to the conference participants at CHEMCONF@UMDD.
Finally, the most powerful aspect of the LISTSERV is that it is
actually possible to SEARCH THE ENTIRE DISCUSSION TEXT GLOBALLY for
any keyword(s) that you are interested in. LISTSERV will return
the complete text of any and all messages that contain those
keywords. I will shortly post, as a separate message, instructions on
how to do this, with several examples of searches and their results.
Tom O'Haver
P.S. The volume of text that we produced this summer, as great as it
is, is probably not much compared to all the chemistry- and
education-related material that is typically published over a similar
two-month period by the print publication industry (books and
journals).
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 09:18:51 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: General Discussion
> R. T. Wilson (FCHWILSON%Faculty%VMI@IST.VMI.EDU) says:
>
>> My first question is: Why shut it down?
>
>Well I have no intention if shutting it down. Anyone can "sign off"
>if they wish, of course, at any time. But the listserv and the FTP
>site will be "kept running" for a while, at least, to allow
>any remaining discussion and to accomodate those who find out about
>the conference only after the fact and wish to read what we have done
>here.
>
>> Why not use Chemconf for _ALL_ ACS meetings and conferences?
>> .... This is mind-boggling to me. It is like having consciousness
>> suddenly expanded electronically by orders of magnitude.
>
>Ha! That would be great, No? Maybe some day it will be. But I am
>afraid that this is too radical an idea. The routine use of e-mail
>and other network services is still the exception, rather than the
>rule, among most of the chemistry community - especially in the
>corridors of power. You folks are at the bleeding edge, in at least
>this respect. So spread the word about the CHEMCONF concept; talk to
>your local ACS local section people and representatives. Share what
>you have learned here; help your friends learn to use their mail systems
>efficiently. Don't let it stop here.
>
>Tom O'Haver
Given the present technology the thousands of papers at an ACS meeting and
full scale discussion involving thousands of people would fill ourhard
disks daily. I can see LISTSERV software developing in the future to the
point of having something that might be called CONFSERV specifically
designed for conferences which would automatically distribute general info
to all participants but permit subscribing to the discussion portion on a
paper by paper basis -- i.e.the selectivity we use in going to particular
oral papers or reading particular posters -- we generated 1.5 MB was it
from 15 papers and 300 people -- increase to 150 and 300 and we have 150 MB
not allowing for the fact that more oopinionated people in the discussion
will engender mor opinionated coments.
Anyway - hopefully this might give the Listserv experts if any are
listening something to think about. Another alternative offered by some
lists is an hour a week when everyone goes live in a conference session --
I forget what it is called but it is running for Screen-L that my wife
subscribes to (she's not tried the live bit) and several other lists.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 09:29:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Keyword searching
How to Search the CHEMCONF Message Database
(Modified for CHEMCONF from the original by Charles W. Bailey, Jr.)
All of the discussion that takes place on any LISTSERV discussion
list, including CHEMCONF, is archived (saved) by the LISTSERV host
and can be accessed by anyone at any time by e-mail. So if you
missed part of a discussion and want to look back at what was said,
or if you are curious whether anyone has mentioned a particular
topic anywhere in the conference, you have access to everything
anyone has said at any time. The most selective way to retrieve such
information is by keyword search.
Here's a tutorial on how to search the CHEMCONF message database
and retrieve information by keyword.
First, suppose you want to search for all messages that have the
term "Hypertext" in them and ask the LISTSERV to send you all of
them. To do so, create an e-mail message with the following
information in it, and send it to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU (DON'T
send it to CHEMCONF@UMDD.UMD.EDU):
//
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Search Hypertext in CHEMCONF
Print all
/*
You can use the above 5 lines as a template for your own searches;
just copy and paste those 5 lines into your editor, change the
word "Hypertext" as appropriate, and mail it to LISTSERV.
By the way, in this context, "Print" really means "return by e-mail".
Once LISTSERV has received and processed your search request, it will
mail you back two things: a message that tells us how the job went
and another message that contains the actual output file, called
DATABASE OUTPUT, which consists of all matching messages
concatenated into one big message.
If you anticipate that the volume of returned messages will be
two great to take all at once, or you just want to know how many
messages match your search term, you can ask for an "index" that
will tell you which messages have this search term.
//
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Search Hypertext in CHEMCONF
Index
/*
Here's what you get back:
> Search Hypertext in CHEMCONF
--> Database CHEMCONF, 137 hits.
> Index
Item # Date Time Recs Subject
------ ---- ---- ---- -------
000022 89/06/30 08:31 306 Common Knowledge Info.
000047 89/07/07 08:15 18 Hypertext Conference
000075 89/07/12 17:13 21 Hypertext & Hypermedia Articles
000088 89/07/13 16:19 17 CD-ROM Expo '89
000194 89/07/22 14:11 25 Hyperdoc
000248 89/07/30 20:00 23 Hypertext Hands-On!
000251 89/07/31 12:52 14 Re: Hypertext Hands-On!
000253 89/07/31 15:04 47 Was: Hypertext Hands-On!
000267 89/08/03 09:38 24 A New Journal -- Hypermedia
000311 89/08/11 12:18 23 Hypermedia & Optical Tech. Resources
000338 89/08/17 11:37 33 Hypermedia/Multimedia
[The rest of the list is omitted.]
Suppose you want to see only number 267 (the messages are numbered at
the left). Send a second job to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU with
the following lines in it:
//
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Search Hypertext in CHEMCONF
Print all of 267
/*
You will get back a file that contains just that message.
To print multiple messages, just add the additional numbers:
Print all of 267 311
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a brief summary of some more advanced search features.
