========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Jun 1993 19:00:19 EDT From: "Frank M. Lanzafame" Subject: Computer-generated graphical problem sets for students The software accompanying Paper 6 is in place and available by anonymous FTP. Those interested in this area and in getting a chance to examine the program before the Conference may pick up a copy IF your system has anonymous FTP capability. FTP: info.umd.edu Path: info/Teaching/ChemConference/Paper6 For MS DOS users, PGEN10ZP.EXE is a BINARY self-extracting ZIPPED file containing a copy of Paper6, a compiled EXE version of the program as well as the QuickBasic ascii source code. Be sure to use the BINARY command before getting the file. Without setting the BINARY file transfer capability, the copy you receive will not function. You must also set binary file transfer protocols in transferring to your pc. For non-MS DOS users, there are also ASCII versions of the source code, but since the program runs under MS DOS or QuickBasic, it will probably be of limited use. ----------------------------------------------------------- | 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, 8 Jun 1993 20:31:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Schedule of Papers APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING CHEMISTRY An On-Line Computer Conference June 14 TO August 20, 1993 Sponsored by the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education's Committee on Computers in Chemical Education TECHNICAL PROGRAM 1. The Use of Computers in a Junior-Level Analytical Chemistry - Physical Chemistry Laboratory Course Donald Rosenthal, Department of Chemistry, Clarkson University, Potsdam NY 13699 (ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET) June 14 - Short questions June 21 through June 22 - Discussion 2. For LANS Sake: Suggestions for the Use of Networked Computers in Chemical Education B. James Hood, Dept. of Chemistry & Physics, Middle Tennessee State University; bjhood@knuth.mtsu.edu (INTERNET) or PrfJimHood (America Online) June 15 - Short questions June 23 through June 24 - Discussion 3. Visualizing Chemical Reactions John P. Ranck, Elizabethtown College, Department of Chemistry, Elizabethtown, PA 17022-2298; Internet: ranck@vax.etown.edu June 16 - Short questions June 25 through June 28 - Discussion 4. Cultural Differences Reflected by an Integrated Media Chemistry Course - An American/Israeli Perspective *Nava Ben-Zvi, **William S. Harwood, *Ahuva Leopold, **Lisa L. Ragsdale, *Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel 91904, **University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 (201226@UMDD.UMD.EDU) June 17 - Short questions June 29 through June 30 - Discussion 5. It's How You Play the Game: Design of an Electronic Assistant for Organic Qualitative Analysis Joyce C. Brockwell, Northwestern University, Department of Chemistry 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston IL 60208-3113 (jcb@nwu.edu) June 18 - Short questions July 1 through July 2 - Discussion 6. Individual Computer-Generated Graphical Problem Sets Frank M. Lanzafame, Monroe Community College, Chemistry Dept., 1000 East Henrietta Rd., Rochester, NY 14623Voice: Internet: FLANZAFAME@ECKERT.ACADCOMP.MONROECC.EDU July 5 - Short questions July 12 through July 13 - Discussion 7. Integrating Computers into the High School Chemistry Classroom William J.Sondgerath, Chemistry Teacher at Harrison High School West Lafayette, Indiana, (BSONDGER@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU) July 6 - Short questions July 14 through July 15 - Discussion 8. Using the Airwaves: A Satellite M. S. for Industrial Chemists Keith J.Schray, N.D. Heindel, J. E. Brown, and M. A. Kercsmar, Department of chemistry and office of distance education Lehigh University., Bethlehem, Pa, 18015 (kjs0@Lehigh.EDU) July 7 - Short questions July 16 through July 19 - Discussion 9. Staff Development is the Biggest Cost in Computing David W. Brooks, Center for Curriculum and Instruction, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0355. (dbrooks@unlinfo.unl.edu) July 8 - Short questions July 20 through July 21 - Discussion 10. Personal Computers in Teaching Physical Chemistry A.A.Kubasov, V.S.Lyutsarev, K.V.Ermakov, Chemical Faculty of Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Republic. (LASER@mch.chem.msu.su) July 9 - Short questions July 22 through July 23 - Discussion 11. Applications of Networked Computers and Electronic Mail in a Chemistry Course for Nonscience Students Carl H. Snyder, Chemistry Department, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124 (CSNYDER@umiami.ir.miami.edu), and James Shelley, Academic and Research Systems, Information Resources,University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124 (JSHELLEY@umiami.ir.miami.edu) July 26 - Short questions Aug. 2 through Aug. 3 - Discussion 12. The Computer Co-Op: Teaching Organic Chemistry on a Conference in an Interdisciplinary Macintosh Lab Carolyn Sweeney Judd, M.A. (cjudd@tenet.edu), Faculty, Chemistry, and Robert G. Ford, Ph.D., Faculty, English, Central College, Houston Community College System, 1300 Holman Houston TX 77004 July 27 - Short questions Aug. 4 through Aug. 5 - Discussion 13. Finite Difference Solution of the Diffusion Equation in a Spreadsheet Douglas A. Coe, Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology, Butte, MT 59701 (DACOE@MTVMS2.MTECH.EDU) July 28 - Short questions Aug. 6 through Aug. 9 - Discussion 14. CHEMULATE! A Simulator of UV/Vis Kinetics Experiments for the Macintosh Richard S. Moog, Franklin and Marshall College (R_Moog@acad.fandm.edu) July 29 - Short questions Aug. 10 through Aug. 11 - Discussion 15. Menu Driven Programming for Students and Teachers Reed Howald, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montana State University Bozeman, MT 59717 (uchrh%planet.dnet@terra.oscs.montana.edu) July 30 - Short questions Aug. 12 through Aug. 13 - Discussion General discussion: August 16 through 20 Evaluation: Aug. 20 Deadline for return of Evaluation Form to to2@UMAIL.UMD.EDU ----------------------------- You may obtain any or all of these papers either by e-mail or by anonymous FTP. To have papers sent to you by e-mail, send an e-mail message to listserv@umdd.umd.edu or to listserv@umdd.bitnet, in which the message body contains one or more of the following lines: GET PAPER1 TEXT GET PAPER2 TEXT GET PAPER3 TEXT and so on, for each paper you want, with each item listed on a separate line. Request only the papers you are interested in reading. Depending on the network load, the material will be mailed to you within a few minutes or hours. For Internet users, the papers can be obtained by Telnet or by anonymous FTP from: Host: info.umd.edu Path: info/Teaching/ChemConference Papers with associated figures or files are placed in separate sub- directories (e.g. Paper1). Files with a ".txt", ".hqx", or ".UUE" extension are ASCII text files that must be transferred in ASCII (text) mode. Files with a ".GIF" extension are graphics files (figures) that must be transferred in binary mode and viewed with a GIF viewer. For example, Paper1Figure1.GIF is Figure 1 of Paper 1. Files with other extensions (".ZIP", etc) are generally binary files that must be transferred in binary mode. MAKE SURE YOU SET THE MODE before you begin the transfer. (Binary files downloaded in text mode will not be usable). Refer to the author's paper for information on how to use the associated files. Papers 1-3, 5-9, and 12-15 are avaiable now. The other papers will be made available as soon as they are received from the authors. Short questions on Paper1 begines June 14. If you wish to contact the author of a paper before that time, please send the message to the author's personal e-mail address listed above, not to the CHEMCONF list address. Prof. Thomas C. O'Haver, CHEMCONF organizer Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Internet: to2@umail.umd.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 06:29:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Customized software ON-LINE TEXT AND GIF FILE VIEWER CUSTOMIZED FOR CHEMCONF PARTICIPANTS We now have special software that will allow some CHEMCONF participants to quickly and simply log onto the conference FTP site and to brouse through the papers and GIF figures WHILE ON-LINE, thus avoiding the complex multi-step process usually required to download, convert, and view the papers and figures. The software is pre-configured to log on to the CHEMCONF subdirectory on info.umd.edu, and it is set to recognize the figures (binary ".gif" files) and to display them automatically. Currently this software is available only for networked Macintosh systems with MacTCP. See info.umd.edu info/Teaching/ChemConference/Software/Macintosh/Fetch2.1.ReadMe for more information. Tom O'Haver CHEMCONF organizer to2@umail.umd.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 06:44:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Welcome to CHEMCONF '93! 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: WELCOME TO CHEMCONF '93 Date: Monday, June 14, 1993 On behalf of the ACS Division of Chemical Education's Committee on Computers in Chemical Education, we welcome you to CHEMCONF '93 and declare this conference officially open. There are currently 452 participants from 31 nations signed up for this conference. We hope you will all enjoy and actively participate in this historic experiment. The topic for today (Monday, June 14) is short questions on paper 1, "The Use of Computers in a Junior-Level Analytical Chemistry - Physical Chemistry Laboratory Course" by Donald Rosenthal. The schedule for the remainder of Session 1 is as follows. Session 1 (Papers 1 to 5) June 14 - Short questions on Paper 1 (Rosenthal) June 15 - Short questions on Paper 2 (Hood) June 16 - Short questions on Paper 3 (Ranck) June 17 - Short questions on Paper 4 (Ben-Zvi) June 18 - Short questions on Paper 5 (Brockwell) June 21 through June 22 - Discussion of paper 1 (Rosenthal) June 23 through June 24 - Discussion of paper 2 (Hood) June 25 through June 28 - Discussion of paper 3 (Ranck) June 29 through June 30 - Discussion of paper 4 (Ben-Zvi) July 1 through July 2 - Discussion of paper 5 (Brockwell) For Internet users, the conference files and software are available by telnet or by anonymous FTP from: Host: info.umd.edu Path: info/Teaching/ChemConference The text materials can also be obtained by e-mail. Send an e-mail message to LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU or LISTSERV@UMDD.BITNET in which the message body contains one or more of the following lines: GET SUMR93 TITLES GET SUMR93 SCHEDULE GET SUMR93 ABSTRACT GET CHEMCONF WELCOME GET PAPER1 TEXT GET PAPER2 TEXT etc. -------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 06:53:00 EDT From: to2 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: EVALUATION OF THE COMPUTER CONFERENCE Date: June 14, 1993 A conference evaluation form is appended. Please read it before the meeting. 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 what suggestions you may have for future meetings. Please fill out the form and return it AFTER the conference. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EVALUATION FORM FOR CHEMCONF '93 1. NAME ________________________________ DATE _________________________ 2. ADDRESS AT WORK _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ 3. TITLE AT WORK ______________________ (e.g. Professor, Teacher, etc.) 4. ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESS ________________ 5. DO YOU HAVE ACCESS TO INTERNET? _________ 6. COURSES YOU TEACH ___________________________________________________ 7. COMPUTER EXPERTISE ______ (1 to 5) 1 Beginner, 3 Average, 5 Expert 8. FACILITY USING ELECTRONIC MAIL ______ (On scale from 1 to 5) 9. Hardware used for e-mail ____________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ STATISTICS SESSION 1 ----------- PAPER NUMBER ----------- - 1 - - 2 - - 3 - - 4 - - 5 - 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) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SESSION 2 ----------- PAPER NUMBER ----------- - 6 - - 7 - - 8 - - 9 - - 10- 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) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. 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 chemical education. A Conference on Chemometrics is planned for October 1994. Please contact Tom O'Haver after August 20 if you are interested in organizing a conference. CHEMCONF and LISTSERV will be available for future use. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 09:18:00 EDT From: ROSEN1 Subject: SHORT QUESTION PERIOD COMPUTER CONFERENCE ON APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING CHEMISTRY JUNE 14 TO AUGUST 20, 1993 It is Monday, June 14 - This day is to be devoted to the sending of SHORT QUESTIONS ONLY regarding PAPER 1 (The Use of Computers in a Junior-level Analytical Chemistry - Physical Chemistry Laboratory Course by Donald Rosenthal). SHORT QUESTIONS may be directed to the author and/or participants via CHEMCONF. Another message will be sent to you at the end of the SHORT QUESTION period for this paper (Tuesday 8 AM Eastern Daylight Saving Time). There is to be no DISCUSSION of PAPER 1 at this time. DISCUSSION of PAPER 1 will begin on Monday, June 21. Additional information about the SHORT QUESTIONS period and the DISCUSSION period can be found in the INSTRUCTIONS FOR PARTICIPANTS. Excerpts are appended below. -------------------------------------------------------------------- INSTRUCTIONS FOR PARTICIPANTS (Updated 5/13/93) 1. SHORT QUESTIONS The first week of each session is reserved for the reading of the papers in that session and for sending SHORT QUESTIONS to the authors or other participants. A specific day is designated for SHORT QUESTIONS on each paper. For example, it is expected that Paper 1 will be read on or before June 14. In reading the paper you may have a short question for the author asking for more information or clarification of points raised in the paper. A SHORT QUESTION may be sent to the author of Paper 1 on June 14 via CHEMCONF. This will alert other participants as well as the author to the question. SHORT QUESTIONS may be sent to the other participants on the designated day. DISCUSSION of the paper WILL NOT START until at least a week after the designated time for SHORT QUESTIONS. This gives authors (and participants) at least a week to prepare answers to SHORT QUESTIONS To send comments or questions privately to the author of the paper only, send your message to the author's email address given in the paper. Reports of typographical errors, spelling and grammatical errors should be sent directly to the author, not to CHEMCONF. Only the authors can see these messages. You can send these messages at any time. 2. DISCUSSION A specific two days during the second and third weeks of each session is devoted to the discussion of each paper. Answers to SHORT QUESTIONS are to be sent at the beginning of the session. To send comments or questions about a particular conference paper to the entire conference, WAIT UNTIL THE DAYS DESIGNATED FOR DISCUSSION OF THAT PAPER, then mail your message to CHEMCONFmdd.umd.edu or CHEMCONFmdd.bitnet Please put the PAPER NUMBER IN THE SUBJECT LINE of the message (e.g. "Paper 1"), so that participants can more easily sort out conference discussions from other e-mail. Please remember that messages sent to CHEMCONF will be distributed to all CHEMCONF participants, adding to their e-mail burden. As a courtesy to other participants, please keep your messages concise, limit your discussion to the topic of the paper in question, and avoid irrelevant, redundant, and personal comments that are not of general interest. Comments about conference procedure should be directed to Tom O'Haver (to2@umail.umd.edu) or Don Rosenthal (rosen@CLVM.BITNET). APPENDIX 5: HELPFUL HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS a. One of the problems of an e-mail based conference is sorting out all the overlapping threads of conversation. When you are responding to or asking about a specific passage in a paper or message, a very helpful technique is to quote a small passage from that paper or message in your response and to place a ">" character at the beginning of each quoted line, e.g.: > We used the....so-and-so...in order to.... We tried that too, but we found that.... The ">" character in this example is an e-mail convention indicating that that line is quoted from another message. There is no need to re-type the quoted passage if you have saved it on the file system of your computer; just Copy and Paste the desired passage into your message, then type ">" characters in front of each line. Another helpful technique to refer to a previous message is to specify the time and date, e.g. 2-11-93 8:53 EST. Depending on the way that participants store messages, this may make it easier to find a particular message. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 09:14:22 -0700 From: Stephen Lower Subject: P1Ques: standardized computers The requirement that all students have a computer whose type is mandated by the University raises a few questions: 1) Do you feel that this policy (which undoubtedly played an important role in establishing Clarkson as a pioneer in getting microcomputers into the hands of students) still makes a significant difference in terms of how you make use of computers in your Chemistry courses? 2) I presume that the 1-Mb PS/2 is a minimum standard, intended to keep costs as low as possible. How do you deal with the eventual need to incorporate software into your curriculum that requires a more powerful system (with Windows capability, for example)? Do a significant number of students buy computers that extend beyond this minimum requirement? ---------- 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: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 13:04:00 EDT From: "Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694" Subject: Paper 1: Questions 1. Are all of the course experiments given in the paper or are those just the ones that make use of computers? 2. Does the course do anything with digital (or analog) methods for signal enhancement? 3. Does the course do anything with vacuum techniques? ( I know that doesn't have much to do with computers; I'm just curious.) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 14:59:30 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: P1Ques: standardized computers The problem with trying to standardize on any one computer/operating system is that until the software world provides truly "open" software, standardization limits one to the lowest common denominator. It the real world of the 90's, any system that doesn't support a GUI (graphical user interface) is counter productive. That leaves us with Windows, Mac OS, UNIX with some variant of X-windows, or X running on a Mac or PC. For chemical or any other technical computing, having students buy a text based DOS machine distorts the potentials for the real world use of computers. Non-standard/ non-interchangable graphics superimposed on DOS simply complicates the situation. I am trying to network a mixture of DOS/Windows PCs, Macs and Unix boxes so that the spectroscopic information obtained in our major instrumentation labs is available on faculty desc-tops, and in the student computer labs. This is non-trivial and we've really just started it. The only hope for the pure DOS-ites is to take text files into a spreadsheet or plotting program, but without WYSIWYG, the resulting reports look a mess. Those comfortable in a Mac, Windows or UNIX environment do so much better. Does low cost with everyone on a minimalist computer achieve better goals that having fewer computers shared, but able to do what is expected in the real world. Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 14 Jun 1993 14:06:00 CDT From: Ray Sommers Subject: Paper 1 re: V A 1 Fig. 8; Which set of data was used for the figure - or is it just a representative figure ? re: V A 1 Fig. 8: Was the raw data reentered by keyboard for the plot or was it manipulated from that originally collected? re V B; In the first line specifying p-cyanoacetophenone I am not familiar with the 2 E-3 M designation or the 1443-80-7. Could you explain? Thanks, |==================================================================| | | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ | | | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | | | / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ | | / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) | | (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ | |==================================================================| ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 16:45:00 EST From: "Arthur M. Halpern" Subject: paper 1 RE: Paper 1 Concerning the use of computers in the physical chemistry laboratory, do any of the experiments described involve the use of on-line data acquisition by the computer from an instrument? Also, do you deal with ADC methods/techniques in that part of the lab course? Arthur M. Halpern Department of Chemistry Indiana State University Terre Haute, Indiana ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 16:47:44 -0600 From: "Douglas A. Coe" Subject: Short Questions for Paper #1 1. Do you have a short course for "classical" quantitative analysis. If not, why not? How much "classical" quantitative analysis do students get in the first year? 2. In what courses, other than those you mentioned, do you teach the statistical treatment of data? 3. How does Clarkson manage to insure that each entering student is able to purchase a microcomputer? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 21:45:17 -0600 From: Gerald Morine Subject: Re: Paper 1 I have a few short questions related to Paper 1, which I incidentally thought was an excellent piece of work. 1. The author wrote that previously students were given instruction in BASIC and FORTRAN, and wrote data analysis programs, for example, on the kinetics experiment. Do you still require or even encourage students to learn these languages? Why or why not? 2. Other "Short Questioners" have asked about electronic signal enhancement and A/D conversion. I would like to broach the same subject in different terms. Specifically, are all the computer-data acquisition experiments hard-wired or commercial connections, or do students do any practical electronics in the course of running these experiments? 3. What are the safety precautions that are followed to make taking viscosities of concentrated sulfuric acid solutions, in the Nylon experiment, safe? Jerry Morine, Department of Chemistry, Bemidji State University, Bemidji, MN ghmo@vax1.bemidji.msus.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 08:46:28 -0400 From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster 1. Why recomend Thinnet rather than 10baseT based on future speed -- your suggestion of FDDI (100 MHz) on Thinnet coax when the IEEE is closer to accepting a twisted pair (10baseT) 100 MHz Ethernet standard than they are to FDDI on copper. ( I myself am responsible for a couple of thinnet and a couple of 10base10 ethernet LANs and a half dozen Appletalk LANs and we are phasing out the thinnet -- much less reliable than 10baseT and much harder to troubleshoot. In a star configuration, thinnet exceeds the conduit capacity of most already constructed buildings, whereas the twisted pairs for 10baseT already exist inmost offices and labs as part of the telephone cabling.) 2. 2. Why do you not mention Appletalk (Localtalk) via ethernet i.e. Ethertalk. You don't distinguish the Mac networks with peer to peer (System 7) networking from cohabitation with client server using The Apple server software, or as we do MacJanet ( 6 or 7 MacJanet nets on campus and more going in). Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 15 Jun 1993 08:59:24 -0400 From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster 1. Why recomend Thinnet rather than 10baseT based on future speed -- your suggestion of FDDI (100 MHz) on Thinnet coax when the IEEE is closer to accepting a twisted pair (10baseT) 100 MHz Ethernet standard than they are to FDDI on copper. ( I myself am responsible for a couple of thinnet and a couple of 10base10 ethernet LANs and a half dozen Appletalk LANs and we are phasing out the thinnet -- much less reliable than 10baseT and much harder to troubleshoot. In a star configuration, thinnet exceeds the conduit capacity of most already constructed buildings, whereas the twisted pairs for 10baseT already exist inmost offices and labs as part of the telephone cabling.) 2. 2. Why do you not mention Appletalk (Localtalk) via ethernet i.e. Ethertalk. You don't distinguish the Mac networks with peer to peer (System 7) networking from cohabitation with client server using The Apple server software, or as we do MacJanet ( 6 or 7 MacJanet nets on campus and more going in). I hope this hasn't gone out twice -- 1st attempt returned by postmaster, but it may have been to everyone since there was an error in originator address apparently. Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 15 Jun 1993 13:55:00 EDT Subject: Paper 2 - Short Questions To: B. James Hood Middle Tennessee State University bjhood@knuth.mtsu.edu PAPER 2 Short Questions 1. What sort of local area network are you using in chemistry at Middle Tennessee State Unbiversity? How many and what kind of microcomputers do you have on the network? 2. What do you and what do the students use the network for? What software is available on the network? Donald Rosenthal Box 5810 Department of Chemistry Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 16:24:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Paper 2 Can you explain why it was that separate proprietary LAN protocols needed to be developed in the first place, rather than basing everything on non-proprietary TCP/IP? After all, you need TCP/IP anyway to deal with the Internet, so why not use that for LAN services as well? That way you wouldn't have to mix protocols on one network (e.g. Novell + TCP/IP, or AppleTalk + TCP/IP). Tom O'Haver ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 06:50:14 -0500 From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd Subject: PAPER 3 Yes! Better visualization will surely lead to increased understanding. Can you give an estimate of the time needed to produce your movies? Carolyn S. Judd Central College, Houston Community College System 1300 Holman Houston, TX 77004 1-512-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 11:00:00 EDT Subject: PAPER 3 - SHORT QUESTION 1. How do you use the animation files - do you use them as demonstrations in lectures or do students have access to them outside of class? 