The Boolean "AND" operator is implicit:
Search hypertext hypermedia in CHEMCONF
You can also make the "AND" operator explicit:
Search hypertext AND hypermedia in CHEMCONF
The Boolean "OR" operator is explicit:
Search hypertext OR hypermedia in CHEMCONF
The Boolean "NOT" operator is also explicit:
Search hypertext NOT hypermedia in CHEMCONF
Terms can be nested:
Search (hypertext OR hypermedia) AND multimedia in CHEMCONF
You can also limit searches in the CHEMCONF message database by date.
The first technique is to search for records in a date range.
As you recall, the search request is sent to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU as
an e-mail message. Note how the dates are constructed.
//
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Search Hypertext in CHEMCONF from 93/1/1 to 93/4/30
Index
/*
Another technique is to request messages since a specified date.
Here is a sample search:
//
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Search Hypertext in CHEMCONF since 1/93
Index
/*
A final technique uses the asterisk wildcard character to
retrieve all messages in a date range:
//
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Search * in CHEMCONF from 93/4/1 to 93/4/30
Index
/*
This search results in a handy index of all the CHEMCONF messages
sent out in April 1993.
--------------------------------
To get a more complete explanation, send a message to
LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU that says:
INFO DATABASE
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 10:39:54 -0400
From: "Frank W. Darrow"
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
>Several participants have expressed concerns about the "security" of
>exam questions sent across a network. Given that many instructors
>place copies of old exams on reserve in the library - including in my
>case the final which is NOT RETURNED to the students, I see no problem
>in placing copies of exams on the network. It would be different if
>we were actually administering the exam over the network, then many
>problems of both security and time constraints become important.
>
>Robert N. Nelson Assoc. Prof. of Chemistry Ga. So. Univ.
>Chemistry - 8064 Statesboro, GA 30460-8064 912-681-5675
>rnnelson@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
I agree. If students want to sift through the many questions that will
be available in the hopes of perhaps finding one sort of like the
modified version that I will use in my next exam, then they will
probably learn a few things, and I am for that.
----------
Frank W. Darrow, Chemistry Dept., Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY 14850
Darrow@Ithaca.BitNet (607) 274-3991
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 10:54:50 -0400
From: "CARL H. SNYDER,
CHEMISTRY; CSnyder@umiami.ir.miami.edu"
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
In-Reply-To: Your message dated "Thu,
19 Aug 1993 10:39:54 -0400"
<01H1XDDUJ1N68WXX31@umiami.ir.miami.edu>
As I pointed out in Paper 11, one of the great advantages of placing any or
all old examination questions on a server is that gets students using the
computer as a source of information. That's a gain right there.
Carl H. Snyder Internet: CSNYDER@umiami.IR.Miami.EDU
Chemistry Department Bitnet: CSNYDER@umiami
University of Miami Phone: (305)-284-2174
Coral Gables, FL 33124 FAX: (305)-285-4571
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 11:33:20 -0500
From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd
Subject: Re: Keyword searching
In-Reply-To: <9308191451.AA25182@umd5.umd.edu>
Dear Tom,
Your instructions on how to do keyword searching is but another example of
what a great teacher you have been throughout this conference. Thank you
for sharing your enthusiasm and your knowledge.
The idea of being to electronically attend ACS Meetings is exciting. In my
petition, what should I request? A full-time person to run the
conference? I am not sure what all would be involved? Any hints?
Carolyn S. Judd
Central College, Houston Community College System
1300 Holman Houston TX 77004
713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 10:28:51 PDT
From: Steve Lower
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
In-Reply-To: <9308191507.AA20507@whistler.sfu.ca>; from "Frank W. Darrow" at
Aug 19, 93 10:39 am
>
> >Several participants have expressed concerns about the "security" of
> >exam questions sent across a network.
I understand that the 1000+ question Chemistry exam database that the
California State Colleges use was at one time on sale in some of their
campus bookstores... a great study aid.
By the way, I did download a copy of their Socrates-PC system and the
Chemistry database some months ago, but probably won't have a chance
to do anything with it until I go on sabattical next year.
Has anyone else done anything with it?
--
Steve Lower - Dept of Chemistry - Simon Fraser University (lower@sfu.ca)
Burnaby BC V5A 1S6 Canada (604)-291-3353
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 14:54:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: HELP!! - No More Facilitator Volunteers for a While
Participants:
I'm overwhelmed by the number of volunteers!
Since Committee members sometimes assume someone else will do the job
and nothing gets done - it is important there be a conscientious Chair
(Primary Facilitator). This Chair should attempt to organize things and
set up a network with co-facilitators, if any. If Chairs prefer to work
alone that is their perogative.
Based upon messages received I assume the following are willing to serve:
A. New Tools vs Old Methods - Harry Pence(volunteer George Long)
B. The Use of Networks and Electronic Mail - Carl Snyder (Paul Edwards)
C. What Chemists (or Chemistry Students) Need to Know -
Anthony Rosati (volunteer - Mary L. Swift)
D. The Use of Simulations - Gary L. Bertrand (volunteer - Judith Faye Rubinson)
E. Testing - Reed Howald
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
If these Primary Facilitator assignments are not satisfactory, please
let me (or CHEMCONF) know immediately.
Anyone wishing to serve as co-facilitator should contact the chair
rather than the list.
In the memo of August 17 I suggested that the following discussion
schedule be established:
Week beginning August 30 - Discussion of New Tools vs Old Tools
Week of September 6 - Networks and Electronic Mail
Week of September 13 - What Chemists (Chemistry Students) Need to Know . .
Week of September 20 - Simulations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
IS THIS SCHEDULE SATISFACTORY - PRIMARY FACILITATORS?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would suggest that the facilitators manage these sessions.
Early on the first day (or even the Sunday before) transmit a statement
indicating what information you'd like to have from participants -e.g.
software, references, answers to specific questions, etc.
The week is yours to handle in any way you deem appropriate.
Ignore my suggestions, if they seem inappropriate or you wish to do it
differently.
If you have time you might want to compile a bibliography of conference
discussion prior to your session. Advice is cheap.
Don Rosenthal
ROSEN1@CLVM
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 15:35:22 EDT
From: Charlie Abrams
Subject: Re: Keyword searching
In-Reply-To: In reply to your message of THU 19 AUG 1993 04:33:20 EDT
I'm really interested in the information about keyword searching. But
the LISTSERV mailer didn't send it to me!?? I've gotten all the other
messages, apparently. Would someone please send me a copy of Tom's
instructions for keyword searching? Thanks.
Charles B. Abrams
McGill University
(514) 398-6224
cx7q@musica.mcgill.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 15:33:13 -500
From: Scott VanBramer
Subject: Chemed-L
In-Reply-To: <9308191857.AA23218@eagle.lhup.edu>
The Chemed-L database has been mentioned a number of times during the
course of the conference. Could someone please post some information
about this, I am very interested. Thank you very much.
Scott Van Bramer
Department of Chemistry
Lock Haven University
Lock Haven, PA 17745
svanbram@eagle.lhup.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 15:36:40 -500
From: Scott VanBramer
Subject: Moving Files
In-Reply-To: <9308191857.AA23218@eagle.lhup.edu>
Several people have commented about methods for moving files around using
NuPop and Endora. I have not heard mention of PINE which we have on our
mainframe. I have been moving files (both word processor and
spreadsheet) around by uploading them to the mainframe and then attaching
them to an e-mail message with Pine. Is this accomplishing the same thing
as NuPop and Endora (abit more clumsily it sounds.)? Are these attachments
"standardized" so that they could be read by other e-mail software? Do
other places use Pine?
Scott Van Bramer
Department of Chemistry
Lock Haven University
Lock Haven, PA 17745
svanbram@eagle.lhup.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 15:55:05 EST
From: Caesar Senoff
Subject: Re: Moving Files
In-Reply-To: Message of Thu,
19 Aug 1993 15:36:40 -500 from
The University of Guelph has just adopted PINE as its central e-mail facility.
It is anticipated that it'll be fully operational by September 1 so that both
students and faculty can use it. I'm not very familiar with PINE, but from
the little of it that I've seen, it's better than our current system -- cms.
Caesar Senoff
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Chmsenof@vm.UoGuelph.ca or my new PINE address: CSenoff@UoGuelph.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 15:01:39 -0500
Reply-To: "theodore p. labuza"
From: "theodore p. labuza"
Subject: Testing
As I pointed out in an earlierv discussion, I teach an introductory course in
food science that introduces the concepts of chemistry, physic, engineering an
microbiology to students under the guise of learning the why and how of the
processing of foods. For example we use rudimentary kinetics and heat transfer
to see how one decides how long a can of corn must be thermally processed in a
retort to make it safe yet still retain acceptable nutrient level, taste and
color.
For 10 years I always had three in-class closed book exams but I always put all
the old exams into a college old test file. I never look at tyhe old exams
myself when I make the new ones. I also put the last years exams with key in the
course notebook they buy. If the students were memorizing exams then one wouild
expect perhaps that the average scores would increase every year over the past,
this has not happed, it is always about 68-72. These are short esay and
definition type quizes, not multiple choice. A question might be " Contrast the
difference in functionalit between a simple sugar such as glucose vs a
carbihydrate polymer such as amylose". A few years ago I switched to open
notes, books exams using essentially the same style. The students felt more at
ease and yet the average on the exam did not go up by more than two points.
Interesting phenomena. The ones who spent most of their time "Hunting" for
answers usually got the lowest scores.This is usually a sophomore to junior
level course. For my other courses which are grads and seniors (eg Reaction
Kinetics of Food and Drug Deterioration"and "Physics and Chemistry of Water in
Biological Systems") there is only one in open book in-class exam in the middle
of the quarter, and they also have one or two take home exams which take about
20 hours each to do, part of which is the evaluation of the kinetics used in
some published paper as well as other practical problems. Some parts they can
choose to work with classmates. I also allow a 30 minute in class session which
they organize to discuss the approaches to answering the final take home exam.
As I note to them, in the real world they have to work with others in order to
make the company succeed, if not they they will be fired since a company cannot
tolerate someone not sharing important knowledge to solve a problem. The closed
book in-class exam is 1809 degrees opposite to this approach and encourages
students not to help others. My industrial colleagues like the former approach
to testing better. They also have weekly group presentations on currently
publishe papers which cover the area I am covering in class. In the course
evaluations they always rate the evaluation (grading) process quite well except
for a few. I have only had one instance of outright cheating on the take home in
15 years.
Dr Ted Labuza tplabuza@EPX.CIS.UMN.EDU or tplabuza@staff.tc.umn.edu
Department of Food Science & Nutrition
136 AMLMS U of Minnesota
St Paul, MN 55108
Home Fax 612-633-0627
Voice 612-624-9701 UM Fax 612-625-5272
"SURFING THE WAVES OF CYBERSPACE"
___
||
| \|
|__|
|
---|----
/ \
|___/__/\_____/
\ /\ /\ /\/\/\/\ /
\ /\ / \/ \ /\/ \ /
\/ \/ \/ \/
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once". Except in
my office which exists in a time warp!!!