2. How do students react to these animations? What sort of student evaluations have these materials received? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 12:35:31 -0400 From: Gary Hammer Subject: paper 3 How do you get the animated player to work. After some unzip problems, solved by Tom Haver, who suggested unz50p1.exe as the unzipper, I was able to unzip the .zip files. Now aniplay.exe---shown in paper 3 as aaplayhi.exe---gave me an error messasge which indicated it didn't like my video display and then dumped me to a blank screen which I assume is the player screen, eventually. The second time through I did not get the error message, but instead went to same blank screen. The function keys 1-9 served to change a number on the bottom of the screen from 0 - 48. There was never any chance to change any parameters or the configuration. Any suggestions. Gary Hammer ghammer@powhatan.cc.cnu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 01:38:30 EDT From: CHARLIE ABRAMS Subject: Paper 3 Short Questions 1. Do you have a graph of the potential energy vs. frame number? Even better would be an energy surface with O-C and C-Br distances as the X and Y axis respectively. 2. Can you provide more information on exactly what parameters were used for the calculation? (ie. what level of sophistication, etc.) 3. How much faith do you have in these calculations? Is it safe to assume that the *qualitative* behavior is independent of the level of sophistication? 4. Can you generate shaded *surfaces* with HyperChem? Was this avoided because of computational expense, or memory expense, or both? (By surface I mean CPK type image). 5. I've had trouble getting the display to behave properly on one monitor. The program did not give me the 640x480 driver option when I used a DEC "PC7XV" monitor (with a DEC 433dxLP computer), and would only display 'oversized bits'. Are other drivers available? Thanks! Charles B. Abrams McGill University (514) 398-6224 cx7q@musica.mcgill.ca ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 06:53:49 -0500 From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd Subject: help I am confused! Yesterday I received confirmation that my question had been received by you, but I never re-received the question as I would have expected. Was the question sent out to all conference members except the member who wrote the question? Thank you, Carolyn S. Judd ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 06:56:24 -0500 From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd Subject: Paper 4 I love The World of Chemistry videos! My students love them also. Could you give more detail about the student projects involving their own video productions. Was there an exact assignment? How long were the videos. Did the institution furnish the equipment? How did the class presentation go? Were there more student questions following a student presentation than the presentations from The World of Chemistry? Thank you. Carolyn S. Judd Central College, Houston Community College System 1300 Holman Houston, TX 77004 1-713-665-7463 cjudd@tenet.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 08:29:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 4 - Short Question PAPER 4 - Short Question 1. Six references are listed at the end of your paper. The videotapes are cited. What about the other references? Were any of these used in the courses you discussed? Was the laboratory manual used? What sort of experiments are in the laboratory manual? Donald Rosenthal Box 5810 Department of Chemistry Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 10:25:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Re: Paper 4 - Short Question In-Reply-To: <9306171235.AA15636@umd5.umd.edu> 1. Specifically what societal, economic, and political differences between Israeli and American chemistry students have a bearing on the video-based course experiment? 2. Do you find important differences between the television viewing habits of Israeli and American students? 3. Are there differences between the extent to which Israeli and American students are exposed to video production technology at the secondary level? Tom O'Haver ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 10:20:19 -0400 From: Mary Swift Subject: Paper05 Brockwell Questions: 1. What mechanism will be employed to prevent the students from using the computer program to guide their analysis of the unknowns? That is access the program for the questions to be answered and then go and do the appro- priate experiments to obtain these answers? 2. For the pre-med students (75% of the class), what is the major objective - development to critical thinking skills or development of manual dexterity? If it is critical thinking, how many wet labs are absolutely necessary to permit the students to get an aceptable level of manual dexterity? 3. How many of the pre-med students obtain admission to medical school? 4. While one must acknowledge the goals of the student would it not be better to emphasize that there are many careers, including medicine, that require the use of problem solving skills? Mary L. Swift ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 09:30:01 -0600 From: "Douglas A. Coe" Subject: Short questions for Paper 5 Short questions for Paper 5: 1. How many institutions require a qualitative organic course in one or more of their majors? (a question to all particpants) 2. How many participants have written homegrown programs to ease the grading of homework or laboratories in large classes? I did this in a physical chemistry course where enrollment has varied from 50 to 150 students and where, typically, 200 problems are assigned. The program has been tremendously useful in this course, but required a year of intensive effort to write. I'm not sure I would do it again. (again a question to all participants) Doug Coe Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 13:26:56 EDT From: Alan Stolzenberg Subject: Questions on paper 5 Questions on "It's How You Play the Game: Design of an Electronic . . ." 1. Some schools that do qual organic analysis use mixtures of compounds. Do you have any thoughts about how the program could be changed to make pro- vision for this? 2. I wonder whether the interactive approach with the computer program will encourage students to perform tests that their current results and their logic should tell them are unnecessary? In other words, will the pro- gram encourage them to not to think about their approach and instead conform to a strategy that is implicitly spelled out by the series of questions that they confront? 3. What type of computer system do you envision running the program on? How will you prevent a student from hacking and taking over the system? The danger is not only of students finding out the answers but also changing other students' scores. Whether or not this is easy, if students think that it is possible you might start getting complaints that the session and results went differently than your records show. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 15:13:44 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Short questions for Paper 5 >Short questions for Paper 5: > >1. How many institutions require a qualitative organic course in one or > more of their majors? (a question to all particpants) Not as separate courses, but integral to our integrated year II labs, (org, inorg, phys, analyt integrated in a pair of one semester courses) > >2. How many participants have written homegrown programs to ease the > grading of homework or laboratories in large classes? I did this > in a physical chemistry course where enrollment has varied from 50 > to 150 students and where, typically, 200 problems are assigned. The > program has been tremendously useful in this course, but required a > year of intensive effort to write. I'm not sure I would do it again. > (again a question to all participants) > > Doug Coe > Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 21 Jun 1993 07:56:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 1 - Answers to Short Questions PAPER 1 - ANSWERS TO SHORT QUESTIONS Lines with > contain questions Answers are on lines containing * From: Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET Date: June 21, 1993 ===================================================================== > Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 09:14:22 -0700 > From: Stephen Lower > Subject: P1Ques: standardized computers > The requirement that all students have a computer whose type > is mandated by the University raises a few questions: --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION A > 1) Do you feel that this policy (which undoubtedly played an important > role in establishing Clarkson as a pioneer in getting microcomputers > into the hands of students) still makes a significant difference in > terms of how you make use of computers in your Chemistry courses? * Each student at Clarkson has an IBM PS/2 in his (or her) room and is * supplied with MS DOS, Word Perfect and a spreadsheet (Lotus-1,2,3 * or Quattro Pro). As a freshman the student has taken an introductory * computer course which familiarizes him (or her) with the software. * Word processing has been used in a one year freshman english course * (Great Ideas) and throughout the curriculum. Under these * circumstances I had no missgivings about requiring every student to * use word processing or a spreadsheet to prepare experimental * reports. I did not have to worry about students having to stand in * line or sign up for a time slot in a terminal room somewhere on * campus. Students have access to personal computers (PS/2 or Zenith * 248) in the chemistry laboratories, the Science Center terminal rooms, * near the library and elsewhere on campus. In the junior level * Instrumental Laboratory course which I described I opted to make all * additional software students needed in preparing laboratory reports * available. All this software could be used on the student's personal * computer. (However, see Question B.) --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION B > 2) I presume that the 1-Mb PS/2 is a minimum standard, intended to > keep costs as low as possible. How do you deal with the eventual > need to incorporate software into your curriculum that requires > a more powerful system (with Windows capability, for example)? > Do a significant number of students buy computers that extend > beyond this minimum requirement? * The PS/2 is adequate for word processing, spreadsheet and many other * applications. Each year (or every few years) the University * reassesses its computer needs and the personal computer has been * updated. Next year the PS/2 will have a 25 megaherz SX 386 * microprocessor, 2 megs of memory and an 80 meg hard disk. MS DOS 5 * will be the operating system. The monitor is monochromatic. * Some students have added additional memory or a modem to the * PS/2. With a modem and terminal emulation software students can dial * up and access the University-wide network. Very very few students * buy additional computers. * Each student receives an instructional access code which provides * access to electronic mail, file transfer and printing services as well * as access to an IBM RS/6000 POWERServer 550 with 256 Megabytes * of memory and a total of more than 65 Gigabytes of disk storage. * In the Science Center where the Department of Chemistry is located * there are two terminal rooms containing a total of thirty IBM RS/6000 * color workstations. There are two Science Center terminal rooms * containing a total of forty-eight IBM and compatible PCs which are * network-connected. In addition, there are about a half dozen * network-connected PCs in each of the dormitories, and RS/6000 and PCs * in half a dozen terminal rooms elsewhere on campus. * The Network contains a software distribution system which contains * software developed by faculty for courses, by the Educational * Resources Center staff, software obtained free and software for which * Clarkson has a site license. This software can be down loaded to * disk and used on the student PCs. This software is classified into * the following categories - Communications Software, Computation * Software, Data Base and Data Base Tools, Editors and Editing Tools, * Graphics/Plotting Programs and Tools, Miscellaneous Utilities, PC TeX, * Programming Languages, Software for Courses, and Freshman Software * Distribution. The programs mentioned in Section IV-A-5 of my paper * were available in the Software for Courses category. * The student PS/2s take much of the burden off the Network and * mainframe computers. Access to the network and mainframes presents * no problems for the 2600 undergraduate, 270 graduate students and 200 * faculty members at Clarkson. Professor Lower mentions that the * Clarkson PS/2s are not adequate to accommodate all software. If * software is needed which will not run on the student PS/2, it may be * available via the Network and/or may be run on an IBM RS/6000. * I decided for my laboratory course that I would not REQUIRE the use * of any software that would not run on the student stand-alone PS/2 * computer. The organic chemistry course at Clarkson * uses software which will not run on the Clarkson PS/2. There is * molecular modelling software developed at Clarkson under the * supervision of Dr. Richard Partch which will run on the PS/2. Dr. * Yuzhuo Li has used PC Model and HyperChem for Windows with his * students. PC Model was used on the IBM RS/6000. He is planning to * have undergraduate organic students use SPARTAN on the RS/6000 next * year. * There is a considerable amount of software to which students have * access on the Network. This includes languages like FORTRAN, * Pascal, C, C++, ADA, MODULA-2, COBOL, PL/I, LISP and PROLOG. Also, * many applications packages are available, e.g. Archie, Framemaker, * Gaussian 90, Gnuplot, Gopher, GraPHIGS/GKS, Grolier's Encyclopedia, * IMSL, InfoExplorer, ITPACK, LAPACK, Maple, MATLAB, MOTECC, NCAR graphics, * Nexpert, Nomad2, ORACLE, SAS, SLATEC, Tekplot. ==================================================================== > Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 13:04:00 EDT > From: "Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694" --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION C > 1. Are all of the course experiments given in the paper or are those > just the ones that make use of computers? * These are all the experiments each student performed in 1991. * From year to year experiments may change. Many of these experiments * have been used for a number of years. --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION D > 2. Does the course do anything with digital (or analog) methods for > signal enhancement? * No --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION E > 3. Does the course do anything with vacuum techniques? ( I know that > doesn't have much to do with computers; I'm just curious.) * The Vapor Pressure of Water experiment (Section VI-A-12, See Section * VII Reference 7, p. 223 to 226) uses a vacuum pump and manometer. * Vacuum distillations are performed in the organic chemistry * laboratory course. * Do any of you have an experiment or experiments using vacuum * techniques? If so, what sort of experiments do you perform? ===================================================================== > Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 14:59:30 -0400 > From: Jack Martin Miller > Subject: Re: P1Ques: standardized computers --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION F > Does low cost with everyone on a minimalist computer achieve better > goals than having fewer computers shared, but able to do what is > expected in the real world? * I believe that every student having his own computer AND access to * a network which provides more sophisticated hardware and software, * local electronic mail plus access to BITNET and INTERNET provides * access to the real world. I believe this is a good solution to * the problem of maximizing the return obtained with limited financial * resources. I realize * there are people at Clarkson and elsewhere who do not agree with me. * Most schools have not required that each student acquire a computer. * (See my answers to Questions A and B) ====================================================================== > Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 14:06:00 CDT > From: Ray Sommers --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION G > re: V A 1 Fig. 8; Which set of data was used for the figure - or is > it just a representative figure ? * All data and figures were not taken from the same report. * Figures 1 to 5 were taken from a student's 1989 report. * The data in Figure 6 were taken from an earlier laboratory report. * At one time chromatograms were obtained on the Aerograph as well * as the Sigma 2000. * The isothermal data for Figure 8 and Figure 8 were taken from a 1991 * report. The retention times (in seconds) were 55.8 for heptane, * 80.4 for octane, 124.2 for nonane, 202.2 for decane and 342.6 for * undecane, 61.2 for 4-methyl-2-pentanone and 73.2 for cyclopentanone. * The plot (and least squares fit) was made in part to test the * linearity of a ln(retention time) vs number of carbons plot. * The Kovats indices obtained from the plot will be somewhat different * from what is calculated using data for heptane and octane as is * usually done. --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION H > re: V A 1 Fig. 8: Was the raw data reentered by keyboard for the plot > or was it manipulated from that originally collected? * The data was obtained from the Sigma 2000 (in a form like Figure 4). * This student elected to convert minutes to seconds. * The data was manually entered into the least squares program and * then used in the plot program. * Incidentally, someone has indicated that the legends for Figures * 1 to 4 presented in Section IX of my paper do not correspond to * the legends in the Figures. Originally, I had planned to present * the data before the curves. Then I decided it would be better to * present the elution curves first. I never made this change in * Section IX. I'm sorry about that. --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION I > re V B; In the first line specifying p-cyanoacetophenone I am not > familiar with the 2 E-3 M designation or the 1443-80-7. > Could you explain? * 2 E-3 M is 0.002 Molar * 1443-80-7 is the Chemical Abstracts Registry Number for this compound ===================================================================== > From: "Arthur M. Halpern" --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION J > Concerning the use of computers in the physical chemistry laboratory, > do any of the experiments described involve the use of on-line data > acquisition by the computer from an instrument? * The Gas Chromatography Experiment (IV-B-1) and Infrared Gas Spectrum * Experiment (VI-A-7), and ultraviolet and infrared spectra obtained * in the Controlled Potential Electrolysis Experiment (IV-B-5) involve * the use of instruments controlled by computers (Data Stations). * The liquid scintillation counter and gamma ray spectrometer contain * programmable microprocessors. * Most of our spectroscopy equipment is computer controlled. --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION K > Also, do you deal with ADC methods/techniques in that part of > the lab course? * No ===================================================================== > Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 16:47:44 -0600 > From: "Douglas A. Coe" --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION L > 1. Do you have a short course for "classical" quantitative > analysis? If not, why not? How much "classical" quantitative > analysis do students get in the first year? * Clarkson does not offer a separate course in "classical" * quantitative analysis. Volumetric and gravimetric techniques * are taught in the freshmen laboratory course and at the beginning * of the sophomore spectroscopy course. Acid-base titrations using * an indicator and pH meter are performed. Oxidation-reduction * titrations are performed. A gravimetric chloride determination * is usually performed. I believe that many schools in recent * years have opted to include gravimetric and volumetric analysis * in freshman laboratory. --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION M > 2. In what courses, other than those you mentioned, do you teach > the statistical treatment of data? * Some statistics and numerical methods are taught in the freshman * general chemistry laboratory course and in the computer course. * These methods are used in the sophomore spectroscopy course. * Just how much is taught depends upon the instructor. * We have sometimes taught an elective senior level - graduate * course entitled "The Analysis Of Experimental Data". Some * students elect to take statistical methods and numerical methods * courses in the math department. --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION N > 3. How does Clarkson manage to insure that each entering student > is able to purchase a microcomputer? * All students pay a $ 300 deposit when they first receive the * computer. The remainder of the money for the computer comes * from tuition. Once they graduate the computer is theirs to keep. * If the student elects not to keep the computer $ 200 is returned. ===================================================================== > Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 21:45:17 -0600 > From: Gerald Morine QUESTION O > 1. The author wrote that previously students were given instruction in > BASIC and FORTRAN, and wrote data analysis programs, for example, on the > kinetics experiment. Do you still require or even encourage students to > learn these languages? Why or why not? * I taught BASIC and FORTRAN to students at a time when the Department * of Chemistry had a PDP8 and there was not a lot of applications * software readily available. FORTRAN was taught using an IBM mainframe. * When students had personal computers they took an introductory course * in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science in which they * learned PASCAL. A few years later the course consisted largely of * applications software and some FORTRAN. During the 1992-1993 our * students were taught Word Perfect and Lotus-1,2,3. * Also, students familiarized themselves with the features of the * Clarkson Computing Network. Opinion within the Department is divided * regarding the content of the introductory computing course. Our * theoretical chemists would like students to learn FORTRAN, other * members of the Department would like them to become familiar with * specific applications software. Next year for the first time * students will have the option of taking one of three introductory * computer courses - a course taught by the Department of Mathematics * and Computer Science, the School of Engineering or the School of * Management. These three courses are quite different in their content. * I believe every chemistry major should be able to program in a * general purpose high level programming language like PASCAL, FORTRAN * or BASIC. (The high school AP course features PASCAL.) Students * should be able to routinely use word processing and a spreadsheet. * I believe these are essential tools for practicing chemists. * Students need to write programs and/or use spreadsheets to perform * calculations. * WHAT DOES EVERY UNDERGRADUATE CHEMISTRY MAJOR NEED TO KNOW ABOUT * COMPUTERS AND COMPUTING? The ACS Division of Computers in Chemistry * and the ACS Division of Chemical Education's Committee on Computers * in Chemical Education are co-sponsoring symposium sessions at the * 1994 fall ACS meeting in Washington to address this and related * questions. Dr. Angelo Rossi (IBM T J Watson Research Center, P.O. * Box 218, Yorktown Heights NY 10598, Phone: 213-456-4401, e-mail: * ROSSI@WATSON.IBM.COM) and Dr. Kenneth W. Loach (Department of * Chemistry, SUNY College, Plattsburgh NY 12901, Phone: 518-564-4116, * e-mail: LOACHKW@SNYPLAVA.BITNET) are organizing the sessions. * WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION? ***************** * Should every undergraduate chemistry major know how to program in * a higher level language? - What about C? - What about molecular * modelling? - word processing - spreadsheets - numerical methods - * statistical methods - other applications software, INTERNET, * computer architecture, interfacing and computer electronics, * the use of computer interfaced equipment and associated software? * WHAT SHOULD EVERY GRADUATE STUDENT KNOW? ************************** --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION P > 2. Other "Short Questioners" have asked about electronic signal > enhancement and A/D conversion. I would like to broach the same > subject in different terms. Specifically, are all the computer-data > acquisition experiments hard-wired or commercial connections, or do > students do any practical electronics in the course of running these > experiments? * All computer data acquisition experiments currently being performed * involve the use of commercially interfaced instruments. * The Second Order Kinetics experiment (Section VI-A-10) uses * a Wheatstone bridge, conductance cell, decade capacitance * box, electronic oscillator and oscilloscope. Students have to * connect the components, use the equipment and draw a circuit diagram * for the final report. For the Controlled Potential Electrolysis * experiment (Section V-B) the apparatus has to be assembled - the * potentiostat has to be connected to the electrolysis cell, and the * standard resistor and digital millivolt meter and knive switch must * be connected to the circuit. * This is a required course for all chemistry majors. All topics * can not be included. I have chosen not to emphasize electronics * or interfacing in the laboratory course. These topics are not * emphasized in the required first semester junior yeat lecture * course. We have sometimes offered elective courses covering these * topics. There are courses in electrical engineering and physics * covering these topics which some of our students elect. * DO MANY OF YOU INCLUDE MUCH ELECTRONICS OR INTERFACING IN REQUIRED * UNDERGRADUATE COURSES? ******************************************** --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION Q > 3. What are the safety precautions that are followed to make taking > viscosities of concentrated sulfuric acid solutions, in the Nylon > experiment, safe? * Each student is required to wear safety glasses and a laboratory * apron and is not permitted to pipet by mouth. We emphasize safety. * There are Safety Regulations which students are required to read * and then to sign a statement indicating they have read the regulations * and agree to abide by them. * We have a Departmental Safety Committee. A monthly Inspection * Committee is appointed and makes two unannounced inspections each * month of research and instructional laboratories and the chemistry * storerrom. This Inspection Committee consists of an undergraduate, * a graduate student and a faculty member. They turn in an inspection * report. The Safety Committee reviews these reports and takes * appropriate action. ===================================================================== ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 10:05:42 CDT From: "Harmon B. Abrahamson" Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network Subject: Paper 1, Re: Answer to short Question E In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 21 Jun 1993 07:56:00 EDT from , In his reply to short questions on paper 1, Donald Rosenthal writes: > QUESTION E ... > * Do any of you have an experiment or experiments using vacuum > * techniques? If so, what sort of experiments do you perform? To my knowledge, we at Univ. of North Dakota do not use vacuum techniques in our Junior-level P. Chem. lab. We DO, however, use them in our Senior-level Advanced Synthesis Lab, where we do vapor pressure and molecular mass measurements, along with synthetic chemistry in the vacuum line. This course is taken by chem. majors wanting an ACS-approved degree (typically about one-quarter of our majors). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Harmon B. Abrahamson | BITNET: UD108726@NDSUVM1 Department of Chemistry | INTERNET: UD108726@VM1.NoDak.EDU University of North Dakota | PHONE: (701) 777-2641 PO BOX 9024 | FAX: (701) 777-2331 Grand Forks, ND 58202-9024 |************************************ | What's nu? E/h of course! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 13:56:12 -0400 From: "Mr. Science" Subject: Re: Paper 1, Re: Answer to short Question E "Number One, engage text-extractor beam... NOW!!" "Aye, Captain!!" BBBZZZFFFTTT!!! "Captain, previous message locked into extractor beam. Begin reply?" "Mr. Riker... Make it so!" > > * Do any of you have an experiment or experiments using vacuum > * techniques? If so, what sort of experiments do you perform? > Here at georgetown, our senior year labs involve several experiments that utilize one form or another of vacuum technique. The senior year is when we schedule our Physical Chemistry & Advanced Chemistry Lab courses. The experiments we do with some form of vacuum techniques are as follows: Simple use of vacuum pumps: 1. Velocity of sound in a gas via FFT analysis in a Kundt's tube. 2. Critical Point apparatus for gases. Vacuum-line: 1. Synthesis of Hydrogen and deuterium Halides for spectroscopic analysis. 2. Synthesis of Various Inorganic compounds. Students are, of course, supervised during an initial run, and then given some latitude to run the equipment on their own, but with supervisory personnel (graduate student T.A.'s or faculty) present in the room, keeping a watchful (yet somewhat-distance) eye on what is going on - this gives the students a chance to develop style, skill and confidence without feeling like they need babysitters nor getting used to coddling - something the Department feels very strongly about. We use some very elementary vaccum lines - nothing fancy or complicated. Additional information is available (via email or hardcopy) upon request. regards, Tony ;> Date this awe-inspiring message was sent: 21-JUN-1993 13:47:55 *-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-* | 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: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 13:55:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Some Questions QUESTIONS - QUESTIONS ----------------------------------------------------------------- VIII. SOME QUESTIONS I would be interested in learning what other participants are doing at their colleges and universities. Perhaps some of you would respond to one or more of the following: 1. How are instrumental analysis and physical chemistry laboratory taught at your school? 2. Briefly describe one or more experiments which you consider to be particularly effective. 3. Describe how computers and computer software are used in these courses. Is the use of specific software optional or required? 4. What do you consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of your courses? --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION E * Do any of you have an experiment or experiments using vacuum * techniques? If so, what sort of experiments do you perform? --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION O * WHAT DOES EVERY UNDERGRADUATE CHEMISTRY MAJOR NEED TO KNOW ABOUT * COMPUTERS AND COMPUTING? The ACS Division of Computers in Chemistry * and the ACS Division of Chemical Education's Committee on Computers * in Chemical Education are co-sponsoring symposium sessions at the * 1994 fall ACS meeting in Washington to address this and related * questions. Dr. Angelo Rossi (IBM T J Watson Research Center, P.O. * Box 218, Yorktown Heights NY 10598, Phone: 213-456-4401, e-mail: * ROSSI@WATSON.IBM.COM) and Dr. Kenneth W. Loach (Department of * Chemistry, SUNY College, Plattsburgh NY 12901, Phone: 518-564-4116, * e-mail: LOACHKW@SNYPLAVA.BITNET) are organizing the sessions. * WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION? ***************** * Should every undergraduate chemistry major know how to program in * a higher level language? - What about C? - What about molecular * modelling? - word processing - spreadsheets - numerical methods - * statistical methods - other applications software, INTERNET, * computer architecture, interfacing and computer electronics, * the use of computer interfaced equipment and associated software? * WHAT SHOULD EVERY GRADUATE STUDENT KNOW? ************************** --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTION P * DO MANY OF YOU INCLUDE MUCH ELECTRONICS OR INTERFACING IN REQUIRED * UNDERGRADUATE COURSES? ******************************************** --------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 14:50:00 EDT From: "Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694" Subject: Paper 1 My earlier questions about vacuum experiments and sigital/analog signal processing had to do with questions we are asking here about the goals of the physical chemistry laboratory course. Certainly the course should serve to illustrate principles taught in the lecture and should introduce students to the acquisition and treatment of quantitative data and our course (which seems very similar to the Clarkson course except we don't use computers nearly as much) certainly does these things. Our advanced synthetic course (organic/inorganic) has as a major goal to teach students a number of important basic lab techniques that are commonly used by many synthetic chemists. Physical chemistry lab courses don't do as much of that. Among the important and widely-used techniques used by physical chemists I would certainly include high vacuum (i.e. the production and measurement of vacuums down to the microtorr range) and some of the basic digital and analog techniques of signal processing/enhancement (e.g. lock-in amplifiers, digital filtering). Our course includes a mass spectrometer experiment (magnetic sector) which uses an ion pump to get to pressures of about 10 microtorr; we don't say much about the vacuum techniques used, however. We do nothing right now with signal processing. Judging from what we find in our graduate students we are not alone in neglecting this aspect of p. chem lab. I would be interested to learn what other schools do and think about this and what other techniques should be included in a basic list. this conference you might want to address replies to me (lpg@psuvm.psu.edu). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 14:17:00 EST From: "Arthur M. Halpern" Subject: Re: Paper 1 In reply to the question that Don Rosenthal posed about other applications of computer-assisted physical chemistry experiments, I would like to offer the following information: At Indiana State University, we use, in addition to the spectroscopy experiments (e.g. using the FTIR spectrometer in the classic HCl (DCl) experiment) several others that are on-line, and which use considerable post-acquisition computer-based analysis. In the physical chemistry laboratory, we use the scientific and statistical program, RS1 (BBN Software, Cambridge, Mass.) for all phases of data analysis and presentation. RS1 is an extremely powerful package that has the particular advantage of being able to fit experimental data, whether entered into a table manually or through a file from a disk, to any arbitrary one-dimensional function (the FITFUNCTION routine). Thus the data needn't be in simple polynomial or exponential form. Also, in RS1, students can write procedures (language similar to FORTRAN), compile them, and run them to operate on, fit, display, etc. their data. Exploratory calculations can also be simply done using RS1 procedures. Thus RS1 combines the basic organizational and graphical assets of a spreadsheet such as EXCEL, and the graphing, exploring capability of MATHCAD into one very flexible system. The down side of RS1 is that, being an 'industrial strength' package, its expensive (about $400 after edu. discount); also it is much more esoteric than the consumer-oriented LOTUS, EXCEL, QUATTRO, MATHCAD, etc. Yet I find that the students pick up the RS1 command language fairly easily. We bought four licenses, and have then installed on four systems of our small departmental cluster (of 7 486's). Also, RS1 generates high quality (publication quality) plots on the HP 7440 (or whatever HP). A few experiments that we use for data acquisition are: 1. thermal analysis - constructing the phase diagram of the naphthalene-biphenyl system. We use an inexpensive conditioning transducer (Temperature to Analog Converter) from Omega to send the T(t) data into a bottom-of-the-line Metrabyte ADC, which is in an old Zenith 8088. The data files are then read into RS1, where a derivative procedure converts them into the first derivative, which is plotted vs. T. In this way the positions of the depressed melting points and eutectic transitions are much more easily identified. Students get very good data for this system. Cooling and heating curves are usually used in tandem. 2. collision diameters from gas viscosities - here, the output from an inexpensive pressure transducer (Omega), which monitors the pressure of an gas-handling manifold and 1-liter ballast as the gas is evacuated through a capillary, is fed into the Metrabyte ADC. The files are read into RS1 and then analyzed in terms of 1/P = 1/Po + kt, where k is determined from the known viscosity of air. The above equation follows from the integration of the Poiseuille equation assuming perfect gas behavior. Very good data are obtained IF the pressure of the gas does not exceed a point above which nonlaminar flow results (this can be estimated from the Reynolds number - I have the students do a simple calculation to estimate this point - for Ar, it is about 100 torr) and IF the pressure doesn't get too low where bulk flow gives over to molecular flow - this point the students can estimate from a comparison of the mean free path vis-a-vis the diameter of the capillary tube. 3. chemical kinetics - the product formed in a mixed second order is followed spectrometrically - again using an old 8088 baby sitting for an ADC. The data are fed into RS1, and a derivative procedure allows the students to analyze the kinetics using the differential rate law. In this form, d[P](t)/dt = k{[A]o - [P](t)}^a {[B]o - [P](t)}^b , the students FIRST confirm that a = b = 1 by using the FITFUNCTION routene in RS1, and then using a = b = 1 find k. Of course, they know [A]o and [B]o, as well as the extinction coefficient for the product from a separate experiment. Measuring k(T), and thereby Ea, is an extension that some students can follow. Using RS1 allows the study of the complex kinetics of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction to be followed in real time and analyzed using nonlinear methods. The 'burst' of product, formed in the classic hydrolysis of an ester by alpha-chymotrypsin, is readily seen in real time acquisition and analyzed according to P(t) = At + B{1 - exp(-bt)}. Some of these experiments are completely described in a p chem textbook that I write several years ago (Experimental Physical Chemistry: A Laboratory Textbook Scott,Foresman/Little,Brown, 1988). If you'd like further information, please contact me. BITNET: CHAMH@INDSVAX1 VOICE: (812) 237-2182 FAX: (812) 237-2232 Arthur M. Halpern Department of Chemistry Indiana State University Terre Haute, IN 47809 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 15:26:50 EDT From: "C. H. Lochmuller" Subject: Re: Some Questions In-Reply-To: <9306211908.AA20356@umd5.umd.edu>; from "Donald Rosenthal" at Jun 21, 93 1:55 pm Duke University P. Chem is distinct from Analytical and we do not teach an Instrumental Analysis Course per se. Our analytical course is post-P. Chem. The experiments are illustrative of modern thought in analytical chemistry and not a redindant series of external/internal calibrations. One can run into the problem that experiments are viewed as either step change response or the first derivative }peaks} if "instrumental analysis" is the emphasis {we believe}. Our students use modern instruments to obtain data for analysis. All our instruments are capapble of transferring the experimental data structures to a course dedicated VAX. The students then use MATLAB in a UNIX-like environment to work up their data, get results, do graphical and numerical analysis and prepare a report. All via ethernet campus-wide. Actually the course VAX is an end-node on Internet and we do have students logging in from thousands of miles remote over holidays finishing their latest lab report. All dorm rooms here have two independent fiber drops and two workstations. All Internet as well as DukeLAN connected. Depending on the experiment, our Analytical students do: Rank Annihilation, Single Value Decomposition Factor Analysis, Target Factor Prediction, ANOVA, Non-Linear LSQ Modeling and Pattern Recognition. The experiments include use of: AA, DAD UV, FLuorescence, STM, Fully-automated HPLC, Voltammetry, Neutron Activation, GCMS. There are no interfacing experiments in our course sequences. All our experiemnts are "interfaced" and all data is in digital format. C. H. Lochmueller ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 15:52:14 +22306404 From: "Dr. John A. Pojman" Subject: Pchem at USM At the University of Southern Mississippi, the pchem lab has had little computer interfacing. Apple IIe computers with HRM software and hardware were used. We are purchasing Macintosh IIvx with Strawberry Tree A/D boards to study the BZ oscillating reaction. (Data can be downloaded to a Mac or DOS disk. Students will do phase plane analysis -- something that can't be done with a strip chart recorder). Our Instrumental ANalysis course does not explicity address interfacing. -- John A. Pojman, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (601) 266-5035 FAX: (601) 266-5829 INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:01:29 -0400 From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster Does anyone else do as Clarkson does and builds the cost oc a computer into fees? The cost is written off over four years of fees or in the first year? My earlier questions and comments re "Real World Use" Questions B and F are based on our findings that the graphical aspects of data analysis, chemical models, molecular modeling software etc. are among the most important aspects of Chemical Computing. In a DOS only environment without a GUI, it doesn't mater how sophisticated the network programs are, you are still in a comand line interface mode and not a true WYSIWYG environment so essential to not just modern chemisry, but to computing in general. If not why is Windows a runnaway best seller on top of DOS today and why are DOS applications declining in sales wrt their Windows analogues. Those of us on the Mac side of the fencehave been saying why for 10 years. Compelling studnets into a DOS only environment seems to me to have the same relevence to modern Chemputing as would BASIC programming courses! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:09:10 -0400 From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster In my opinion all the listed topics are important but somethinghas to give, and iff so the higher level programing language couldwell be dropped. So much is done in packages and their macros, een ab initio theoreticalcalculation use Gaussian or related programs. Only theoreticians or someone designing new computer controlled hardware really have the programming need. I can program but havn't had to except for a bit of code clean up in 10 years. That doesn't prevent me from being hired as a consultant on major instrumentation projects. Compputer "architecture" per se is not needed, but interfacing and associated software is a very useful topic -- again on a package basis -- I've helped design electronic interfaces, and teach it on a qualitative basis in my advanced instrumentation course in year 4 (a course in applied sales resistance -- I turn my students loose on the instrument vendors). Detaisl of architectorue neednot me taught -- a bit of cpu on chip architecture can be inclded for the hardware gurus, but it needn't be dwelled on. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:12:29 -0400 From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster We have vacuum system experiments in P. Chem. (spectroscopy labs) the HCL isotope expt combined with FTIR, in inorganic synthesis labs, in instrumetal analysis as part of mass spec, and as part of my advanced instrumentation course, and in some detail in grad. mass spec. courses. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 01:14:00 CDT From: Ray Sommers Subject: Paper 1 UW Stevens Point has 15 faculty in Chem and about 10 majors/year. PC's are available in 4 student labs as well as about 15 in in the chemistry labs etc. Our analytical and pchem courses are separate. I am not familiar with the pchem course. Our instrumental analysis course does not do any interfacing. I teach an analytical course for chemistry minors. This is the second analytical course they take. In a kinetic experiment we interface to a Novaspec 2 spectrophotometer via the RS-232 port. A short program in BASIC allows us to collect absorbance vs. time. We follow the fading of crystal violet in NaOH. It is pseudo first order because the NaOH concentration is relatively high. Three runs are made with known NaOH concs. and then with an unknown conc NaOH. The data is stored in a file and then analyzed either with a locally developed plot program or a spreadsheet. Last year I gave each person a copy of the shareware spreadsheet ASEASYAS and we used that for the analysis in this experiment as well in other experiments. This experiment was formerly done with a TRS-80 and an A/D converter. |==================================================================| | | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ | | | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | | | / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ | | / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) | | (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ | |==================================================================| ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 06:43:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Paper 1 discussion My feeling is that it is not practical to make courses on electronics, interfacing, and computer programming a REQUIREMENT for ALL chemistry majors, many of whom want to be physicians or dentists, not scientists. Even most scientists treat these aspects as "black box". Here at U. of Maryland I have taught for many years separate upper-level undergraduate ELECTIVE courses on those subjects. These turn out to be quite popular with graduate students, who appreciate more than the typical undergraduate the utility of such ancillary topics for their research. The experiments emphasize group projects in which student teams design, construct, program, and test simple computer-automated measurement systems from basic parts (ADCs, op. amps, stepper motors, monochromators, etc.), apply digital signal enhancement algorithms, explore aspects of computer graphics, networking, and data exchange between platforms. Tom O'Haver U. of Maryland ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:45:11 -0400 From: Tom Richardson Subject: paper1 The Citadel is (again) exploring the possibility and feasability of "having a PC/MAC in every bunk" Among the problems that the committee has identified are the power load (on older "dormatory" facilities). As far as financing goes, by making it a part of the fee structure, this part of college expense will be eligible for the student loan process (as well as it works!) Tom Richardson Assoc Prof Chemistry Department DICKSONT@CITADEL.BITNET Charleston SC 29409 .edu also works ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 09:18:27 EDT From: "Frank M. Lanzafame" Subject: Gooey Computing > In a DOS only environment without a GUI, it doesn't mater how > sophisticated the network programs are, you are still in a command > line interface mode and not a true WYSIWYG environment so essential > to not just modern chemistry, but to computing in general. I run ChiWriter as a true WYSIWYG word processor. It has an excellent handling of multi level expressions with growing WYSIWYG structures that expand as you build equations and formulae. It runs under DOS. > If not why is Windows a runnaway best seller on top of DOS today and > why are DOS applications declining in sales wrt their Windows > analogues. There is no accounting for taste or naivete (mine). I have purchased Procomm for Windows, Quattro Pro for Windows, and Mathcad for Windows. I prefer and still use the DOS versions of these programs; particularly Procomm. Starting from a command line does not mean that the program necessarily runs from a command line. If the Lord had intended that we use mice, she would not have given us fingers with which to type. > Compelling studnets into a DOS only environment seems to me to have > the same relevence to modern Chemputing as would BASIC programming > courses! Gee, I feel like one of the scenic attractions in Jurassic Park. I think that some of the "modern", structured, compiled versions of BASIC such as QuickBasic are not terribly different from "in" languages such as C. Perhaps I should teach my BASIC problem solving course in the History Department. :-) ----------------------------------------------------------- | 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, 22 Jun 1993 08:40:55 +22306404 From: "Dr. John A. Pojman" Subject: What Undergraduates need to Know Regarding what every undergraduate chemistry major should know about computers and programming: What must not forget that we are educating chemists -- not programmers. Students should be familiar with programming in a higher language such as FORTRAN or C. I prefer FORTRAN because of the vast libraries of routines available. Maybe C is "better" but I can't say myself. Even if Esperonto is more logical than English, not teaching English would be a mistake for anyone who wants to communicate in the scientific world. We want our students to use computers for what they are good at: Manipulation of large amout of data. Therefore, knowledge of data analysis and fitting programs like Kaleidagraph are emphasized along with word processing. Students have choice of DOS based packages or Mac ones. THey want in line for the Mac ones. I encourage them to learn as many packages as possible, to familiar with DOS even if it is a pain to use, in order to be flexible in later employment/grad school situations later. Regarding numerical analysis: Knowing a great deal about methods is not chemistry. However, anyone using numerical techniques should be aware of the limitations of computers, even if they could not write the program themselves. THat's what professional programmers are paid to do. -- John A. Pojman, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (601) 266-5035 FAX: (601) 266-5829 INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 09:44:44 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Paper 1 discussion >My feeling is that it is not practical to make courses on >electronics, interfacing, and computer programming a REQUIREMENT >for ALL chemistry majors, many of whom want to be physicians or >dentists, not scientists. Even most scientists treat these aspects >as "black box". Here at U. of Maryland I have taught >for many years separate upper-level undergraduate ELECTIVE courses >on those subjects. These turn out to be quite popular with >graduate students, who appreciate more than the typical undergraduate >the utility of such ancillary topics for their research. The >experiments emphasize group projects in which student teams design, >construct, program, and test simple computer-automated measurement >systems from basic parts (ADCs, op. amps, stepper motors, >monochromators, etc.), apply digital signal enhancement algorithms, >explore aspects of computer graphics, networking, and data exchange >between platforms. > I agree. We strongly recommend a Physics taught electronics course and a computer science course in either packages or a higher level language, C or Fortran. I also teach the instrumentation course I described last night in fourth year and an interpretive spectroscopy (IR, NMR, MS, UV etc) in third year. Listserv at UMDD doesn't like me -- I'm the undetermined origin three messages that went out this morning. Sometimes it takes them and sometimes it rejects them from the same e-mail package -- the only Listserv I have trouble with. Prof. Jack M. Miller, Dept. of Chemistry, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ont. L2S 3A1, Canada jmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 22 Jun 1993 10:10:45 EDT From: "C. H. Lochmuller" Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know In-Reply-To: <9306221359.AA05918@umd5.umd.edu>; from "Dr. John A. Pojman" at Jun 22, 93 8:40 am > What must not forget that we are educating chemists -- not programmers. > Students should be familiar with programming in a higher language such > as FORTRAN or C. I prefer FORTRAN because of the vast libraries of routines > line for the Mac ones. I encourage them to learn as many packages as > possible, to familiar with DOS even if it is a pain to use, in order to > be flexible in later employment/grad school situations later. > John A. Pojman, Ph.D. said: I find no inconvenience in using Windows environment for any of the tasks mentioned. As for Fortran, there are few chemical applications written in recent times and commercially available that are FORTRAN-based. The fact is that our Freshman do Allinger-type calculations as stereochem homework including simulated 3D presentaion but need not write a line of code. If students are standing in line for MAC use and MAC application, it is because the DOS environment they are confronted with is on a par with Fortran IIc. There are few wordprocessing advantages in a MAC environment that are not matched or bettered in a Windows application. And the cost per student is less { i486 engines are under $1K now}. Numerical analysis can be presented much the way IR, NMR, and MS are by the organic faculty - a tool whose physics is important but not a problem in routine application. Even helping student understanding is only a question of leading them through an eigenanalysis using computer projection and eigen movies in class. CHL ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 10:22:55 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know >Regarding what every undergraduate chemistry major should know about >computers and programming: > >What must not forget that we are educating chemists -- not programmers. >Students should be familiar with programming in a higher language such >as FORTRAN or C. I prefer FORTRAN because of the vast libraries of routines >available. Maybe C is "better" but I can't say myself. Even if >Esperonto is more logical than English, not teaching English would be >a mistake for anyone who wants to communicate in the scientific world. > If by "familiar" you mean a reading knowledge, to get some idea what the program does, fine, but to get familiar you can either take the same course the programers do or have a couple of lectures to give you theprinciples, and take a self instruction book. Whith two one hour lectures in Fortran I've written large programs, been a consultant to instrument vendors etc. -- i.e. self taught. Its a question of what you do with it afterward. In most cases the vendors do not give you access to source code so knowing the language won't help you debug their programs. As you say below --datsa manipulation and using packages are the key. >We want our students to use computers for what they are good at: Manipulation >of large amout of data. Therefore, knowledge of data analysis and fitting >programs like Kaleidagraph are emphasized along with word processing. >Students have choice of DOS based packages or Mac ones. THey want in >line for the Mac ones. I encourage them to learn as many packages as >possible, to familiar with DOS even if it is a pain to use, in order to >be flexible in later employment/grad school situations later. > >Regarding numerical analysis: Knowing a great deal about methods is not >chemistry. However, anyone using numerical techniques should be aware >of the limitations of computers, even if they could not write the program >themselves. THat's what professional programmers are paid to do. > > >-- > >John A. Pojman, Ph.D. >Assistant Professor >Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry >(601) 266-5035 >FAX: (601) 266-5829 >INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu >or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 22 Jun 1993 08:22:04 EST From: Caesar Senoff Subject: Re: Paper 1 In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 22 Jun 1993 01:14:00 CDT from Could you provide some more information about the "shareware spreadsheet ASEASYAS"? Caesar Senoff Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, CANADA, N1G 2W1 Chmsenof@vm.UoGuelph.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 17:17:35 RSA From: Leslie Glasser <009LGZS@WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA> Subject: Re: Paper 1 In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:22:04 EST from ASEASYAS is an excellent spreadsheet for general use. The graphics, particular ly, is easily accessible from within the sheet; the program is fast; it is reas onably economical of memory (but only of standard memory); it is largely compat ible with 1-2-3. It does lack some sophisticated functions, but it is excellen t value for money, at $50. Available from Trius, Inc., PO Box 249, N. Andover , MA 01845-1639. Tel: 508-794-9377 FAX: 508-688-6312. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (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, 22 Jun 1993 17:25:26 RSA From: Leslie Glasser <009LGZS@WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA> Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 22 Jun 1993 10:10:45 EDT from With regard to wordprocessing for students (or anyone!), it is hard to beat LaT ex together with the windowing environment, TEXSHELL.Both are available free, i n an excellent DOS implementation (emTeX) and it is does the best imaginable jo b of layout, especially of mathematics. It is a bit of a pain to set up, but there is no more training required than fo r, say, WordPerfect. It is not WYSIWIG, but almost transparently obvious in it s layout. LG ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (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: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:50:33 -0600 From: "Douglas A. Coe" Subject: Paper #1 - Computer Course for Chem Majors We are beginning a discussion centered on offering a computer course (really a series of two credit sequenced lecture/laboratory courses at the sophomore, junior, and senior levels) for chemistry majors. While computer courses are available through the computer science department, their emphasis and examples are not really what we would like our majors to be exposed to. WHAT OTHER INSTITUTIONS OFFER COMPUTER COURSES FOR THEIR MAJORS? WHAT DO YOU DO IN THESE COURSES? HOW ARE THEY STRUCTURED? The topics we are considering include DOS, WINDOWS, wordprocessing, spreadsheets, databases, drawing programs, curve fitting programs, statistical software, on-line searching, numerical methods, advanced math programs (e.g. MAPLE), programming languages, e-mail, the Internet, molecular modeling, and chemcial speciation programs. ANY COMMENTS CONCERNING THE APPROPRIATENESS (OR LACK THEREOF) OF THESE TOPICS WOULD BE APPRECIATED. Doug Coe Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology dacoe%mtvms2.mtech.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 12:40:49 EDT From: Jim Holler Subject: Re: Gooey Computing In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 22 Jun 1993 09:18:27 EDT from The Windows version of Mathcad is far superior to the DOS version--mice notwithstanding. 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, 22 Jun 1993 12:42:05 EDT From: Jim Holler Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:40:55 +22306404 from We are rapidly approaching a time when knowledge of FORTRAN will be unnecessary. With all of the user-friendly tools available to perform a wide variety of tasks including those that are included in the libraries that you mention, it's difficult to justify the time spent on teaching FORTRAN. On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 08:40:55 +22306404 Dr. John A. Pojman said: >Regarding what every undergraduate chemistry major should know about >computers and programming: > >What must not forget that we are educating chemists -- not programmers. >Students should be familiar with programming in a higher language such >as FORTRAN or C. I prefer FORTRAN because of the vast libraries of routines >available. Maybe C is "better" but I can't say myself. Even if >Esperonto is more logical than English, not teaching English would be >a mistake for anyone who wants to communicate in the scientific world. > >We want our students to use computers for what they are good at: Manipulation >of large amout of data. Therefore, knowledge of data analysis and fitting >programs like Kaleidagraph are emphasized along with word processing. >Students have choice of DOS based packages or Mac ones. THey want in >line for the Mac ones. I encourage them to learn as many packages as >possible, to familiar with DOS even if it is a pain to use, in order to >be flexible in later employment/grad school situations later. > >Regarding numerical analysis: Knowing a great deal about methods is not >chemistry. However, anyone using numerical techniques should be aware >of the limitations of computers, even if they could not write the program >themselves. THat's what professional programmers are paid to do. > > >-- > >John A. Pojman, Ph.D. >Assistant Professor >Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry >(601) 266-5035 >FAX: (601) 266-5829 >INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu >or: pojman@wave.st.usm.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, 22 Jun 1993 18:17:00 +0000 From: Karl Oberholser Subject: Re: Nature of Courses The computer course tha our majors take has an emphasis on learning how to use different software packages with an introduction to programing. These packages are then used throughout the chemistry curriculum. In the instrumental lab the focus is on learning how an instrument works but in the context of solving a real world problem, at least a much as possible. Many of our instruments have commercial interfaces with computers. To give the students some insight as to what is happening in that interface we have interfaced a DB spectrometer with a computer using Labtech Notebook as the software. This software permits the manipulation of the data in a number of different ways so that the students can study the different ways of software enhancement of the S/N. Doing this experiment opens the students' eyes as to what is taking place in the commercial instruments. The use of word processors and spreadsheets are required in the preparation of the lab reports. Students in the biochemistry lab analyze their kinetic data using a program developed using the RS1 software package. This program calculates the constants using two different linear methods and the fitfunction rountine, which is available in RS1, to analyze the hyperbolic curve. The program does an error analysis of the three methods. The students are asked to compare and discuss the results of the three methods. There are a large number of non- majors in the course, and that is why the focus is on the comparison of the results and not on the details of the data analysis. ....................................................................... Item Subject: Signature Karl M. Oberholser Internet: oberhols@mcis.messiah.edu Natural Science Dept. Voice: 717-766-2511 Messiah College Fax: 717-691-6002 Grantham, PA 17027 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 13:40:15 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know Prof Glasser wrote: >With regard to wordprocessing for students (or anyone!), it is hard to beat LaT >ex together with the windowing environment, TEXSHELL.Both are available free, i >n an excellent DOS implementation (emTeX) and it is does the best imaginable jo >b of layout, especially of mathematics. >It is a bit of a pain to set up, but there is no more training required than fo >r, say, WordPerfect. It is not WYSIWIG, but almost transparently obvious in it >s layout. >LG And a horse and bugy will still get you from a to b. TEX and its variants was a great mainframe tex setting system for complex equations for those familiar with FORTRAN, but to use it in this day and age is to frighten students from the true potential of word processors that include their graphics, equations, tables etc. If a student is writing on the word processor, whh they should be doing, the ability to see what you wrote is all important. Try visualizing your page from the formulaic TEX jargon. Don't use it just because it is free or cheap. It may not be worth it and it may train students in the wrong direction. WYSIWYG is available, it is not expensive whether Word for WIndows or Wordperfect with academic discounts. We should be teaching for the next generation, not the past. We should be using, not what we were comfortable with as students, (FORTRAN II -- that dates me, and TITAN autocode), not what has been around for years, but we should be preparing students for the 21st century. CHEMCONF is supposed, I thought, to be about thenew technologies in teaching chemistry, but I hear a lot of defense of outmoded hardware and software. Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 22 Jun 1993 13:54:32 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Paper #1 - Computer Course for Chem Majors > We are beginning a discussion centered on offering a computer course >(really a series of two credit sequenced lecture/laboratory courses at the >sophomore, junior, and senior levels) for chemistry majors. While computer >courses are available through the computer science department, their >emphasis and examples are not really what we would like our majors to be >exposed to. As a chemist returning to full time in chemistry after three years as chair of our computer science department I could suggest that youmight get your computer scientists to put on a course directed at chemists or scientists other that computer scientists. Half our COSC enrolement is in such survice courses for the University. COSC does a FORTRAn course for Physics and Chemisstry students. There are also service courses that introduce packages, word processing, spreadsheets, databases, stats packages and networking. We have three one semester courses as a sequence. Well prepared students from high school can enter the middle one, those with no background the lower, and take one, two or three courses. WHAT OTHER INSTITUTIONS OFFER COMPUTER COURSES FOR THEIR >MAJORS? WHAT DO YOU DO IN THESE COURSES? HOW ARE THEY STRUCTURED? > > The topics we are considering include DOS, WINDOWS, >wordprocessing, spreadsheets, databases, drawing programs, curve fitting >programs, statistical software, on-line searching, All this is offered by our COSC service courses numerical methods, >advanced math programs (e.g. MAPLE), these are in our Math courses -- all calculus courses use MAPLE >programming languages, e-mail, the >Internet, In cosc courses, thouugh various lab modules may involve internet usage as well as library tools for essays >molecular modeling, a chemistry course in forth year and part of others and chemcial speciation programs. ANY >COMMENTS CONCERNING THE APPROPRIATENESS (OR LACK THEREOF) OF THESE TOPICS >WOULD BE APPRECIATED. > Don't reinvent the wheel unless you can't get anyone else to do it on your campus. Chemists should teach chemical computing, leaving the mechanical basics toothers -- what may be a legit COSC credit looks funny on a transcript labelled "Chemistry". They are tools that every chemist needs, but shouldn't be chemistry courses on the most part. Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 22 Jun 1993 13:37:02 +22306404 From: "Dr. John A. Pojman" Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know In-Reply-To: <9306221711.AA20395@umd5.umd.edu> from "Jim Holler" at Jun 22, 93 12:42:05 pm I would have to agree with Jim Holler when he says: > > We are rapidly approaching a time when knowledge of FORTRAN will be > unnecessary. With all of the user-friendly tools available to perform > a wide variety of tasks including those that are included in the libraries > that you mention, it's difficult to justify the time spent on teaching > FORTRAN. I would like students to have a better understanding of the problems of computations, such as roundoff error. We were using a subroutine from Numerical Recipes to calculate the slope of a line and the standard deviation of the slope. The answers we obtained for the standard deviation were dependent on what platform we used, i.e., a Mactran compiled FORTRAN code gave a different answer then the same code compiled on a IBM RISC/6000 workstation. A Hypercard implementation agreed with the RISC results so we concluded that Mactran compiler was not carrying the calculations with enough precision. I don't think you need to be an ace programmer to appreciate the limitations of any software, but wonder if the average programming course addresses this issue enough? -- John A. Pojman, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (601) 266-5035 FAX: (601) 266-5829 INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:19:18 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Gooey Computing >The Windows version of Mathcad is far superior to the DOS version--mice >notwithstanding. > Hear, hear!! For the rodentphobes, any decent program has keyboard alternatives to manipulation of rodents, so rodophobia is no excuse not to make use of a GUI with WYSISYG capabilities. Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 22 Jun 1993 15:26:04 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know Jim Holler siad >We are rapidly approaching a time when knowledge of FORTRAN will be >unnecessary. With all of the user-friendly tools available to perform >a wide variety of tasks including those that are included in the libraries >that you mention, it's difficult to justify the time spent on teaching >FORTRAN. I agree 100%. How many of theparticipants have access to the Fortran code of the packages they use (most are likely in C anyway). I know what I have to go through in signing non-disclosure agreements etc. to get access to source code of my mass spec and nmr programs on my large instruments. In one case I won a copy of the source code by betting on what bad programming practice had been used in it which I detected from the performance without ever having seen a line of the code. If you plan to become a theoretician writng new algorithms then you need to become a good programmer. Almost all the types of programming refered to in these discussions caould just as well be done, or perhaps better done with Excel macros in a spreadsheet. Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 22 Jun 1993 14:21:00 CDT From: Ray Sommers Subject: Paper 1 - ASEASYAS ASEASYAS is also available as shareware from just about any shareware source. Last year I used version 4.0 since it fit on one 360 K floppy. The latest version is 5.5 with lots of new features. Generally the files are compatable with Lotus 123 and Quatro (&Quatro Pro). Quatro Pro is available to our students on our network but since many have their own computers at home they appreciate their own copy of ASEASYAS. ASEASYAS is also available to them via our library's CDROM with the PCSIG collection of shareware (over 2000 disks of stuff). |==================================================================| | | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ | | | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | | | / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ | | / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) | | (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ | |==================================================================| ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 14:37:19 -0500 Reply-To: Ted Labuza From: Ted Labuza Subject: Student Computer requirements I have prepared the following memo to the faculty in my department based on the discuss on paper #1 and other thoughts. We are an applied science department, food science, which uses many aspects of chemistry, biochemistry, physics, chemical engineering etc. I myself have been using computers since my undergraduate days at MIT in 1958 and have gone through many conversions. Is the world around us moving faster than we can keep up and with the financial crises occuring at most institutions will this electronic revolution grind to a halt or should it be the way to go to educate if the cost can be shown to be minimal. You may share the comments with your own faculty and I would appreciate any additions, corrections, other useful software or other examples. At both the graduate and undergraduate level we want our students to be knowledgeable and able to handle work in a computer environment. They will certainly be exposed to required to do that when they leave here. I have been tracking the first computerchem conference on a listserve on email. It certainly illustrates why math/calculus is the key to scientific language? What I have come to as a conclusion is that students by the time they graduate should: 1. Know how to handle at least three environments eg DOS, AMAC, OS2, Widows, UNIX etc 2. Know the rudiments of programmining, this teaches logic and illustrate how computer interfaces work on instruments; for example on a densitometer, HPLC or GC the insturument measures signal over noise as a function of time (or distance), stores the data in an array and then derivatizes the signal-time function and measures when ds/dt = 0 to get the start, maxima (ie retention time or retention distance) and end point. It also intergrates the signal-time (distance curve) to give area and multiplies by a constant (supplied by the user) to get the total concentration. Do students understand this, do theyt know how to write a program to do this? I think that they should be able to do it. Mac users should also be exposed to the rudiments of the scripting language in Hypercard. There are many programs available that use this and they can increase their productivity by making such stacks for their own analysis of data. This is what has been done for all the problem sets in FScN 5555 and 8312. 3. Given 2 above, the same thing can be learned in a spread sheet. Spreadsheets are higher order languages using math and english notation to do the same thing. Once they learn to do spreadsheets they have a much better way to handle their own data. They should learn at least Excell or Lotus. 4. Many of they blindly use both linear and non-linear regression packages without understanding them. Again simple techniques need to be understood in programming so they see why it works? For example why do most non-linear packages use the derivative method, ie the proposed equation is differentiated for each constant and then the method finds when a change in one constants causes a minimum change in all other consatants for all values of Y as a function of X. As noted by J. Pojman on the computerchem conference in regards to numericall analysis" Knowing a great deal about the methods is not chemistry. However anyone using numerical analysis should be aware of the limitations of computers, even if they could not write the programs themselves. That's what professional progranmmers are paid to do". How many of us complain about the number of significant figures handed in on problem sets, thats at least one complaint we did not have back in the days of the slide rule. There are many good packages for non-linear regression today including Sigmaplot (both Mac and IBM) and Excell as well as the new Mac and IBM versions of JMP which is a PC based SAS. They should be able to use this. This would then get them exposed to using the PC for statistical data analysis. I presume that they do this in stats classes, ie use the PC although some places it is still done on the mainframe in a dinosaur like fashion unless they use a network to transfer in the data. 5. They also should learn one or two graphics packages and feel comfortable in making pie charts, bar graphs with error bars, and scatterplots with confidence limits. They should also be able to understand the meaning of the constants when the graphics package runs a polynomial or exponentila regrassion of the data for plotting. This can be learned in many packages such as Sigmaplot and the Spreadsheets but also in Deltagraph, Kaleaida graph, Cricket Graph, Plot It etc. 6. They should learn some drawing program. Many are available such a Canvas, McDraw etc. This insures that they can handle illustrations and download Clipart into their drawings for exporting to a printer or to a word processing document. 7. They should have competency in using a visual aids graphics program in color, ie a slide and overhead making program. This will be essential to insure they have excellent communications skills. One of the best is PowerPoint but even newer ones are coming on the market that will incorporate run time movies and sound. 8. They must learn how to use e-mail and use a network system by logging onto the internet and use the resources like Archie, Veronica and Jughead to find and retrieve information. The minimum should be experience with something like Fetch, Gopher or Telenet. They should learn how to access peripherals on a network and transfer data. 9. They should know how to use a word processor inconjuction with an equation editor and possibly a chemical drawing program. Of the latter, there are many different ones available such as Mathcad, Chemwindows, Mathtype, Chemintosh etc. For the word processing I prefer Word for both the IBM and Mac environments since they can easily transfer formatted documents between them. The major questions any department must need to adress to implement this is whether: 1. we should be teaching this ourselves or should the "XXX" department do it? If us, do we create a regular course. Who will teach it? If service (education) is our goal, shouldn't we be implementing this now? Can we hire someone outside to do this? Why not have a yearly seminar course (ie freshman, sophomore etc) that is used to teach these skills? 2. We should be using this stuff ourselves (perhaps not all of us doing programming) and certainly incorporate and require the use of the skills where appropriate in all courses. 3. We should insist that students hand in homework by email to save time and paper. Word 5.1a allows the marking of annotated notes in the original document on disk so that you can correct in this way. email allows the transfer of attached documents with graphics. 4. We should be using spreadsheet analysis in any of our courses where data analysis is required. We can learn this easily and set up our test scores on a speardsheet. That is a quick way to learn about some of the imbedded macros. 5. All faculty should have as a minimum working knowledge of word processing, graphing, spreadsheets using some type of data analysis and visual aid programs. Perhaps we need to teach us first. Who will do this? If we don't then our students will be at a disadvantage in other courses which require such skills and certainly when they eave for a job.Even US highschool students are learning these skills. We cannot tolerate the situation where we will be using the equivalant of a sliderule when the students are using the Thinkpad or Powerbook. We should discuss this at the next faculty meeting and certainly in the program committee meetings. The Computer committee should survey the courses in the department to findout what is being done and used. 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: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:42:27 +0000 From: Ray Johnson Subject: Re: Comp. Course for Chem. Majors In answer to the question about "Computer Courses courses for Chem. Majors" ( Doug Coe), I would say what he has planned is similar to what I currently do in a course called Computer Applications in Chemistry (2 hours). Since my course started in 1974, and is offered every other year, it has never been the same course twice. It started as a programming course using mainframes (" Fortran and Basic to solve chemical problems"), later it was more of a data analysis and numerical analysis course using these languages along with a few quantum mechanical calculations thrown in, was later modified to be carried out on IBM-PC's and also used these and Apple-II's for data acquisition and analysis. However the last two times I have offered the course it has emphasized applications packages, and now has very little traditional programming in it. The college spent a great deal of money buying Macintosh Computers so now most of the applications packages are on Mac II's with instruments interfaced to IBM clones. The last time I offered the course ( Spring 1992) I covered wordprocessing (Microsoft Word), spreadsheets (Excel), drawing (Chem Draw and ChemIntosh for chemical drawing and Canvas and a CAD program to draw instruments, circuit diagrams, etc.), statistics (simple stuff with Cricket Graph and more complex with Stat View), advanced mathematics using Mathematica (I spent 3 weeks using the book by Ellis and Lodi, which is a good intro. to Mathematica in a tutorial format, students did equation solving, sets, 2D and 3D graphing, numerical and symbolic differentiation and integration, curve fitting, matrix operations, statistical functions), literature searching using STN, an overview of DOS commands and Windows, how to use a scanner and OCR (Wordscan by Calera), and a limited amount of programming (Quickbasic) since I still can't face up to teaching a computer course with absolutely no programming. Students were also required to set up an experiment and run it on an HPLC (Waters-Maxima) and an FTIR (Bio-Rad- Galactic Software) and to examine effects of resolution, S/N, smoothing, deconvolution, apodization functions, zerofill, etc. on an infrared spectrum. Students take this course at the same time as they take Physical Chemistry lab and they are required to incorporate the techniques that they have learned into their lab reports for P. Chem. I have also used several specific application programs over the years (SpectraCalc, NMR and IR simulators, Huckel MO Programs come to mind but there have been many others). These programs usually depend on what is new at the time. Since the last time I taught the course we now have e-mail and Internet so I plan to include these next Spring. We have also purchased HyperChem (by Autodesk) and I can't wait to include many good things from it into the course next spring. I have also taught students how to add memory, change boards and hard drives etc. (usually not a planned part of the course, simply fixing whatever broke). To anyone who wants to offer this type of course I would say: 1. Plan to revise the course every time you offer it because the hardware and software changes every year. 2. I have taught the course for 18 years and it is more fun to teach than any other course (and much more fun now, with applications programs, than it ever was in the days of Fortran and Basic). Ray Johnson Hillsdale College Hillsdale, MI 49242 ray.johnson@ac.hillsdale.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 14:57:47 +22306404 From: "Dr. John A. Pojman" Subject: Re: Gooey Computing In-Reply-To: <9306221950.AA01805@umd5.umd.edu> from "Jack Martin Miller" at Jun 22, 93 03:19:18 pm Jack Martin wrote: > For the rodentphobes, any decent program has keyboard alternatives to > manipulation of rodents, so rodophobia is no excuse not to make use of a > GUI with WYSISYG capabilities. > His comment about fear for mice prompts a question: Do faculty not like the Mac/Windows mouse and menus approach simply because they did not grow up playing video games? When teaching a workshop, I found that most faculty had a heck of a time manipulating the mouse, a problem I have never seen the average student have. If my hypothesis is correct, than faculty who scoff at GUI and mice, are holding their students back from interacting with computers at the level that they are most comfortable. I would hate that some in our time would complain about the video revolution the way some elder Greeks no doubt complained about writing. "Kids today don't know how to memorize 20,000 lines of the Iliad, all they do is read all day!" -- John A. Pojman, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (601) 266-5035 FAX: (601) 266-5829 INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:54:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: COMPUTERS AND WHAT STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW PAPER 1 - COMPUTERS AND WHAT STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW From: Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET Date: June 22, 1993 ===================================================================== In response to a comments on Monday, June 21 at 22:01 and 22:09 from Professor Jack Martin Miller re: Question B and F and my answers Many years ago I did a considerable amount of computing (mostly statistical and numerical methods) on an IBM mainframe. This was at a time when punched cards and batch processing was the state of the art. The turn-around time was typically an hour or more. I programmed mostly in FORTRAN. One of the frustrations (other than turn-around time) was JCL (job control language). Very often jobs wouldn't run because I forget (or didn't know enough) to insert a card with /* or some such thing. Fortunately, I don't have to contend with that sort of thing anymore. I'm afraid I can not get very excited about an MS DOS versus WINDOWS or IBM versus Mac debate. I've used WINDOWS and the Mac a little. Personally, I think that a mouse and icons are very useful for children and perhaps those who are just learning to use computers. I don't see any particular advantage in these things for ME. I know that other people feel differently about this. I DON"T REALLY WANT TO DEBATE THESE TOPICS. Personally, I'm waiting for the day when voice recognition and more intelligence is built into computers (and instruments) and I will be able to tell them what it is I want to do and the computers (and instruments) will do what I tell them without my having to do much work. That's when I'll get really excited. I don't really care whether my software runs under MS DOS, WINDOWS or something else as long as I can do what I want and the software is reasonably user friendly. Professor Martin predicts that Windows will replace MS DOS. He is probably correct. Windows will continue to be up-graded and DOS will become extinct. None of the software I used for my course required Windows. The RS/6000 does run X-Windows. Some of the modelling software used in the organic chemistry course does use Windows or X-Windows. ====================================================================== In response to my questions (see Question O): * WHAT DOES EVERY UNDERGRADUATE CHEMISTRY MAJOR NEED TO KNOW ABOUT * COMPUTERS AND COMPUTING? ***************************************** * WHAT SHOULD EVERY GRADUATE STUDENT KNOW? ************************** Tom O'Haver responded (June 22 06:43 EDT): > My feeling is that it is not practical to make courses on > electronics, interfacing, and computer programming a REQUIREMENT > for ALL chemistry majors, many of whom want to be physicians or > dentists, not scientists. I don't necessarily disagree with Tom's statement. However, I was considering students working for an ACS certified degree. What should an undergraduate student who is planning to pursue a career in chemistry need to know? (At many schools students (pre-meds, etc.) can major in chemistry without obtaining an ACS certified degree.) I do believe that it is not necessary for ALL chemistry majors to learn very much about electronics and interfacing in chemistry courses. However, I believe they should have some familiarity with interfaced instruments, word processing, numerical and statistical methods, spreadsheets and be able to program in a general purpose high level language. Of course, I am at a university where every student has a computer and ALL students are required to take at least one computing course. (Regarding pre-meds - hospitals, doctors and dentist's offices are very much computerized these days.) Should statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics be taught in undergraduate physical chemistry courses? Should the transuranium elements be taught in an undergraduate inorganic course? - After all these courses are taken by pre-meds. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:02:38 -0500 Reply-To: Ted Labuza From: Ted Labuza Subject: Example Kinetics Program A lot of my work revolves around the shelf life testing of foods and drugs which essentially is te simple application of kinetics to time based data. With one of my graduate students I developed a very user friendly (many beta tests with students) Hypercard Stack which takes the data and does the proper transformations to determine the best order. It calciulates the r2 and SE values, plots the data, draws the regression line and confidence limits. It will calculate future values or values insuide the limits. The program is a good tool for research as well. The Mac mathchip gives very good results as compared to SAS. Several years ago when I used calculators it was interesting to see how different the values were between various brands of the. The HP always gave the best result as compared to a double percision program on the main frame written in Fortran. The second part of the program will then take the rate data from several temperatures and do an Arrhenius regression and calculate Ea and Q10 values. It is a good way to incorporate statistics with chemistry (eg in the literature some papersincorecctly use the SE as the tool to choose the best order) In another program I have developed we do the same thing and then also allow for input of time temperature data (or regular functions like sinewaves) and the students can do what ifs. These are available free to educational institutions by email. Leave me your address and I will send it, I will also think abouit putting it on the gopher network so it could be accessed by ftp. I have several others including Clausius Clapeyron, moisture diffusion kinetics by the Crank equation and am in the process of trying to do a similar kinetics program in Excell for microbial growth kinetics which can also be used for chenmical data. 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: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:04:00 -0400 From: RICHARD GRAHAM Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know I wholeheartedly agree on the comments of Jack Miller about the use of TeX or any of its variants. i used similar systems on the old DEC PDP11/23 and on the Prime 850. Both were cumbersome to use. Each had the .command structure and you never could _KNOW_ what the product would look like until it was printed and printed and printed and printed, ..... The equation editor in Word Perfect for Windows (or WP5.1) works very well. The beauty is that you see on the monitor what the equation will look like _BEFORE_ it is printed. It is somewhat cumbersome since you must "leave" the document to enter the equation editing screen, but it's a lot less cumbersome and _EASIER_ to visualize than TeX documents. I wish that WordPerfect had used the algorithm that another equation editor addin I used under WP 5.0 and Word 4.0 (Can't remember the name) and that is .. as you typed in the commands, the image grew before your eyes without having to press the REDISPLAY button. Dick Graham Towson State University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:17:03 +22306404 From: "Dr. John A. Pojman" Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know In-Reply-To: <9306222007.AA02933@umd5.umd.edu> from "Jack Martin Miller" at Jun 22, 93 03:26:04 pm > > Jim Holler siad > >We are rapidly approaching a time when knowledge of FORTRAN will be > >unnecessary. With all of the user-friendly tools available to perform > >a wide variety of tasks including those that are included in the libraries > >that you mention, it's difficult to justify the time spent on teaching > >FORTRAN. > > I agree 100%. How many of theparticipants have access to the Fortran code > of the packages they use (most are likely in C anyway). I know what I have > to go through in signing non-disclosure agreements etc. to get access to > source code of my mass spec and nmr programs on my large instruments. In > one case I won a copy of the source code by betting on what bad programming > practice had been used in it which I detected from the performance without > ever having seen a line of the code. > If you plan to become a theoretician writng new algorithms then you need > to become a good programmer. Almost all the types of programming refered to > in these discussions caould just as well be done, or perhaps better done > with Excel macros in a spreadsheet. > > I am interested in knowing how common MAPLE or Mathematica are in the class/lab? I think we are on the verge of a major change in learning when these programs become cheap as calculators. Perhaps teaching programming is like teaching about slide rules? -- John A. Pojman, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (601) 266-5035 FAX: (601) 266-5829 INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:24:42 -0400 From: "Mr. Science" Subject: Computers, and their Use in Chemistry Education A great deal has been said about the application of personal or mainframe computers in the education of future chemists. I would like to add my two cents worth at this point. Whether we teach using computers or not, our students (current and future) WILL be facing them in their work. How we advise them to use computers is probably the most important educational decision, IMHO, we can pass on to them with regard to instrumentation. The goal of using computers in chemistry, from my point of view, is as a tool to get to the answer for a problem I am working on. To use a computer to solve a problem, I must have some sense of what needs to be done and how the computer would assist in the solution. One must then weigh the pluses and minuses of using certain hardware and/or software. For example, our department wanted to incorporate some form of automation of data analysis so that our advanced labs would lose that component of anxiety that accompanied each writeup. Instead of teaching programming, we settled on doing least-squares analysis on a spreadsheet. This afforded us another advantage that could not be easily arrived at if we chose programming; graphical visualization of different chemical models. We have used spread- sheets to model Vib-Rot IR spectra, kinetic systems, among just a few. The impact on the students' appreciation of the information they were learning was impressive, to say the least. We even, this past year, incorporated the new program HyperChem in our Advanced chem Lab to allow students some exposure to Computational Chemistry; and the students loved it! With regard to instrumentation, computer interfacing has to explained, even if it means just rudimentary discussions. For example, in our PChem and Advanced Chem Labs, we do kinetics experiments using an HP Diode Array spectrometer with the kinetic software module. The data gets recorded on ASCII text files and we have the students incorporate them into a spread- sheet program to do data analysis. This keeps the students' attention on the experiment (automating the data collection), but does not isolate them from the experiment or allow them to become dependent on some software to do the actual analysis. We have even icorporated exercises that show the error of just blindly accepting the answers a piece of software spits out at you, without checking and verification. we have automated quite a few of our experiments, but it is a rudimentary form of automation, to allow the students to retain interest in the experiment (which previously may have had an unacceptable amount of tedium inherent in it), but at the same time keep them focused on the "thinking" aspect of chemical problem solving. In addition, we have developed a style of teaching in our PChem and Advanced Chem Labs that reminds the students that the data collected is reality, and the models they use are attempts to explain the reality they have observed. This, I feel, is the essential gist of using computers is to learn when to use them and when to step back. There may be times that necessitate special coding and software development, but these, in my experience, occur "in the field", so to speak - that is, in research. Students need to use the tools available to them. I feel the following are more than appropos to a chemistry major track: 1. Spreadsheets - data analysis, graphical visualization of models and results. 2. Word Processing - Simple text creation and editing. 3. Desktop Molecular Modelling software or Desktop Chemical Computational software. As for how a department incorporates them, I feel that is better left to each one to find out how to deal with that aspect. The department here at Georgetown prefers to incorporation relevant instruction within each course that requires it, usually at as minimal level as necessary. Regards, Tony ;> Date this awe-inspiring message was sent: 22-JUN-1993 15:42:15 *-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-* | 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, 22 Jun 1993 15:58:44 EDT From: Allan Smith In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:01:29 -0400 from At Drexel we have had in place since 1984 a prgram in which each entering undergraduate is required to have access to a personal computer. In the begining of this program we chose the Apple Macintosh, and as the years have progressed we have remained with our initial choice, even though the actual machine or machines we recommend for purchase to the students have changed each year. The pwoer of the machines being offered to students this year awes me, especially since I chaired the unversity committee which initiated this program in 1984 and chose the 128 kB Macintosh with one 512 kB floppy drive as the standard. This year we offer students a choice of one of the following: "minimum machine": Mac Classic Color, 6 mB RAM, 80 MB hard drive next one up: Centris 610, 8 MB RAM, 230 MB hard drive top model: Centris 650, 8MB RAM, 230 MB hard drive Don't quote me, but in 1984 I think our mainframe had about these capabilities. I can't give prices, but they are a good deal better than street prices because we buy about 1100 computers for students. Our campus is literally awash in Macintoshes. Another significant part of our approach is to offer a bundle of Mac software (for $350): the present bundle includes MacWrite, Excel 4.0, Filemaker, MacDraw, Brushstrokes (a paint program), and of course Hypercard and System 7.1; there is a coupon given students to obtain one more package, which may be ClarisCad, PageMaker, TK Solver Plus, Think C or Think Pascal, plus a few others. How do students afford to buy this stuff? We of course get the best price we can, but we then point out that the overall price is a small fraction of the total tuition they will pay while at Drexel ( we do this in a much more polished way than I have described, of course). Computer cost can be covered by financial aid in the same way as regular tuition and fees. I guess we don't get applications from students who think that $2000 is too much to pay for a computer to have while they are undergraduates. More later about what we actually do with all of these cycles. Allan Smith, Drexel University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:25:59 -0500 From: George Long Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania Subject: Re: Paper 1 discussion I have implemented computer interfaced labs for equillibrium and kinetics experiments. Both use LDC 600's interfaced via the RS 232 program. Students then analyze the data using easyplot, and write the report using the accesories available in windows. This generally works well, however I have some difficulty because of the difference in computing abilities of the students. Some are quite comfortable with windows while others barely know how to turn the computer on. I believe an introductory course on the use of PC's is a good idea. Our students are required to take Fortran, but this does not help them with the PC's. I am hoping to convince my colleagues to change the requirement. Physics courses do teach some electronics and interfacing, but it seems only a few of the students actually learn anything fro m this. I think these topics should be reinforced as much as possible. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:30:04 EDT From: Allan Smith Subject: Re: Paper #1 - Computer Course for Chem Majors In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:50:33 -0600 from I am teaching a graduate course in chemical information retrieval this summer as a pilot for a similar offering to undergraduates next year. WE do a lot more than just on-line searching, email, and Internet capabilities ( Gopher, WAIS, telnet, etc), but these topics are included. I'll be giving a paper on this course at the Chicago ACS meeting. Allan Smith, Drexel ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:53:00 EST From: Bill Subject: Computer courses for chemists I teach a _Computers for Chemists_ course at a two year college. The course is given in the second semester of the freshman year. I use WordPerfect for wordprocessing, QuattroPro for spreadsheet work, and IBM BASICA for programming. We switched from a FORTRAN only course, to a FORTRAN and BASIC on pc course to the present arrangement. I'm thinking of doing more with spreadsheets and less programming in BASIC in the future. Has anyone looked at the new book out by D.M. Etter, _Quattro Pro A Software Tool for Engineers and Scientists_, published by Benjamin Cummings? Since DOS 5 and 6 include QBASIC, can anyone recommend an introductory text on QBASIC? We use Quattro for its regression and graphics capabilities and BASIC to create disk files of titration curves including first and second derivatives. These disk files are then imported into Quattro for viewing. The students e-mail their programs to me via the VAX. Bill Metzar Bitnet: metzar_w@snybccva Broome Community College Internet: metzar_w@sunybroome.edu Binghamton, NY 13902 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 17:04:00 CDT From: Ray Sommers Subject: Paper 1 ASEASYAS via FTP Just remembered that the ASEASYAS spreadsheet is also available via anonymous FTP. One site I found is: WUARCHIVE.WUSTL.EDU and it is in /mirrors/msdos/spreadsheet with filenames ASA55C-1.ZIP and ASA55C-2.ZIP |==================================================================| | | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ | | | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | | | / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ | | / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) | | (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ | |==================================================================| ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:30:51 PST From: "Edward H. Piepmeier" Subject: Re[2]: Paper #1 Why Mac's and Windows? Jack Martin wrote: >For the rodentphobes, any decent program has keyboard alternatives >to manipulation of rodents, so rodophobia is no excuse not to make >use of a GUI with WYSISYG capabilities. >John A. Pojman replied: >His comment about fear for mice prompts a question: Do faculty not >like the Mac/Windows mouse and menus approach simply because they >did not grow up playing video games? When teaching a workshop, I >found that most faculty had a heck of a time manipulating the mouse, >a problem I have never seen the average student have. Why do students like Mac's? The most efficient use of a student's time when interacting with a computer program will be made when the commands are obvious to the student. Menu driven programs with short explanations of each menu item when it is selected (and more extensive context sensitive help when needed) are the best in this regard. Mac programs seem to require common menu items to be placed in the same menu structure (e.g. Print occurs under the File main menu in all programs I have used). Windows programs have tended to follow a similar pattern, as have some DOS programs. This consistency across platforms and programs helps the student to learn to use new programs more quickly and may be one reason why students like Mac and Window platforms. Just as important is the ability of a good menu to quickly remind the student about what commands are available, and to allow the student to do some quick trial and error lookups to find a new command. It is worthwhile to distinguish between a mouse and a good menu, although both are often present. Pointing with a mouse to select a menu item is not a fast as using the keyboard to select the item for an experienced "power user", but such pointing seems easier for new users and offers a break for someone who wishes to avoid the keyboard. On the other hand, many editing operations are faster to do with a mouse in a well written program (regardless of platform). >John A. Pojman also writes: >I am interested in knowing how common MAPLE or Mathematica are in the class/lab? I have personally used MAPLE and Mathcad in research, but not in courses. MAPLE has only a relatively short menu and has a long way to go to be useful without a manual, and even Mathcad for Windows could be improved in this regard. These both are high level languages with many useful procedures, but I would like to know how others have found them useful in courses to do things that cannot be done with spreadsheets that are much easier for students to use. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 23:46:12 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: paper1 I have some questions that I could not ask because I was out of town. Do your students remain in lab for the full three hours? Do the students have 6 hours of lab per week? I was not sure from the text. Why do You use nylon as the polymer? Wouldn't the standard polystyrene in toluene or methanol/toluene mixtures or BSA in aqueous urea mixtures be as good for the purpose. This might free up some lab time for a laser experiment or a molecular modeling exercise. I have some concern over the type of pchem experiments. My concern is similar to that of Moore and Schwenz. Pchem is not seen as being very exciting to many students because so many of the experiments seem out of date and do not reflect the current literature. I don't want to belabor the points raised by Ted Labuza about what every undergraduate should know. I came up with a very similar list. I would include introducing students to how the software gets into the computer. So many of my students are very neive about computers. I would also want my students to be able to do some simple trouble shooting when the printer or plotter doesn't work for them befor they holar uncle. Another item on my wish list is that students learn something about molecular modeling and molecular computation as used in a wide variety of research areas. Nothing fancy but surely the concepts of a z matrix and potential energy function. I would also hope for some molecular mechanics and quantum mechanics, at least at a very good semi-empirical level and beyond the black box level of most of these types of applications. What we teach in pchem lab should reflect to some degree what is appearing in the literature today and not what appeared in the literature 40 years ago. Some ideas about the operation and theory of lasers is very important. At Niagara University I insist that all lab reports be typed using a word processing program and that all tables be typed and all data analyzed using a spreadsheet. I use SC5 because it is very easy for first timers to learn and the graphics interface is simple. All plots are prepared using a 6 color plotter of a printer. I also introduced a MathCad exercise this year using it to study kinetics curves for reversible and series first order reactions. The students taught the program to themselves and did the required lab study in two afternoons (8 hours). Having them teach themselves builds their computer self confidence, important for so many of my students some of whom have not touched a computer in a scientific setting before. It is nice to read about all the facilities that some of you have for your students. I try to make up for a lack of facilities by a bit more novelty and creativity for teaching some of the same things that you guys at the bigger schools can do more easily. Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University Niagara University NY 14109 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 09:12:53 +0100 From: Hugh Cartwright Subject: Re: Computers, and their Use in Chemistry Education Obviously the question of how computers should be used in the laboratory, and how students should be taught to use them, is one about which many of us have strong views. It is not surprising then that the discussion on chemconf has thrown up arguments in favour of teaching everything from word processing and spreadsheets to Basic and FORTRAN programming. Probably almost every participant in chemconf is computer-literate, and feels that computers have an important place in the education of scientists. I certainly do. However, I am concerned about the possibility that we might overemphasize th e importance of computing. When we graduate chemists from our universities, their expertise must first and foremost be in chemistry. I am therefore a little concerned at comments like the following from Ted Labuza He suggests that students should... > Know how to handle at least three environments > eg DOS, AMAC, OS2, Widows, UNIX etc > Know the rudiments of programmining... > ...should also be exposed to the rudiments of the scripting language > in Hypercard. > They should learn at least Excell or Lotus. > They should be able to use [Sigmaplot (both > Mac and IBM) and Excell as well as the new Mac and IBM versions of JMP which i s > a PC based SAS] > They also should learn one or two graphics packages and feel comfortable in > making pie charts, bar graphs with error bars, and scatterplots with confidenc e > limits. They should also be able to understand the meaning of the constants wh en > the graphics package runs a polynomial or exponentila regrassion of the data f or > plotting. > They should learn some drawing program. > They should have competency in using a visual aids graphics program in color, > ie a slide and overhead making program. > They must learn how to use e-mail and use a network system by logging onto > the internet and use the resources like Archie, Veronica and Jughead to find a nd > retrieve information. > They should know how to use a word processor inconjuction with an equation > editor and possibly a chemical drawing program. This is quite a shopping list. As a computational chemist, I would be delighted if my students knew this much, but NOT if that knowledge were gained at the expense of a proper understanding of chemistry. There is only a limited amount of time available in the university year, and we need a balance between computing (which, surely, is a tool, not an end in itself) and science, which computers can help us to learn and understand. I am in sympathy with Donald Rosenthal, who writes: > I believe they should > have some familiarity with interfaced instruments, word processing, > numerical and statistical methods, spreadsheets and be able to > program in a general purpose high level language. Some might argue that chemistry now consists of four branches: organic, inorganic, physical and computational, and that the increasing emphasis on computers in chemistry merely reflects the changing nature of chemistry. We must be careful that, in our desire to make full use of computers, we do not lose the balance in our courses, diluting the chemistry content to a level at which we may produce students who are computer-literate, but scientifically second-rate. Hugh Cartwright Physical Chemistry, Oxford University, UK. @ @ Obviously t ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 05:48:08 -0500 Reply-To: Ted Labuza From: Ted Labuza Subject: Re: Computers, and their Use in Chemistry Education In message Hugh Cartwright writes: > Obviously the question of how computers should be used in the laboratory, > and how students should be taught to use them, is one about which many of > us > have strong views. > > It is not surprising then that the discussion on chemconf has thrown up > arguments in favour of teaching everything from word processing and > spreadsheets to Basic and FORTRAN programming. Probably almost > every participant in chemconf is computer-literate, and feels that > computers have an important place in the education of scientists. > I certainly do. > > However, I am concerned about the possibility that we might overemphasize > th > e > importance of computing. When we graduate chemists from our universities, > their expertise must first and foremost be in chemistry. I am therefore > a little concerned at comments like the following > from Ted Labuza > > > He suggests that students should... > > > Know how to handle at least three environments > > eg DOS, AMAC, OS2, Widows, UNIX etc > > > Know the rudiments of programmining... > > > ...should also be exposed to the rudiments of the scripting language > > in Hypercard. > > > They should learn at least Excell or Lotus. > > > They should be able to use [Sigmaplot (both > > Mac and IBM) and Excell as well as the new Mac and IBM versions of JMP > > which i > s > > a PC based SAS] > > > They also should learn one or two graphics packages and feel comfortable in > > making pie charts, bar graphs with error bars, and scatterplots with > > confidenc > e > > limits. They should also be able to understand the meaning of the constants > > wh > en > > the graphics package runs a polynomial or exponentila regrassion of the > > data f > or > > plotting. > > > They should learn some drawing program. > > > They should have competency in using a visual aids graphics program in > > color, > > ie a slide and overhead making program. > > > They must learn how to use e-mail and use a network system by logging onto > > the internet and use the resources like Archie, Veronica and Jughead to > > find a > nd > > retrieve information. > > > They should know how to use a word processor inconjuction with an equation > > editor and possibly a chemical drawing program. > > > This is quite a shopping list. As a computational chemist, I would > be delighted if my students knew this much, but NOT if that knowledge > were > gained at the expense of a proper understanding of chemistry. > There is only a limited amount of time available in the university > year, and we need a balance between computing (which, surely, is a tool, > not an end in itself) and science, which computers can help us to learn > and understand. etc The reason for my long shopping list is not that we should be teaching all this in a chemistry class. rather this should be a total university/college goal and the skills should be practiced and used in all courses where applicable. When a student leaves for a job, more than likely they will be required to have some form of computer expertise, I doubt many will just end up running one type of instrument with one type of interface, so why not prepare them. The minimum would be word processing, graphics and spreadsheet analysis. They could use the word processing to do overheads for presentations which most of them will have to make. Several participants have suggested that we use only shareware, but my experience as a consultant with major companies (3M, P&G, Pillsbury for example) is that you need to use commercial $oftware since that's what the staff has and your work needs to be compatible. That brings up the dilema since such $oftware is costly to students and you want their work to be compatible with yours. I don't have a solution to that. Dr Ted Labuza Department of Food Science and Nutrition 136 ABLMS University of Minnesota St. Paul MN 55108 Voice 612-624-9701 or Home 612-633-8928 Fax 612-625-5272 or Home Fax 612-633-0627 There is no such thing as a poverty of time, rather there is a poverty of being able to say "NO". ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 05:54:50 MDT Reply-To: bagaddis@uccs.edu From: bagaddis@HAPPY.UCCS.EDU Subject: Re: paper1 Is it possible to obtain a copy of this MathCad exercise? It sounds like a good idea. Barbara Gaddis, UCCS, ColoradoSprings, CO 80933 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 08:57:24 EDT From: Felix Akojie Subject: Re: Paper 1 ASEASYAS via FTP In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 22 Jun 93 21:33:56 EDT from Larry, thanks. I shall be back to Waller hall at about 11.10. I hope you will b e around to give me the updated version of the ASEASYAS. See you later. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 09:28:29 EDT From: Jim Holler Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 22 Jun 1993 13:40:15 -0400 from Agree wholeheartedly on TeX. Try Ami Pro. It's got TeX built in to do math, and it is WYSIWYG. It also has a shallow learning curve. On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 13:40:15 -0400 Jack Martin Miller said: >Prof Glasser wrote: > >>With regard to wordprocessing for students (or anyone!), it is hard to beat >LaT >>ex together with the windowing environment, TEXSHELL.Both are available free, >i >>n an excellent DOS implementation (emTeX) and it is does the best imaginable >jo >>b of layout, especially of mathematics. >>It is a bit of a pain to set up, but there is no more training required than >fo >>r, say, WordPerfect. It is not WYSIWIG, but almost transparently obvious in >it >>s layout. >>LG > > >And a horse and bugy will still get you from a to b. TEX and its variants >was a great mainframe tex setting system for complex equations for those >familiar with FORTRAN, but to use it in this day and age is to frighten >students from the true potential of word processors that include their >graphics, equations, tables etc. If a student is writing on the word >processor, whh they should be doing, the ability to see what you wrote is >all important. Try visualizing your page from the formulaic TEX jargon. > >Don't use it just because it is free or cheap. It may not be worth it and >it may train students in the wrong direction. WYSIWYG is available, it is >not expensive whether Word for WIndows or Wordperfect with academic >discounts. We should be teaching for the next generation, not the past. We >should be using, not what we were comfortable with as students, (FORTRAN II >-- that dates me, and TITAN autocode), not what has been around for years, >but we should be preparing students for the 21st century. > >CHEMCONF is supposed, I thought, to be about thenew technologies in >teaching chemistry, but I hear a lot of defense of outmoded hardware and >software. >Jack Martin Miller >Professor of Chemistry >Chair, Dept. of 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 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, 23 Jun 1993 09:33:10 EDT From: Jim Holler Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:26:04 -0400 from Another good example of this is HyperChem. It has about 100 person-years of Ph.D. expert programming in molecular mechanics and ab-initio MO built in, and it is amazingly easy to get up and running. Our students MUST learn to use these kinds of tools. In the unified WYSISYG environment of Windows and the Mac, once students learn how to operate the environment, they become productive very quickly. This is not true of programming languages. All of this serves to free them to think about chemistry rather than DO loops and arcane syntax. On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 15:26:04 -0400 Jack Martin Miller said: >Jim Holler siad >>We are rapidly approaching a time when knowledge of FORTRAN will be >>unnecessary. With all of the user-friendly tools available to perform >>a wide variety of tasks including those that are included in the libraries >>that you mention, it's difficult to justify the time spent on teaching >>FORTRAN. > >I agree 100%. How many of theparticipants have access to the Fortran code >of the packages they use (most are likely in C anyway). I know what I have >to go through in signing non-disclosure agreements etc. to get access to >source code of my mass spec and nmr programs on my large instruments. In >one case I won a copy of the source code by betting on what bad programming >practice had been used in it which I detected from the performance without >ever having seen a line of the code. > If you plan to become a theoretician writng new algorithms then you need >to become a good programmer. Almost all the types of programming refered to >in these discussions caould just as well be done, or perhaps better done >with Excel macros in a spreadsheet. > > >Jack Martin Miller >Professor of Chemistry >Chair, Dept. of 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 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, 23 Jun 1993 09:39:25 EDT From: Jim Holler Subject: Re: Paper 1 - ASEASYAS In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 22 Jun 1993 14:21:00 CDT from But Quattro Pro is very inexpensive for students and much more powerful. On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 14:21:00 CDT Ray Sommers said: >ASEASYAS is also available as shareware from just about any shareware >source. Last year I used version 4.0 since it fit on one 360 K floppy. >The latest version is 5.5 with lots of new features. Generally the files >are compatable with Lotus 123 and Quatro (&Quatro Pro). > >Quatro Pro is available to our students on our network but since many >have their own computers at home they appreciate their own copy of >ASEASYAS. ASEASYAS is also available to them via our library's >CDROM with the PCSIG collection of shareware (over 2000 disks of >stuff). > > |==================================================================| > | | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ | > | | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | | > | / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ | > | / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) | > | (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.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: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 09:41:36 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Gooey Computing > Jack Martin wrote: >> For the rodentphobes, any decent program has keyboard alternatives to >> manipulation of rodents, so rodophobia is no excuse not to make use of a >> GUI with WYSISYG capabilities. >> >His comment about fear for mice prompts a question: Do faculty not like >the Mac/Windows mouse and menus approach simply because they did not >grow up playing video games? When teaching a workshop, I found that >most faculty had a heck of a time manipulating the mouse, a problem >I have never seen the average student have. > >If my hypothesis is correct, than faculty who scoff at GUI and mice, are >holding their students back from interacting with computers at the >level that they are most comfortable. I would hate that some in our >time would complain about the video revolution the way some elder Greeks >no doubt complained about writing. "Kids today don't know how to memorize >20,000 lines of the Iliad, all they do is read all day!" > In response to John Pojman with whom I'm in full agreement, I have a possible cure for rodentophilia. My wife a professor of fine arts, found the Mac impossible with a mouse, but as soon as she saw a trackball on a Mac portable she was convinced, so her own Mac now has a trackball instead of a mouse. Her difficulty was the orietation of themouse when holding it, not a problem with a trackball. Jack M. Miller, jmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 23 Jun 1993 10:24:29 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Computers, and their Use in Chemistry Education Hugh Cartwright writes:. > > However, I am concerned about the possibility that we might overemphasize >th > e > importance of computing. When we graduate chemists from our universities, > their expertise must first and foremost be in chemistry. I am therefore > a little concerned at comments like the following > from Ted Labuza > The list that follows lists just about everything that I do so it really hit the nail on the head, BUT, it may be too much to expect that level of computer literacy from an undergraduate, but NOT from a PhD graduate. Having just hired a new faculty member this year in organic chemistry, he is doing these things BUT many of my faculty colleagues are not and do not see the need. In that I detect some of the resistance in the discussion -- from traditionally minded chemists. We can't teach all chemistry. Almost everything I teach wasn't invented when I was a student, and certainly in my research I was taught nothing aof what I am doing in mass spectrometry and nmr of organometallics. > > > This is quite a shopping list. As a computational chemist, I would > be delighted if my students knew this much, but NOT if that knowledge were > gained at the expense of a proper understanding of chemistry. > There is only a limited amount of time available in the university > year, and we need a balance between computing (which, surely, is a tool, > not an end in itself) and science, which computers can help us to learn > and understand. > And perhaps these courses should replace some of the traditional math or physics courses. My classical elec and mag. has done me no good as a chemist, but my electronics course was a wonderful preparation. Three courses in calculus were a waste of time. If I have to integrate something I do it digitally or analytically via Maple or Mathematica. > Some might argue that chemistry now consists of four branches: > organic, inorganic, physical and computational, and that the > increasing emphasis on computers in chemistry merely reflects > the changing nature of chemistry. We must be careful that, in our > desire to make full use of computers, we do not lose the balance > in our courses, diluting the chemistry content to a level at which > we may produce students who are computer-literate, but scientifically > second-rate. > On should not forget the bailing wire, black wax and string origins of experimental chemistry. The computer today is an integral part of the experiment and if you are to do original research you must be as adept at modifiying the computer, its interface and or its software as in the old days of drilling holes in vacuum systems etc. No research equipment is truely being used to its full potential if you've not modified it to improve things, and that includes the computer end of it. Its not just the "computations" chemist that needs to know about computers, perhaps they need the least -- just give them a computer language or Gaussian and access to a porwerful remote machine and they're off. Its more complicated if I want my emperimental data delivered from spectrometers run by Sun and SGI UNIX boxes, proprietary computers such as Brucker's Aspect 3000, PCs and old CPM machines, molecular modeling results, all to my office Mac to put into the papers I'm writing. I can do it all now, but it isn't clean and easy. That's what I'm trying to do for the whole department so both Mac and PC users can get all their data in one place to use it, process it, feed it into major computational or database packages etc. That's not computational chemistry. That is good old fashioned experimental chemistry with life made a lot easier. Jack Martin Miller jmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 23 Jun 1993 08:33:52 PDT From: David Green Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know In-Reply-To: ; from "Jim Holler" at Jun 23, 93 9:33 am I am not a strict proponent of learning a programming language by every chemistry major. However, there is value in learning *a* programming language that IMHO goes beyond just the mechanics of programming. Indeed, there are many software packages that will do many of the things students want(need) to do to solve a problem. But what about a problems that need one-time solutions that don't really lend themselves to MathCad, spread- sheets, etc? There are some like that. One (arguably useful) aspect of programming for chemists is learning to work in a highly structured environment that is somewhat unforgiving. We and our students work in the laboratory where structure is lowered for more abstract thinking... i.e. When I mix A and B I get ???? then I can either filter or .... Certainly programs are coded for IF-THEN choices but it is difficult to achieve that "fuzzy" logic in the software. In learning to write even rudimentary code, students have to think about occurrances which may make the program NOT work - divide by zero, endless or useless loops,etc. I have found that those who can program, and not even good at that, often think differently in the laboratory. I have also found the opposite as well. Anyway, the value of programming as a way of thinking (chemistry aside) I don't think should be underestimated. David Green Natural Science Division Pepperdine University Malibu CA dgreen@pepvax.bitnet dgreen@pepvax.pepperdine.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 08:35:18 PDT From: David Green Subject: Re: Paper 1 - ASEASYAS In-Reply-To: ; from "Jim Holler" at Jun 23, 93 9:39 am With academic discount and promotionals I got my first copy for QPro 4 Windows for $70 and my second copy for, I think, $89. > > But Quattro Pro is very inexpensive for students and much more powerful. > > On Tue, 22 Jun 1993 14:21:00 CDT Ray Sommers said: > >ASEASYAS is also available as shareware from just about any shareware > >source. Last year I used version 4.0 since it fit on one 360 K floppy. > >The latest version is 5.5 with lots of new features. Generally the files > >are compatable with Lotus 123 and Quatro (&Quatro Pro). > > > >Quatro Pro is available to our students on our network but since many > >have their own computers at home they appreciate their own copy of > >ASEASYAS. ASEASYAS is also available to them via our library's > >CDROM with the PCSIG collection of shareware (over 2000 disks of > >stuff). > > > > |==================================================================| > > | | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ | > > | | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | | > > | / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ | > > | / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) | > > | (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.