There is noo such thing as a poverty of time, rather we have a poverty of being
able to say "NO".
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 16:52:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: Chemed-L
In-Reply-To: <9308192047.AA22382@umd5.umd.edu>
>The Chemed-L database has been mentioned a number of times during the
>course of the conference. Could someone please post some information
>about this, I am very interested. Thank you very much.
>
>Scott Van Bramer
>Department of Chemistry
>Lock Haven University
>Lock Haven, PA 17745
>svanbram@eagle.lhup.edu
Here is information on several chemistry-related lists:
Discussion lists relevant to Chemistry are listed below.
Format of the entries:
Name
Mail Address for subscriptions
Message to be sent
Chemistry Education Discussion Group
LISTSERV@UWF.bitnet
SUB CHEMED-L your_name
Chemical Information Sources List
LISTSERV@IUBVM.BITNET
or
LISTSERV@UCS.INDIANA.EDU
SUB CHMINF-L your_name
HyperChem Users' E-Mail Group
hyperchem-request@autodesk.com
message requesting to be added
Computational Chemistry List (CCL)
OSCPOST@oscsunb.osc.edu
or
OSCPOST@OHSTPY.BITNET
send help from chemistry
Chemometrics Discussion Group
LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU
or
LISTSERV@UMDD.BITNET
SUB ICS-L your_name
Forensic Sciences Discussion Group
FORENS-REQUEST@ACC.FAU.EDU
or
FORENS-REQUEST@FAUVAX.bitnet
SUB FORENS-L your_name
Interfacial Phenomena Discussion Group
LISTSERV@WSUVM1.BITNET
SUB IFPHEN-L your_name
Corrosion List
LISTRALV@IB.RL.AC.UK
SUB CORROS-L your_name
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 16:53:23 -0400
From: Rory Cory
Subject: Re: Moving Files
In-Reply-To: <9308192039.AA03466@julian.uwo.ca>
On Thu, 19 Aug 1993, Scott VanBramer wrote:
> Several people have commented about methods for moving files around using
> NuPop and Endora. I have not heard mention of PINE which we have on our
> mainframe. I have been moving files (both word processor and
> spreadsheet) around by uploading them to the mainframe and then attaching
> them to an e-mail message with Pine. Is this accomplishing the same thing
> as NuPop and Endora (abit more clumsily it sounds.)? Are these attachments
> "standardized" so that they could be read by other e-mail software? Do
> other places use Pine?
I am using Pine right now, but I haven't tried attaching files to messages
yet. I'd also be interested in the answers to these questions.
O=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=O
Prof. Robert M. Cory, Chemistry Dept, U. Western Ontario, London N6A 5B7 CANADA
Office (519)679-2111x6339; Home (519)472-8866; FAX (519)661-3022; cory@uwo.ca
O=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=C=O
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 15:39:28 -0600
From: "Douglas A. Coe"
Subject: edu subscription address for CHEMED-L
Some time ago Barbara Gaddis asked how to subscribe to CHEMED-L.
This was a question that I also had, but I never saw an answer posted. I
still want to know the address to subscribe to CHEMED-L from an internet,
edu, site. If anyone can give assistance, I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Doug Coe
dacoe@mtvms2.mtech.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 17:23:45 EST
From: "Gary Wiggins, Indiana U. Chem. Lib.,
812-855-9452"
Subject: CHMINF-L correction
The recent list of chemistry-related lists has a mistake in the
Internet address for CHMINF-L, the Chemical Information Sources
Discussion List. The correct address is:
LISTSERV@IUBVM.UCS.INDIANA EDU
Gary Wiggins
Indiana University Chemistry Library
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 18:40:07 SEC
From: manuel m martinez
I want to say, like Jack Martin Miller, congratulations to Tom
and Don for the HUGE work done with this conference. Just here,
I do not know how many miles away from all the distant places, in
Chile I had the opportunity to read all the papers, the discussions
and after the conference, I still receive very useful information
about searching the database. We still increase our common knowledge
about networks. Again, thanks for this opportunity.
Manuel M. Martinez. Department of Chemistry. Faculty of Science.
Universidad de Santiago de CHILE. e-mail: mmartine@usachvm1.usach.cl
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 08:18:19 GMT+2
From: Dr Zeno Apostolides
Organization: University of Pretoria
Subject: Re: discussion - testing
I agree with previous writers, "if the students want to learn the
answers to the many questions in the data bank, they will probably
learn some chemistry". The operative word is MANY...!
Dr Z Apostolides TEL (27)-(012)-420-2486
Department Of Biochemistry FAX (27)-(012)-43-2185 or 342-1449
University of Pretoria e-mail InterNet:bio0@navi.up.ac.za
Pretoria 0002
South Africa
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 07:53:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: Re: Moving Files
As a matter of fact, I use (and like) Pine myself. It is
a UNIX host-based system, accessed via vt100 terminal session,
but it does have a built-in editor and several nice features.
> Are these attachments "standardized" so that they could be
> read by other e-mail software?
Certainly text attachments can be read by other software.
But if a Pine message with a binary attachment is received
by a non-MIME-compliant mail program, it just lists
the binary attachment as "BASE64" encoded text after the
main body of the message. I have not yet learned what to do
with this BASE64 encoded text.
The other problem is that if you want to attach a file from
your local file system, you must first upload the file to
the file syustem of the host, then attach it to an outgoing
Pine message. Pine, like most host software, has no knowledge
of your local file system. For that, you need client software that
is smarter than a vt100 terminal emulator.
Tom O'Haver
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 09:23:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: End of Conference Message
MEMORANDUM
To: Tom O'Haver and Participants in the Computer Conference
on "Applications of Technology in Teaching Chemistry"
From: Donald Rosenthal
Box 5810
Department of Chemistry
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699-5810
315-265-9242
ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET
Date: August 20, 1993
On behalf of the ACS Division of Chemical Education's Committee
on Computers in Chemical Education (C.C.C.E.) I'd like to thank Tom
O'Haver for doing such an excellent job in organizing and managing
this conference and to thank the authors and other participants for
helping to make the conference such a success. In addition, I'd like
to thank the University of Maryland for providing the computing
resources which made the conference possible. Many of us have been
stimulated and enlightened from what transpired during the last few
months.
By way of background:
About a year and a half ago, a conference on problem solving was
announced on the Chemistry Education Discussion List. This conference
was being held in a rather remote part of New York State. Tom O'Haver
suggested that such meetings could instead easily be held as computer
conferences. Since C.C.C.E.'s purpose is to promote and publicize the
use of computers in chemical education, I wrote Tom (a member of the
Committee) to suggest the C.C.C.E. sponsor a computer conference. I
asked Tom if he would be willing to manage the meeting. Tom agreed to
do so and the rest is history.
On Tuesday, August 17 Terrell Wilson asked:
> Why not use Chemconf for ALL ACS meetings?
Computer conferencing will probably never totally replace regular
meetings, but C.C.C.E. recently suggested the Division of Chemical
Education sponsor such meetings on a regular basis. We also proposed
that another chemical education computer conference be held during the
summer of 1995. In addition, we proposed that the Executive Committee
of the ACS Division of Chemical Education hold an open on-line meeting
during the summer of 1994. This meeting would provide an opportunity
for the Executive Committee to describe Division activities,
accomplishments and problems and to solicit suggestions from Division
members. Participants in the conference would have an opportunity to
ask questions and make suggestions on-line. Both these initiatives
will be considered at the ACS meeting in Chicago within a few days.
The technology for computer conferencing will improve during the
next few years. More chemists will learn how to use electronic mail
and realize the rewards which the use of electronic mail offers. I
hope many of you will assist in this effort.
Donald Rosenthal
Chair, C.C.C.E.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 09:49:38 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Moving Files
>As a matter of fact, I use (and like) Pine myself. It is
>a UNIX host-based system, accessed via vt100 terminal session,
>but it does have a built-in editor and several nice features.
>
>> Are these attachments "standardized" so that they could be
>> read by other e-mail software?
>
>Certainly text attachments can be read by other software.
>But if a Pine message with a binary attachment is received
>by a non-MIME-compliant mail program, it just lists
>the binary attachment as "BASE64" encoded text after the
>main body of the message. I have not yet learned what to do
>with this BASE64 encoded text.
That is like the case of the Microsoft mail attachments that don't work
except with MS mail.
>
>The other problem is that if you want to attach a file from
>your local file system, you must first upload the file to
>the file syustem of the host, then attach it to an outgoing
>Pine message. Pine, like most host software, has no knowledge
>of your local file system. For that, you need client software that
>is smarter than a vt100 terminal emulator.
That is why I keep puching Eudora and NuPop -- you can't beat the price --
free and since they use the same protocol for attachments, Mac and PC files
are readily exchanged. NuPop is DOS based so it will satisfy thenon GUI
people but it can be used with windows as well, and if you attach a windows
document, and are running windows you get the full GUI benefits of the
material received.
>Tom O'Haver
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 09:48:00 EDT
From: Donald Rosenthal
Subject: TOPIC PRIMARY FACILITATORS AND DISCUSSION OF TOPICS
Based upon messages received the following are willing to serve as
Primary Facilitators:
A. New Tools vs Old Methods - Harry Pence
B. The Use of Networks and Electronic Mail - Carl Snyder
C. What Chemists (or Chemistry Students) Need to Know -
Anthony Rosati
D. The Use of Simulations - Gary L. Bertrand
E. Testing - Reed Howald
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyone wishing to serve as co-facilitator should contact the chair
rather than the list.
The discussion schedule is as follows:
Week beginning August 30 - Discussion of New Tools vs Old Tools
Week of September 6 - Networks and Electronic Mail
Week of September 13 - What Chemists (Chemistry Students) Need to Know . .
Week of September 20 - Simulations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would suggest that the facilitators manage these sessions.
Early on the first day (or even the Sunday before) transmit a statement
indicating what information you'd like to have from participants -e.g.
software, references, answers to specific questions, etc.
The week is yours to handle in any way you deem appropriate.
Ignore my suggestions, if they seem inappropriate or you wish to do it
differently.
Don Rosenthal
ROSEN1@CLVM
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 09:34:07 CDT
From: William Halpern
Subject: Subscribing to CHEMED-L
I am enclosing information on subscribing to CHEMED-L@UWF.BITNET. CHEMED-L
and CHEMCONF are two excellent examples of the need for the Chemistry Education
community to communicate. The two lists complement each other, CHEMCONF for
its discussion of specific topics, and CHEMED-L for its treatment of general
concerns.
CHEMED-L@UWF CHEMISTRY EDUCATION
DISCUSSION LIST ON BITNET
A computer list has been established on BITNET for discussion of
current problems, ideas, and questions in Chemistry Education. If
you are a member of the list, you can submit notes through
INTERNET or BITNET which will be read by all other subscribers.
You will also receive all items sent to CHEMED-L by the others on
the list.