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: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 14:13:23 -0400 From: Mary Swift Subject: Programming I agree that being able to program causes one to begin to think in a different way ...that one now begins to try to consider many alternative results and plan for each possibility. In addition the top down approach gives a better idea how to frame questions and go about answering them. I think the ability to write efficient macros in spreadsheets should be enhanced if one has some programming experience. At least you have some idea why things might not (or did not) work out as planned!!! I recently purchased "QBASIC Primer Plus" by D.R. Mackenroth, a Waite Group book. While I have not had much time to spend with it yet it looks good for a beginning student. I have used another Waite Group book "C by example" to learn C myself and I found it to be quite good. Mary L. Swift ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 14:04:00 EDT From: Don Rosenthal Subject: CHEMCONF Schedule Two days have been allocated to the discussion of each paper at this Conference. At 7:09 AM this morning Tom O'Haver announced the END of the discussion period for Paper 1 andthe BEGINNING of the discussion period for PAPER 2. It was expected that the author and participants would begin by responding to SHORT QUESTIONS and regular discussion would begin. ANY ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION OF PAPER 1 SHOULD BE RESERVED FOR THE GENERAL DISCUSSION PERIOD. (SEE THE SCHEDULE) DOES ANYONE HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT PAPER 2 - AUTHOR AND PARTICIPANTS WHERE ARE YOU? Donald Rosenthal ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 13:54:55 +22306404 From: "Dr. John A. Pojman" Subject: Paper 2 We have used AppleTalk and ETherTalk with our Macs, both in my lab and in our department cluster. The only advantage most students find with the Appletalk configuation (4 Mac LC) is that they can all print on the same laser printer in the background. In our lab, with about 6 undergraduates and 5 graduate students, the conversion to Ethernet was amazingly simple. The students find it easy to transfer large image files from video digitization, which would not fit on a floppy disk. I am interested in know what other use can we make of a network? The author describes networking, but doesn't show the clear advantage? Legal question: Can many students work off one copy of a program on a server? -- John A. Pojman, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (601) 266-5035 FAX: (601) 266-5829 INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 14:48:40 CDT From: "Harmon B. Abrahamson" Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network Subject: Paper 2 - Networks In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 23 Jun 1993 14:04:00 EDT from I think that Prof. Jim Hood presents some useful information and reaches reasonable conclusions for those installing a network where none has previously existed. Our experience at the Univ. of North Dakota Chemistry Dept. has been somewhat different, in that the network has grown incrementally, and now consists of a hybridization of physical media and protocols. We began about 8 years ago with a twisted-pair AppleTalk (LocalTalk) net linking a handful (3-4) Macs (512 and Mac+) and a LaserWriter. As we switched departmental word processing from a stand-alone IBM DisplayWriter, more faculty got Macs on their desks (personal or grants) and were linked into the net. Then we got a grant for a MicroVAX II and linked it with our 300MHz NMR by ethernet. We shortly linked the two nets with a FastPath bridge/router which allowed us to put a central AppleShare server on the MicroVAX, and also allows us to use Macs running a terminal emulator as terminals for the MicroVAX. Wait! There's more! Last fall we opened our new building addition, which has 10-Base-T jacks in every office and lab, which means that people in the new wing are linked by EtherTalk. In addition, two newer MicroVAXes (for crystallography and computational chem) are also on EtherNEt. Now, in addition to the old central file server and print spooler, Macs using System 7 can do Peer-to-peer file sharing. My job this summer includes adding a new computer lab to the net, along with implementaing security and use procedures for the new student Macs (Centris - better than most of us faculty have!) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Harmon B. Abrahamson | BITNET: UD108726@NDSUVM1 Department of Chemistry | INTERNET: UD108726@VM1.NoDak.EDU University of North Dakota | PHONE: (701) 777-2641 PO BOX 9024 | FAX: (701) 777-2331 Grand Forks, ND 58202-9024 |************************************ | What's nu? E/h of course! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:09:55 -0400 From: Jack Miller Subject: Re: Programming >I agree that being able to program causes one to begin to think in a different >way ...that one now begins to try to consider many alternative results and >plan for each possibility. In addition the top down approach gives a better >idea how to frame questions and go about answering them. > >I think the ability to write efficient macros in spreadsheets should be >enhanced if one has some programming experience. At least you have some >idea why things might not (or did not) work out as planned!!! > >I recently purchased "QBASIC Primer Plus" by D.R. Mackenroth, a Waite Group >book. While I have not had much time to spend with it yet it looks good for >a beginning student. I have used another Waite Group book "C by example" >to learn C myself and I found it to be quite good. > >Mary L. Swift If you do teach computer language programing use real world languages. "C" as horrible as it is for the 21st century, or Fortran for number cruching scientific work. Forget BASIC -- it is dead in real applications. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:11:51 -0400 From: Jack Miller Subject: Re: Programming P.S. on programming languages. Symetrical multiprocessing is becoming a part of even the Intel world. Except for transputers using Occam, the two languages which tendto have parallelizing compilers and extensions are C and Fortran. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:16:19 -0400 From: Jack Miller Subject: Re: CHEMCONF Schedule Coments re schedule: Since the delay inherent in Listservers when traffic is heavy can be as much as 6 hurs, and given office hours, early afternoon stuff doesn't necessarily get delivered to thenext morning so cut off should logically go to noon on the third dy. I have beenawaiting the author's answers to the short questions before beginning my own discussion. Jack m. Miller, jmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:25:15 -0400 From: Jack Miller Subject: Re: Paper 2 >We have used AppleTalk and ETherTalk with our Macs, both in my lab and >in our department cluster. The only advantage most students find >with the Appletalk configuation (4 Mac LC) is that they can all >print on the same laser printer in the background. In our lab, with >about 6 undergraduates and 5 graduate students, the conversion to >Ethernet was amazingly simple. The students find it easy to >transfer large image files from video digitization, which would not >fit on a floppy disk. Backgrond printing works identically under appletalk or Ethertalk. I don't see why you make the distinction - the only difference is the higher speed of ethertalk. There are multipleways to connect an old apple talk only printer to the ethernet and background spoolingworks in both cases. > >I am interested in know what other use can we make of a network? The author >describes networking, but doesn't show the clear advantage? Sharing one copy of an expensive piece of software, transfering files from laboratory instruments to office machines used in preparation of papers, manuals etc., student submission of assignments, and student receipt of individualized assingnments, moving files between coauthors, between students working togetheron a lab report, controlling use of laser printer to those with printing priveleges so that you don't print everyone'sthesis on your printer, having the need of only a single connection to the University backgbone, internet etc., etc. I could go on and on. > >Legal question: Can many students work off one copy of a program on a >server? >-- You only need mount one copy but legally you must possess "n" copies if "n" students are to work simultaneously. If you use Apple's server software or MacJanet you can set in software thenumber ofsimultaneous users permitted, and can encode the software against copying. A copy will not work offthe network. > >John A. Pojman, Ph.D. >Assistant Professor >Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry >(601) 266-5035 >FAX: (601) 266-5829 >INTERNET: pojman@whale.st.usm.edu >or: pojman@wave.st.usm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:29:58 -0400 From: Jack Miller Subject: Re: Paper 2 - Networks Harnom Abrahamsus is correctin talking about the evolution and 10baseT wiring. Even ifFDDI over copper wins over ethernet or fast ethernet, 10baseT will be the copper used. Prof. Hood both in his paper and to me privately argues for thinnet. This just will not work in real existing buildings or in new ones. I have old buildings and am building a new one to house 125 more computers. If FDDI over 10baseT will work for Lawrence Berkely Laboratory it will work for the rest of us despite what salesmen for thinnet technology would have you believe. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 23:09:27 -0400 From: Judith Faye Rubinson Subject: Re: Paper 2 We do not have a network in place at the moment but will probably end up setting our computers up in one soon. We have two MAC's and several PC's. (Yes there are advantages to students' exposure to both environments!) Could anyone give me some advice on the best way to find out how to set up our network? Faye Rubinson, College of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinnati, OH 45233-1670 (RUBINSON@UCBEH.SAN.UC.EDU) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 23:50:46 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: Programming The discussion about students thinking differently after they learn about programing is an example of the development of critical thinking skills in students as they encounter challenging courses. After all it is the student who develops the skills and usually not most effectively through only listening. The must be given greater opportunities to think and think about their own thinking. This is the most important result of a computer course - students think about thinking ie how to get something done and all of the possible alternates. So much of chemistry instruction is predigested information. How do we get students to think more critically - this goes beyond problem solving which is considered by some to be a lower level skill - one that can be done by students operating at Perry level 2. Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University Niagara University NY 14109 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 06:22:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Re: Paper 2 - Networks In-Reply-To: <9306240309.AA07301@umd5.umd.edu> I think there is some confusion of terminology here. AppleTalk is not the same as LocalTalk. AppleTalk is a LAN protocol stack; LocalTalk is the low-speed twisted pair LAN wiring system that Macs have built-in. You can run Appletalk over Localtalk or over Ethernet - the latter of course being faster. All the Mac labs on our campus use Ethernet rather than LocalTalk, and I notice that Mac Quadra models have built-in Ethernet ports. Handy. Tom O'Haver U. of Maryland ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 06:34:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Re: Paper 2 In-Reply-To: <9306240258.AA06468@umd5.umd.edu> Another advantage of running applications off a file server is that it is much easier to upgrade software to new versions and to change global settings. In a large installation with dozens of users running dozens of programs, upgrading would be time consuming if every machine had a separate copy on its own hard disk. > Legal question:.... We use a utility called KeyServer that provides the software checkout counting and user notification required for proper application distribution and also keeps a record of how often and when each software program is used. Tom O'Haver U. of Maryland ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 07:22:21 EDT From: Sherman Henzel Subject: Computer Languages Jack Miller writes, "Forget BASIC it is Dead." Like Mark Twain reports of BASIC's demise are gorssly exaggerated." I am currently at the U of R working on a summer research project that involves user LASER spectroscopy to study the kinetics of reactions that occur in the ps range. The program that takes in data and that controls aperatures and a moving mirror is written in QuickBasic. For the next eight weeks at least I can not forget BASIC. I hope it doesn't die while it is controling the instrument. Also several years ago I had the oppotunity to tour one of the labs at Kodak. The labs were involved in running very large distillation columns. The language used in that control was BASIC. ___________________________________________________________ | Sherman Henzel Department of Chemistry | | Monroe Community College 1000 East Henrietta Rd. | | Rochester, NY 14623 (716) 292-2000 Ext. 5124 | | Internet: shenzel@eckert.acadcomp.monroecc.edu | ----------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 09:26:38 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Paper 2 - Networks >I think there is some confusion of terminology here. >AppleTalk is not the same as LocalTalk. AppleTalk is a LAN >protocol stack; LocalTalk is the low-speed twisted pair >LAN wiring system that Macs have built-in. Sorry if I contributed to the confusion -- us old timers in the Mac world (128k !!!) go back to the time when Apple used the same Appletalk term for both. You can >run Appletalk over Localtalk or over Ethernet - the latter >of course being faster. All the Mac labs on our campus >use Ethernet rather than LocalTalk, We have gradually converted our labs, and our new Math and COSC building (125 machines) will be all ethernet except for one lab that we hav't got the funds this year to buy new machines for, and its not worth getting ethernet cards for old SE's to be abandoned within a year. The network performance in a class of 20-30 is remarkably improved, though it is surprising the throughput a Local talk net can handle including the departmental printer traffic and my perusals of the Internet world with large FTP fetches. and I notice that >Mac Quadra models have built-in Ethernet ports. Handy. All the new high end Macs are supposed to have the built in port. Unfortunately with three ethernet standards you still have to buy either a 10baseT or thinnet tranceiver. Few people opperate in a thicknet environment. Some of the UNIX boxes now come with both 10baseT and thicknet built in, a clear indication of the impending demise of thinnet. Jack M. Miller > >Tom O'Haver >U. of Maryland Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 24 Jun 1993 09:30:10 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Paper 2 >Another advantage of running applications off a file server >is that it is much easier to upgrade software to new versions >and to change global settings. In a large installation >with dozens of users running dozens of programs, upgrading >would be time consuming if every machine had a separate copy on >its own hard disk. > There are also advantages to booting from the server with boot roms on the ethernet card. That way the hackers don't muck up the system (whether DOS or Mac) and I challenge anyone to defeat the good hackers. (This may be less a problem for chemists, but also being chair of computer science we have greater problems in this area.) Yes you can defeat them, but you disable your system to the extent that not all software packages will run. There is also software available that will reload a fresh copy of the system nightly after the labs close to all machines on a net, to keep a relatively clean systme going. >> Legal question:.... > >We use a utility called KeyServer that provides the software >checkout counting and user notification required for proper >application distribution and also keeps a record of how often >and when each software program is used. > >Tom O'Haver >U. of Maryland Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 24 Jun 1993 10:22:00 CST From: Greg Powell Subject: Re: Paper 2 - Networks Our network situation is similar to that described by Harmon B. Abrahamson ("the network has grown incrementally"), except on a much smaller scale and about two years behind: several Macs with an Appletalk network and access to a VAX through a terminal server. We would like to convert from LocalTalk to Ethernet (EtherTalk?) for up to 10 MacII-series computers. Our campus network gurus are trying to force everyone who converts to Ethernet to purchase PathWorks (for PC-DOS or Mac) as well as their recommended Pathworks-compatible Ethernet card. We are currently using VersaTerm-Pro to interface with the VAX (terminal emulation) and Mac System 7 to share files, etc. Does anyone else out there have experience using PathWorks? Seems I recall that this was created by a joint venture between DEC and Apple a few years ago. What does Pathworks do for you that VersaTerm and the Mac Chooser (and Sys 7 file-sharing) cannot accomplish over Ethernet? Why can't we just buy any 10baseT Ethernet cards and "plug-and-play"? The network wiring is already in place. Thanks to Harmon Abrahamson, Jim Hood, Jack Miller, Tom O'Haver, and John Pojman for the useful advice so far! --------------- Greg Powell - Dept. of Chemistry - Abilene Christian University - Abilene, TX 79699 powell@acuvax.acu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 08:35:14 PDT From: David Green Subject: Re: Computer Languages In-Reply-To: ; from "Sherman Henzel" at Jun 24, 93 7:22 am > > Jack Miller writes, "Forget BASIC it is Dead." > > Like Mark Twain reports of BASIC's demise are gorssly exaggerated." > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > I think everyone agrees that IMSAI Basic is dead. It had a limited instruction set, handled I/O rather clumsily, no graphics, etc and it was a modern language in the 60's. But QuickBasic is truly structured (if you want it to be), has good I/O capabilities to the outside world, graphics (not standard in ANSI C or ANSI Pascal), a quite elaborate instruction set in integer-single-double precision, easy to learn especially if you know another language, and other stuff. I'm not saying it's the best (and it's not particularly fast), but, as many have said, if it gets the job done, it's the right hardware/software/program/language. End of soapbox. David Green Natural Science Division Pepperdine University Malibu CA dgreen@pepvax.bitnet dgreen@pepvax.pepperdine.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 14:35:39 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Paper 2 - Networks >Our network situation is similar to that described by Harmon B. Abrahamson >("the network has grown incrementally"), except on a much smaller scale and >about two years behind: several Macs with an Appletalk network and access to >a VAX through a terminal server. We would like to convert from LocalTalk to >Ethernet (EtherTalk?) for up to 10 MacII-series computers. Our campus network >gurus are trying to force everyone who converts to Ethernet to purchase >PathWorks (for PC-DOS or Mac) as well as their recommended Pathworks-compatible >Ethernet card. We are currently using VersaTerm-Pro to interface with the VAX >(terminal emulation) and Mac System 7 to share files, etc. Does anyone else >out there have experience using PathWorks? Seems I recall that this was >created by a joint venture between DEC and Apple a few years ago. What does >Pathworks do for you that VersaTerm and the Mac Chooser (and Sys 7 >file-sharing) >cannot accomplish over Ethernet? Why can't we just buy any 10baseT Ethernet >cards and "plug-and-play"? The network wiring is already in place. > We looked at Pathworks and it doesn't do anything for you unless you want to use your VAX as a server. Since DEC was so obnoxious with us refusing to sell us a VAX three years ago since we wouldn't go with an all Dec campus (we had to buy the VAX via third party) we use Macs as Mac servers or use areas on the disk of our SGI UNIX boxes. Pathworks was hideously expensive compared to everything else on the market. Avoid it like the plague unless you are in an intgrated DEC environment (I don't envy you if you are) >Thanks to Harmon Abrahamson, Jim Hood, Jack Miller, Tom O'Haver, and >John Pojman for the useful advice so far! > >--------------- >Greg Powell - Dept. of Chemistry - >Abilene Christian University - Abilene, TX 79699 >powell@acuvax.acu.edu Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 24 Jun 1993 14:38:30 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Computer Languages >> >> Jack Miller writes, "Forget BASIC it is Dead." >> >> Like Mark Twain reports of BASIC's demise are gorssly exaggerated." >> >> ----------------------------------------------------------- >> >I think everyone agrees that IMSAI Basic is dead. It had a limited >instruction set, handled I/O rather clumsily, no graphics, etc and it was >a modern language in the 60's. But QuickBasic is truly structured >(if you want it to be), has good I/O capabilities to the outside world, >graphics (not standard in ANSI C or ANSI Pascal), a quite elaborate >instruction set in integer-single-double precision, easy to learn >especially if you know another language, and other stuff. >I'm not saying it's the best (and it's not particularly fast), but, as >many have said, if it gets the job done, it's the right >hardware/software/program/language. > As chair of our computer science department as well as being a chemist, I can tell you that in the real world of employers looking for job skills, nobody (almost -- 1 in 3 years) asks for skills in BASIC of any flavour -- and what they did want was old classic basic). This discussion is about what to teach that will be potentially useful to our students IN THEIR FUTURE WORKING LIVES!!! >End of soapbox. > >David Green >Natural Science Division >Pepperdine University >Malibu CA > >dgreen@pepvax.bitnet >dgreen@pepvax.pepperdine.edu Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 24 Jun 1993 14:39:42 -0500 From: aubrey mcintosh Subject: Re: Computer Languages Jack Martin Miller writes: > As chair of our computer science department as well as being a > chemist, I can tell you that in the real world of employers looking > for job skills, nobody (almost -- 1 in 3 years) asks for skills in > BASIC of any flavour -- and what they did want was old classic > basic). This discussion is about what to teach that will be > potentially useful to our students IN THEIR FUTURE WORKING LIVES!!! I have worked in the N. Wirth family (Algol/Pascal/Modula2/Oberon) for some time, and in my own unique situation, I am quite exuberant about it. What are your experiences with this family? Do you have enough experience to contrast Modula2 or Oberon with ANSI C or C++? I'm not so interested in Pascal, as Prof. Wirth's experience has gone too the new languages, leaving Pascal as a 20 year old snapshot of the art. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 13:12:39 EST From: Tecnologia Quimica e Informacao Subject: mod&sim Hello, I would like to have a help to identify ftp SERVERS in the area of modeling and simulation of chemical processes. Thanks Adalberto Cantalino E-MAIL: tqi@sunrnp.ufba.br ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 15:41:00 PDT From: Jaqueline E Madison Subject: Re: CHEMCONF Schedule I requested papers 1, 2, and 3 a couple of weeks ago. I recently received paper 1, but haven't seen the latter two. Perhaps there are others in the same situation. Jackie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 08:16:34 +0800 From: "\"Gary Williams" Subject: Re: Programming Reading the mail regarding which programming languages are dead or alive has lead me to the conclusion that we just have to accept the many so called standards that we presently have. In some situations BASIC is alive and well over here in Western Australia - especially in primary and lower secondary schools. In upper secondary and non-computer science departments at this University (UWA) a lot of people use ThinkC and ThinkPascal, and if they are involved in multimedia development Hypertext. Yes - the computer science department uses the far more recent languages, and there is a tendency for one group to consider every other group as behind the times or not using a 'real' language. But we need to accept that it really is a case of horses for courses and accept that all languages are ideal to achieve certain objectives. Considering this is actually a chemical education conference - we are spending a fair amount of time (including myself) thinking about a side-issue to our main subject?? Is this really chemistry research and education? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 23:07:38 -0500 From: Barry Rowe Subject: Re: Programming > In some situations BASIC is alive and well over here >in Western Australia - especially in primary and lower secondary schools. In >upper secondary and non-computer science departments at this University (UWA) >a lot of people use ThinkC and ThinkPascal, and if they are involved in >multimedia development Hypertext. BASIC is wonderful for kids and programming for fun, but as the complexity of the toolboxes available to program have increased, BASIC has been left behind. Everyone seems to be going to C, even the Pascal-based Macintosh. However, as machines increase in complexity and speed, I think we will find an increasing use of higher level languages, such as the upcoming Dylan for the Power PC. In essence, the programming languages are coming closer to database, hypertext and word processing 'languages' -- english-like script. They all seem to be object oriented also. I think the University of Illinois may have the best idea. They wrote a language and it is used in the introductory classes. It is lisp-like and oriented towards teaching programming. Shades of Pascal! I prefer Pascal for my use, and I use HyperTalk because I teach HyperCard in school. It is particularly elegant, but HyperCard itself is rather limited. HyperStudio has been released by Roger Wagner Publishing for the Macintosh (ported from the Apple IIGS), and its scripting language is Logo! That is strange, I think. >Considering this is actually a chemical education conference - we are spending >a fair amount of time (including myself) thinking about a side-issue to our >main subject?? Is this really chemistry research and education? Be careful!! I said this about the platform argument, and got soundly hooted down! barry [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] Barry E. Rowe browe@ncsa.uiuc.edu NCSA ChemViz group 240 CAB, 152 E. Springfield Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 ANY PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PHYSICS OBVIOUSLY INVOLVES MATTER, AND IS THEREFORE CHEMISTRY. [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 00:57:45 EDT From: "John P. Ranck" Subject: Paper 3 - Answers to Short Questions PAPER 3 - ANSWERS TO SHORT QUESTIONS From: John P. Ranck Elizabethtown College Elizabethtown, PA 17022 RANCK@VAX.ETOWN.EDU Date: June 25, 1993 ======================================================================= From: Carolyn S. Judd Q: Yes! Better visualization will surely lead to increased understanding. Can you give an estimate of the time needed to produce your movies? A: As in most things, it takes longer the first time. From beginning to end, the entire production of these animations required 3 - 4 days (a long weekend). The tasks were: 1) Determine a short enough dynamics step time that molecular vibrations would be apparent and yet long enough that the entire course of the reaction would run in 100 or fewer frames. The step time was 0.6 femtoseconds and frames were captured every 2 steps. 