CHEMED-L is a great place to find out information about
experiments, teaching techniques, programs, and resources. The
list also will give you a forum in which to share your ideas on
the above topics.
To join CHEMED-L, send a note to LISTSERV@UWF.BITNET. The first
line should read:
SUBSCRIBE CHEMED-L
If your computer has the "TELL" command, send:
TELL LISTSERV@UWF SUBSCRIBE CHEMED-L
Please note that you must send the subscription to LISTSERV@UWF,
not CHEMED-L.
If you have any problems, let me know:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WILLIAM P. HALPERN BITNET:
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY INTERNET:
UNIVERSITY OF WEST FLORIDA PHONE:(904)433-3846
PENSACOLA, FL 32514
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 11:38:45 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: Moving Files
>As a matter of fact, I use (and like) Pine myself. It is
>a UNIX host-based system, accessed via vt100 terminal session,
>but it does have a built-in editor and several nice features.
>
>> Are these attachments "standardized" so that they could be
>> read by other e-mail software?
>
>Certainly text attachments can be read by other software.
>But if a Pine message with a binary attachment is received
>by a non-MIME-compliant mail program, it just lists
>the binary attachment as "BASE64" encoded text after the
>main body of the message. I have not yet learned what to do
>with this BASE64 encoded text.
Just a confirmation -- Rory Cory sent me a Pines attached document and
that's what I got and none of my utilities would make an sense of it --
diferent coding it looks like compared to Microsoft mail but if anyone is
Uising microsoft Mail they and the Pines people might well do a test with
each other.
>
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 12:28:06 -0400
Reply-To: "Mark E. Jensen"
From: "Mark E. Jensen"
Subject: Re: Moving Files
In-Reply-To: <9308201602.AA23070@umd5.umd.edu>
On Fri, 20 Aug 1993, Jack Martin Miller wrote:
>
> Just a confirmation -- Rory Cory sent me a Pines attached document and
> that's what I got and none of my utilities would make an sense of it --
> diferent coding it looks like compared to Microsoft mail but if anyone is
> Uising microsoft Mail they and the Pines people might well do a test with
> each other.
Hello,
Pine is "free" and available at an FTP site at the U of Washington. I
haven't installed it, but I imagine one would only need Unix at the mail
receiving site. If one had SLIP then it could be on the personal machine.
I have discovered that the MIME encoding is not uuencoding, but it seems
the Elm reader is capable of decoding Pine binary attachments, however, I
have been unable to "figure-out" how to send attachments with Elm. BTW
Pine means something like Pine Is Note Elm, reflective of Gnu's Gnu's Not
Unix (some consider Gnu the Leader of the Freebie World).
Sending ascii as attachments seems to simply "read-in" the file and is
convenient, Mime compatability doesn't seem necessary.
O'Reilly & Associates are publishers of a fairly extensive collection of
Internet/Unix books.
I just received an e-mail catalog by writing order@ora.com. However, if
you email me I will forward my copy.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 13:21:57 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: NuPop and Eudora
I've had several rrequests for information on where to get Eudora or NuPop
so here's the information in the clear rather than burried in the middle of
a discussion.
NUPop is available on various internet archive sites and can be downloaded
from the ftp site "ftp.acns.nwu.edu" in the /pub/nupop directory logging in
as anonymous.
Eudora is also available from from the popular internet sites and is also
at "ftp.qualcomm.com".
Both of these programs use the "attachment" or "enclosure" in order to move
formatted documents. They are compatible because both programs use binhex
to encode and decode the document(s).
Both programs are freeware.
jack
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 14:43:59 -0400
From: "Thomas C. O'Haver"
Subject: Re: NuPop and Eudora
In-Reply-To: <9308201818.AA03156@umd5.umd.edu>
Prof. Miller,
Can you tell us more about the host system requirements of
Eudora and NuPop? Do they work with UNIX hosts? Do they
need special host software, or do they use the standard
mail file like host-based mail readers such as Pine? What
about people whose accounts are on VMS or other non-UNIX
hosts? Can Eudora and NuPop connect with the host via
modem dial-up lines as well as over a LAN (e.g. Ethernet)?
Tom O'Haver
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 15:22:15 -0400
From: Jack Martin Miller
Subject: Re: NuPop and Eudora
In response to Tom's questions:
>Prof. Miller,
>Can you tell us more about the host system requirements of
>Eudora and NuPop? Do they work with UNIX hosts?
Yes --- we're using Silicon Graphic Challenge, 4D340s, Iris' and Indigos as
hosts.
Do they
>need special host software,
Sorry -- I may have given people a bum steer -- I thought they worked
directly with the standard UNIX mail stuff --- however on double checking
I'm told they need the POPER DAEMON -- poper 3 I think is the current one.
or do they use the standard
>mail file like host-based mail readers such as Pine? What
>about people whose accounts are on VMS or other non-UNIX
>hosts?
Some of our Computer Scientists maintain their e-mail acounts on a VMS VAX
-- I don't know if the use Eudora and NuPop directly or with a dot-forward
to the UNIX boxes. The VAX manager is back Monday -- I'll double check with
him along with any other hidden wrinkles I've not told you about -- I guess
I'm spoiled having a compentant system administrator in Computer science as
well a good relations with the user services people in the computer center.
I'llalso find out about non UNX and non VAX hosts and report back to
everyone.
Can Eudora and NuPop connect with the host via
>modem dial-up lines as well as over a LAN (e.g. Ethernet)?
I use my Mac Powerbook with modem all the time from home via Appletalk
Remote Access which gives me full Mac GUI access to our UNIX network, my
office Mac, on campus MacJanet networks, Internet and gopher etc via a
serial internet protocol which is also available in other Mac terminal
programs such as Versa-term pro. Itwas great -- I had to FAX a colleague in
Australia (not yet on e-mail) I Gophered to his University, looked up his
FAX number in their phonebook and then FAXED to Australia with the FAX
modem in the powerbook.
I checked with one of my technicians who uses a PC at home and says he uses
NuPop all the time -- it has serial capabilities built in.
Jack Martin Miller
Professor of Chemistry
ex-Chair, Computer Science
Brock University,
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1.
Phone (416) 688 5550, ext 3402
FAX (416) 682 9020
e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 20:04:59 -0400
From: HARRY PENCE
Subject: simulations
John Pojman says:
>Anyway, my concern is out of concern for cost, we neglect our real mission.
>This is not to say simulations can not play a role, but they should
>not replace experimentation.
My concern is that in some fields simlulations are, indeed, used in place
of experiments, because there is no way to perform the experiments. For
example, many of the large-scale pollution predictions (i.e. ozone depletion,
etc.) are based on simulations. The experts in the field may understand the
types of simplifications made in the simulation and what levels of uncertainty
this produces in the resulting predictions, but the public,
including many of our students, don't clearly see that the simulations
are not the same as experimental predictions.
I suggest that if our students learn to use simulations, especially in
cases where the simplifications cause significant errors in the predictions,
they would be better able to evaluate arguments based on simulations and more
likely to ask essential questions, such as, what are the simplifications
involved. In modern chemistry, understanding and using simulations effectively
may be just as important (sometimes even more so) than working with burets and
flasks in the lab.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| Harry E. Pence BITNET: PENCEHE@SNYONEVA |
| Professor of Chemistry PHONE: 607-436-3179 |
| SUNY Oneonta FAX: 607-436-2107 |
| Oneonta, NY 13820 |
____________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 10:42:06 EST
From: Robert Blakeley
Subject: Re: TOPIC PRIMARY FACILITATORS AND DISCUSSION OF TOPICS
>
>The discussion schedule is as follows:
Sounds great! I'd like to suggest that you start by reminding the less
network-literate among us how to post a letter to everybody as opposed to
emailing a specific person.
Robert L. Blakeley Tel 61-7 365 4612 Fax 61-7 365 4699
Department of Biochemistry email blakeley@biosci.uq.oz.au
University of Queensland
Brisbane, Queensland 4072 AUSTRALIA
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 11:06:02 EST
From: Robert Blakeley
Subject: Re: NuPop and Eudora
>Prof. Miller,
>Can you tell us more about the host system requirements of
>Eudora and NuPop? Do they work with UNIX hosts?
Eudora does. It works superbly on a Macintosh LC II.
>Can Eudora and NuPop connect with the host via
>modem dial-up lines as well as over a LAN (e.g. Ethernet)?
>
>Tom O'Haver
MacSLIP (Serial Line IP) is reported to be a boon to Powerbook owners,
because you can take Eudora home and use all your normal email address
files from home via modem. To quote the supplier "Instead of running a
single terminal emulator session over your serial port, MacSLIP allows you
to run simultaneous Telnet, FTP, News, Mail and other MacTCP based
applications" via modem.
Local professional computer jockeys make the following comments:
(1) It likes digital telephone networks, but will occasionally drop out
when used on noisy or very busy analog exchanges. Uninterrupted usage thus
far varies from 1.5 minutes to 1.5 hours or thereaboauts. (Other people
claim the same problems with single serial connections via modem using
Kermit.)
(2) The cost of MacSLIP's versatility is a roughly 3:l overhead in
terms of bandwidth (i.e., bits transmitted per second). It therefore will
seem much more satisfactory on a 9600 baude modem than on a slower one.
Questions and pricing are available from
info@hydepark.com
I have ordered one, but haven't yet tried it myself.
Robert L. Blakeley Tel 61-7 365 4612 Fax 61-7 365 4699
Department of Biochemistry email blakeley@biosci.uq.oz.au
University of Queensland
Brisbane, Queensland 4072 AUSTRALIA
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 06:42:00 EDT
From: to2
Subject: CHEMCONF '93 concluded
CHEMCONF '93 is now officially concluded. I thank you all for your
participation in this highly successful experiment.
The CHEMCONF listserv and FTP site will remain active for the purpose of
developing the special topic papers, as described by Don Rosenthal. Those
of you who wish to participate in the discussion of the special topic
papers may remain signed on to CHEMCONF.
Those of you who wish to sign off the list should send email to
LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU or LISTSERV@UMDD.BITNET containing the message
SIGNOFF CHEMCONF
Don't forget to send in your evaluations. If the evaluation form
we provided is too complex or detailed, then simply send me a short
message with your comments, observations, and suggestions for the
future. Your feedback is important.
After the 1994 meeting of the International Chemometrics Society,
the CHEMCONF system will be available for other on-line conferences.
Anyone who wished to organize a future conference should contact Don
Rosenthal or myself.
Have a great '93-'94 academic year.
Prof. Thomas C. O'Haver
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
to2@umail.umd.edu
(301) 405-1831
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 09:52:49 -0400
From: "Mark E. Jensen"
Subject: Re: NuPop and Eudora
In-Reply-To: <9308202033.AA02969@umd5.umd.edu>
Hello,
I left a message in the newsgroup comp.mail a while ago and got a message
from the author of Eudora, about a pc version; I think he is the author of
this program also. I never persued his information.
I am not a MacIntosh user but read a review of a book about
MacIntosh/Internet connectivity in the strongly personal computer oriented
Monday Washington Post Business section last week. Unfortunately I did not
save the section, but think subscribers here may appreciate being alerted
to the fact that such a volume exists.
I want to say it is from Vedanta Press but think the publisher is Ventura
something. It was very favorably reviewed.
-Mark
recent MS grad UMAB
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 10:12:17 -0500
From: "Alfred J. Lata"
Subject: A CHEMCONF Participant's Thanks
As CHEMCONF participant, and on behalf of all of us (forgive my presumption)
our sincere thanks to
Tom O'Haver for his organization and coordination
Don Rosenthal for his able assistance and encouragement
The Authors for their submissions, expertise, and time
All you conferees for your time, input, and responses
The University of Maryland for being our host
You all have made us pioneers: We salute you.
Alfred Lata
lata@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 09:28:35 MDT
From: Ransirimal Fernando
Subject: Re: A CHEMCONF Participant's Thanks
In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 21 Aug 1993 10:12:17 -0500 from
I like to join Dr. Lata in thanking CHEMCONF organizers.
As I found out earlier during the trial session, I was a "luker"
than an active participant.
At a time there is not enough money for many Grad Students to
attend conferences, this mode of conferencing will fill a
much needed gap.
Though it is not the same as listning to a speaker on a podium,
in a way an Email message read on a terminal has a more pronounced
personality(?). It is like reading a letter addressed to you, while the
talk at the conference may not be far from a TV newscast. This is
strictly a luker's point of view.
I like to stress the chance for Graduate Students, PDF's etc. to
talk with leaders of the pack at a one to one basis.
Overall I learned a lot. It has changed many of my preceptions
about teaching. Also it has generated an interest in me to pursue
a teaching career.
Thank You.
Angelo R. Fernando.
"One of the lurkers"
*************************************************************************
ANGELO RANSIRIMAL FERNANDO
DEPT. OF CHEMISTRY, UOFA, EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA. T6G 2G2.
|| ||
||===++>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> RSM <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<++===||
|| ||
*EVERY REACTION IS A CHAIN REACTION*
*************************************************************************
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 12:15:31 EDT
From: Jim Holler
Subject: Re: A CHEMCONF Participant's Thanks
In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 21 Aug 1993 09:28:35 MDT from
Congratulations and thanks to all persons connected with the conference. It
was definitely an experience at the cutting edge. It is breathtaking to think
of all we have to look forward to as the art and science of communication
improves exponentially. It has been a trip. Thanks again.
Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884
Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069
University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Lexington, KY 40506
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 12:33:33 -0400
From: "Frank W. Darrow"
Subject: Re: A CHEMCONF Participant's Thanks
I join Al Lata in saying thanks, thanks, thanks. This has been, and
continues to be, just plain super. I look forward to the ongoing
discusssion, and to future conferences. Colleagues around the world - wow!
----------
Frank W. Darrow, Chemistry Dept., Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY 14850
Darrow@Ithaca.BitNet (607) 274-3991
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 13:08:46 -0400
From: "Mark E. Jensen"
Subject: Eudora
Here is some info I found about PC Eudora.
In article , you wrote:
>
> Does anyone know anything about Eudora? I read there is a PC version. I
> have a pc, but downloaded a mac copy for a friend's mac, but got rid of it
PC Eudora is a Windows sockets compliant versino of Eudora that is
virtually identical to its Macintosh counterpart. For information on where
to obtain it, and how to set it up, ftp netcom1.netcom.com, get
/pub/mailcom/IBMTCP/ibmtcp.zip.
Bernard Aboba
Author of "Bulletin Boards and Beyond"
Internet: aboba@world.std.com FidoNet: 1:161/445
MailCom, 5337 College Ave., Suite 326, Oakland, CA 94618
Fax: (510)540-1057
---
As the above is nonprivate, noncontroversial, public information from an
author I am taking the liberty to upload it to this group without prior
permission. I apologize before hand if netiquette is breached.
-Mark
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 13:42:28 -0400
From: "Mark E. Jensen"
Subject: Mac Internet Tour Guide
Wash Post Business August 16, 1993
page 20
book/disk
The Mac Internet Tour Guide $27.95
Ventana Press
1-800-743-5369
(919) 942-0220
Sorry, I didn't post this earlier.
-Mark
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 14:59:59 EDT
From: "Frank M. Lanzafame"
Subject: Thanks -- an echo
Alfred Lata writes:
> As CHEMCONF participant, and on behalf of all of us (forgive my
> presumption) our sincere thanks to
> Tom O'Haver for his organization and coordination
> Don Rosenthal for his able assistance and encouragement
> The Authors for their submissions, expertise, and time
> All you conferees for your time, input, and responses
> The University of Maryland for being our host
Well stated and there is no presumption here. I very much appreciate
everyone's efforts and would like to echo Alfred Lata's comments. A
special thanks to Tom for all his help and patience. I don't know how
he has manage to do the organizing, contributing to the discussion, and
still cheerfully respond to the many requests for help.
It is interesting that even without the face to face contact of a
"site" conference or hearing a voice, I found myself being able to
identify a number of people by their writing before getting to the
signature. I do have the feeling I have "met" many of you and have
some new colleagues across the network. It has been thought provoking
and stimulating. Thank you all. I can't wait for the next one.
Regards,
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| Frank M. Lanzafame Department of Chemistry |
| Monroe Community College 1000 East Henrietta Rd. |
| Rochester, NY 14623 (716) 292-2000 Ext. 5130 |
| Internet: flanzafame@eckert.acadcomp.monroecc.edu |
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