2) Optimize the geometry of a transition state complex with O---C---Cl distances "frozen" at reasonable distances, use this as a starting point for a dynamics run and let the transition state complex "come apart" to form the "reactants". Then reverse all velocity vectors and add a slight extra component along the reaction coordinate. This is the starting point for the reaction run. With the slight extra velocity component along the reaction coordinate, the fragments (reactants) recombined and went "over the hill" to form the products. All this took some fiddling to get starting conditions just right. 3) Write a script to do this automatically, stopping every two dynamics steps to calculate, display, and capture the molecular orbitals. I wrote the script as a macro in Microsoft Word (strange use of a word processor) because the macro language is Word Basic which has control structures (loops, logical if's, etc.) which are missing in HyperChem's scripting language. (HyperChem scripts are basically sequences of menu commands.) I had never used Word before and the peculiarities of its macros took some learning -- especially to generate a systematic file name for each frame and to open and close files, etc. The data (frame) collection run, after all the preps and false starts took somewhere between 2 and 4 hours. 4) Becauuse HyperChem assigns the phase (and color) of the orbital lobes arbitrarily, the colors were not consistent from frame to frame. To maintain continuity of color in the animation, it was necessary to reverse the colors in half the frames. Time: 1 to 2 hours per animation after learning the idiosyncrasies of a color editor (HiJaak for Windows). 5) Assemble 100 frames into a .FLC file (Using Autodesk Animator Pro with which I was already somewhat familiar). Time: about 30 minutes per animation. ========================================================================== From: Donald Rosenthal Q: How do you use the animation files - do you use them as demonstrations in lectures or do students have access to them outside class? A: I constructed these animations as a feasibility test toward constructing interactive "textbooks." My desire is to have a "text" in which: 1) chemical reactions are represented by dynamic animations instead of static reactant --> product representations; 2) mathematical equations and graphs are active and allow variations in parameters and choice of variables to plot; AND the student has available immediately beside the text (with cut and paste options) 1) a Chemistry Workspace (e.g., HyperChem) in which it is possible to change the nucleophile, add side groups to provide "steric hindrance," change the plane for which the orbitals are displayed, change temperature, initial velocities, etc.; 2) a Mathematics Workspace (e.g., MathCAD) in which the mathematical relations presented may be similarly explored AND have all this wrapped in a hypertext system in which suggestions for exploration may be provided if needed. ----------------------- Q: How do students react to these animations? What sort of student evaluations have these materials received? A: I have shared these animations with only one small class of physical chemistry students. They claimed that they will never see chemical reactions the same way again. The sample is too small to be meaningful and I set them up. ========================================================================= From: Charlie Abrams Q: Do you have a graph of the potential energy vs. frame number? Even better would be an energy surface with O-C and C-Br distances as the X and Y axis respectively. A: Such a map showing the trajectory on a potential energy surface could, of course, be constructed from data generated by HyperChem. It depends on what one is trying to exhibit. My attempt here was to develop an revealing dynamic alternative to the static presentations of an elementary reaction type. HOMO and LUMO orbital energy profiles vs. reaction coordinate (correlation diagrams?) would also be useful in another context. ------------------ Q: Can you provide more information on exactly what parameters were used for the calculation? (ie. what level of sophistication, etc.) A: HyperChem uses molecular mechanics or quantum mechanics to compute a potential energy surface and then determines the motion of this potential energy surface using classical mechanics. I used the AM1 semi-empirical methods to calculate the energies and the orbitals. ------------------- Q: How much faith do you have in these calculations? Is it safe to assume that the *qualitative* behavior is independent of the level of sophistication? A: I am trying to convey qualitative information (molecules vibrate during the course of a reaction; the reactants do not combine smoothly through the activated complex and come apart directly as products; the electron orbitals are really quite spread out over reactants and products and are dynamically changing in complex ways during the reaction) with some degree of accuracy in the quantitative details. I consider these illustrative rather than highly accurate. ---------------------- Q: Can you generate shaded *surfaces* with HyperChem? Was this avoided because of computational expense, or memory expense, or both? (By surface I mean CPK type image). A: Shaded (CPK) surfaces are a HyperChem option (actually, they are quite "pretty") and orbitals can be superimposed over the atomic rendering, whatever it be. I chose the dot surfaces (1) so that the orbital contours did not get lost in a wash of color and (2) shaded surfaces give a greater sense of looking at the molecule from the outside. I wanted to emphasize the electron "distribution" so I used contour maps (necessarily in a plane) instead of orbital boundary surfaces which show only one constant contour surface without any information about gradient. The dot surfaces provide some representation of the atomic "size" (van der Waals radii) without being as obtrusive as I thought the shaded CPK surfaces would be. ------------------------ Q: I've had trouble getting the display to behave properly on one monitor. The program did not give me the 640x480 driver option when I used a DEC "PC7XV" monitor (with a DEC 433dxLP computer), and would only display 'oversized bits'. Are other drivers available? A: Autodesk *.FLC files also display quite nicely (but a bit more slowly) using Microsoft Windows Media Player (mplayer.exe). On some systems (using Media Player) the background washes with strange colors during the first playing of the animation, but behaves correctly during the second and subsequent runs. I think this is due to some slight frame errors introduced when I did the color editing. =========================================================================== From: Andy Tanton Q: I have seen a movie representation of SN2 mechanism before (prepared by Bruce Branchaud of U. Oregon) which was very similar to yours, and may have also been developed on HyperChem, although I don't remember. In addition to representing the mechanism graphically, Branchaud's movie also gave potential energy values for each frame (computed by the program). He used this not only to discuss the nature of the high-energy SN2 transition state, but also to hint that the gas-phase SN2 reaction coordinate has a very peculiar energy profile. Can you get your program to calculate and display potential energies? A: See answer to Charlie Abrams question (above). -------------------- Q: If so, is there any way for the program to estimate solvent effects on the species, so as to demonstrate the difference between solution and gas-phase SN2? A: HyperChem lets you place a molecular system in a periodic box of water molecules to simulate behavior in aqueous solution. This is useful for simulating conditions for biological systems. After creating this aqueous system, it should be possible to edit the system to substitute other solvent molecules, though I have not tried this. =========================================================================== Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 10:26:57 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Programming k. > >>Considering this is actually a chemical education conference - we are spending >>a fair amount of time (including myself) thinking about a side-issue to our >>main subject?? Is this really chemistry research and education? > Of course it is Chemiscal Education. How and with what do we equip chemists to meet the rapidly changing job needs. In terms of simple pedagogy most of what I teach wasn't discovered when AI was a student. We are trying to find out how to teach and what to teach chemists in this time of exponential growth of technology. When it comes to computers, anything that is commercially available is obsolete, but its what we have to use, whether networking discussed in paper two or other questions raised in paper one. Using twenty year old technolgy may illustrate a pedagogical point in elementary school, but is it what we want chemists who will be the teachers, researchers and working chemists of the future to know? >Be careful!! I said this about the platform argument, and got soundly >hooted down! > Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 25 Jun 1993 13:03:34 -0700 From: Loren Carter Subject: local talk to ethernet Does anyone out there know of software that will allow a DOS machine to access a Caman GatorBox over a local talk network? We have several Macs and a couple of DOS machines connected to a laserprinter using a local talk network. The Macs are connected to ethernet using a gaterbox that is connected to the local talk network, but the DOS machines can't seem to find the gatorbox and so far I have not been able to connect them to ethernet from the local talk network. Loren Carter Chemistry Department Boise State University Boise, Idaho ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 15:11:24 -0400 From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster Animation is great. If only we could get a standard that would be truely protable. Whether QuickTime movies now available in both PC and Mac format provide this I don't know. Certainly interplatform operability is a problem, and even between diferent machines on the same platform. Jack M. Miller Brock University: jmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 25 Jun 1993 15:13:03 EDT From: "C. H. Lochmuller" Subject: Re: local talk to ethernet In-Reply-To: <9306251905.AA13068@umd5.umd.edu>; from "Loren Carter" at Jun 25, 93 1:03 pm There were rumors of appletalk/easytalk/... cards about 8 months ago. outfits name began with D but the fact is that it was vaporware " .. we hope to get ...by ....". Dakom? I would be intersted in finding a way myself. CHL ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1993 17:16:56 +0800 From: "\"Gary Williams" Subject: Questions Paper 3 Are there any hypertext/hypermedia characteristics inherent in the package called 'HyperChem'? That is can you develop movies that the student had a degreeof control over - for example the speed of the movie, the ability to replay the movie and pause at particular frames? To what extent is HyperChem compatible with Hypercard? Can Hypercard call HyperChem movies or do the movies have to be stored in a Quicktime format. I know that some packages, e.g. Studio1, have quite an extensive library of Hypercard compatible commands. I have used these to provide 1st year uni students with a degree of control over the movie. Is this the case with HyperChem? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1993 17:22:58 +0800 From: "\"Gary Williams" Subject: Paper 3 The discussion regarding the use of wedges and dotted lines to assist in conveying 3-D characterisitcs to 2-D representations reminded of a small piece of software I looked at a few years back. It involved this character called Dr Smedley and included simulated rotation around a bond, using MacroMind director. Unfortunately I only had access to a demo-version and I remeber that it was quite a nice bit of graphics. Does anyone have any information as to whether the software featuring Dr Smedley was developed further and whether packages are available. The demo version I saw involved SN2 reactions. TNX 1 x 10^6, Gary W ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1993 14:35:45 -0500 From: James Barrett Aldridge Subject: Re: What Undergraduates need to Know In-Reply-To: <9306221812.AA24482@umd5.umd.edu> LaTex today? Surely not. A good Mac or Win PC with Word and its associated equation editor is light years ahead. Good grief. J. Aldridge ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 16:37:11 EDT From: Ying Wang Subject: signing off from the conference Please sign me off. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 11:43:13 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: local talk to ethernet >Does anyone out there know of software that will allow a DOS machine to access >a >Caman GatorBox over a local talk network? > We do it all the time. No software is needed unless your Gator Box is miss-set. I assume you're using a Farallon card in your PC -- it should see all other Mac zones just like a Mac -- you shouldn't know the Gator Box is there. For general network access to Non-MAC environments, if the PC has TCP/IP drivers it should tunnel through the Gator Box to the Internet world, the UNIX boxes on ethernet etc. without an trouble. D. Bockus, my administrative assistant (dbockus@spartan.ac.Brocku.ca) apparently does this all the time without problem, or so my Network Administrator informs me. >We have several Macs and a couple of DOS machines connected to a laserprinter >using a local talk network. The Macs are connected to ethernet using a >gaterbox >that is connected to the local talk network, but the DOS machines can't seem to >find the gatorbox and so far I have not been able to connect them to ethernet >from the local talk network. If you mean connect to ethernet devices, not ethertalk, then you need TCP/IP on your PC, just as you do on your Macs. > > >Loren Carter >Chemistry Department >Boise State University >Boise, Idaho Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 28 Jun 1993 11:53:30 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: local talk to ethernet Correstion to my earlier response. Yes we routinely go through the Gator box to other Appletalk zones over the ethernet backbone, but we've not tried to get through to ethernet itself with a TCP/IP packet driver which will probably have to be modified from standard PC TCP/IP. Sorry for the confusion. Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 28 Jun 1993 11:55:41 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: local talk to ethernet Have you checked with the PC card vendor for the packet drivers or with the Gator Box people? Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Chair, Dept. of 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, 28 Jun 1993 13:14:10 EDT From: "John P. Ranck" Subject: Paper 3 Q & A From: Gary Williams Q: Are there any hypertext/hypermedia characteristics inherent in the package called 'HyperChem'? That is can you develop movies that the student had a degreeof control over - for example the speed of the movie, the ability to replay the movie and pause at particular frames? A: HyperChem has the ability to save atomic coordinates and velicities in a snapshot file during a dynamics run. The snapshot file can subsequently be played back as a movie without recalculating each frame. The user can specify the starting and stopping frame in the sequence and can interrupt the playback at any time. Because the "frames" are saved as coordinate and velocity data, the rotation and scaling options may be applied to the playback, i.e., the playback can be run with the user observing from different angles. Saying it another way, the snapshots are not screen images but are molecular data. ------------------------------ Q: To what extent is HyperChem compatible with Hypercard? Can Hypercard call HyperChem movies or do the movies have to be stored in a Quicktime format. I know that some packages, e.g. Studio1, have quite an extensive library of Hypercard compatible commands. I have used these to provide 1st year uni students with a degree of control over the movie. Is this the case with HyperChem? A: HyperChem is available for DOS/Windows and for Silicon Graphics workstation. Hypercard is a hypertexting system for the Macintosh. There is no inherent compatability. However, screen IMAGES (not snapshots of atomic coordinates) from HyperChem can be saved as bitmat (*.BMP) and/or windows graphics metafiles (*.WMF). There are numerous graphic image conversion programs which convert such images to other formats, e.g., CompuServe Graphics Image Format (*.GIF). I used these *.GIF images to assemble the Autodesk *.FLC format movie files. I believe Macintosh quicktime movies can also be assembled from *.GIF images. The movies, once created and stored can be called from a hypertext system such as Hypercard for the Macintosh or Toolbook or Guide for DOS/Windows systems. These movies, however, will not be "interactive" in the sense that the student can rotate, etc. as they are sequences of screen images and are not constructed on the fly from atomic coordinates as are the playbacks of snapshot files from within HyperChem. John P. Ranck Internet: ranck@vax.etown.edu Department of Chemistry Voice: 717-361-1315 Elizabethtown College FAX: 717-361-1207 Elizabethtown, PA 17022-2298 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:19:08 -0400 From: William Harwood Subject: Paper4 Following are the questions and our responses for paper #4: 1. From Carloyn S. Judd, Central College, Houston Community College System (cjudd@tenet.edu) >I love The World of Chemistry videos! My students love them also. >Could you give more detail about the student projects involving >their own video productions. Was there an exact assignment? How >long were the videos. Did the institution furnish the equipment? >How did the class presentation go? Were there more student >questions following a student presentation than the presentations >from The World of Chemistry? Response: The assignment for the class at U of Maryland was open-ended. Students were to provide a creative project linking chemistry to a topic of their own interest. I did not suggest or expect video projects, in part because no support was provided to produce these. Nevertheless, it is apparent that some American students are quite proficient in the use of video technology. The video projects typically ran for 15 minutes. As I stated, some were poorly put together. This may be do to the lack of good editing facilities available to that student. The best video project, regarding drug use and abuse, was quite proficient. This student had access to some home video editing equipment. More importantly, however, the student had an excellent directorial sense. She clearly thought about when to present certain material and in what order. The students who used World of Chemistry and other videos to augment a class discussion found the class to be somewhat responsive. The limited success of discussion in class seemed to be related to the ability of the student to encourage and lead a discussion. Some students, lacking this skill, inadvertently stifled participation by the class. 2. From Donald Rosenthal, Dept. of Chemistry Clarkson University, Postdam, NY (Rosen1@clvm.bitnet) >Six references are listed at the end of your paper. The >videotapes are cited. What about the other references? Were any >of these used in the courses you discussed? Was the laboratory >manual used? What sort of experiments are in the laboratory >manual? Response: The American program was lecture only because too few students expressed an interest in a laboratory portion for the course. It was intended that students would have labs such as making soap and making oil of wintergreen. We did have a short in-class lab to make silly putty (during our discussion on polymers). In addition, there were a lot of demonstrations. Many of these are "classic" Shakhashiri demos such as the use of purple cabbage as an acid-base indicator. Several books are used by our department as sources of demonstrations. The Israeli version used some of the "World of Chemistry Laboratory Manual" labs. 3. From Tom O'Haver, UMCP, (Thomas_C_OHAVER@umail.umd.edu) > 1. Specifically what societal, economic, and political >differences between Israeli and American chemistry students have >a bearing on the video-based course experiment? > 2. Do you find important differences between the television >viewing habits of Israeli and American students? > 3. Are there differences between the extent to which Israeli >and American students are exposed to video production technology >at the secondary level? Response: Tom, you hit the nail on the head! American students are generally more technologically wealthy than their Israeli counterparts. Many homes in America have camcorders and videotape machines, often with at least limited editing capability. American and Israeli students watch a great deal of television, though Americans have a much larger number of viewing hours than do typical Israeli students. Many of these programs, including the very popular MTV, are quite sophisticated in the mode of video expression. Also popular are the "how did they make that film" shows. These describe how video technology is used in the film industry and provide some general information for students. Young American students are, in general, fairly sophisticated critics of film production elements. The challenge, of course, is to encourage students to focus on the content. American students may be more easily engaged thatn Israeli students. This is because the World of Chemistry videos are catered to and tailored for the needs of young Americans. They also portray "American style" daily lives, housing, concerns and societal debates. To some extent, student in other contries, including Israel, have an avid interest in things American. This interest porvides some help in bridging the cultural gap inherent in the World of Chemistry video programs. Exposure to film and video in secondary schools is still widely limited to passive viewing of shows. Interactive video use in the classroom or use of multimedia (videos and computers) is just beginning in America and Israel. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 11:39:19 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: paper3 late reply I'm sorry that this is late but I misread my calendar. Please don't reply to the Server. Save it for later or send to me directly and I will summarize. The approach given here is one that addresses a fundamental problem in chemical education. During lectures students are given the "facts" , "just the facts" for the most part. After all they must learn them somewhere. Reactions are written on the board, some questions are asked, and some responses obtained. But, just how much do most of the students really understand? A chemical reaction has many levels of understanding associated with it as the author points out. Faculty and other professionals penetrate into various levels as needed for a discussion. Students usually do not have this multi-level multi-faceted appreciation of a reaction mechanism. Nevertheless we talk to them in class as if they did especially if a facet of interpretation has been introduced once or even twice before. Then a dilemma develops. This dilema is due to our modes of learning. Students often play into our model of them by often saying yes when we say, "do you understand?" We in turn are surprised when they do poorly on an exam that shows clearly that they do not understand. There may be several reasons why they say yes that they understand even when they don't. Not knowing enough to even ask a question might be one of them and frustration at not being able to understand may be another. There are many others that you can come up with, some showing the student in a favorable light and some showing him/her in an unfavorable light. I choose to think that since the student is in college he/she has some interest in learning and honest motives causes for success and/or failure are beyond this discussion. One way to help students learn better is with animations like the ones included in this paper. Various levels of understanding are displayed and can be redispalyed over and over and at various speeds and looked at and discussed with peers and teachers. It opens new doors of understanding. Group discussion situations can also be used effectively to accomplish this when animations are not available. In groups students can learn effectively to articulate their nascent questions and gain confidence in talking about science. Another effective strategy is for the teacher to use assessment techniques to assess learning not to assign a grade. Teaching under the old paradigm of lectures measures student understanding only at exam time when it is too late to correct misconceptions. By using brief well designed assessments to diagnose student understanding maybe many misconceptions can be nipped in the bud. But you may claim that this will take too much time away from that important goal of lecture, the rapid transfer of information. My reply is that you may be transferring information but the receiver is not turned on when comprehension and understanding on the part of the student is absent. In closing I add that we cannot give students everything that they need for their next career step. What we can give them is a set of skills with which they can get what they need on their own and when they need it. Isn't that what professional chemists do? Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University Chemistry Department Niagara University NY 14109 Roszieli@UBVMS ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 09:08:08 -0700 From: Stephen Lower Subject: Peper 4 discussion In discussing the outcomes of these courses, the authors emphasize the students' "increase in felt knowledge", but nothing is said about the results of objective tests of what the students have learned in terms of the (unstated) goals of the course, which presumably extend beyond making students feel good about Chemistry. Perhaps if I were familiar with the "World of Chemistry" materials I would have a more clear idea of what these goals might be, but I think that some discussion of this in the paper might have been helpful. I suspect that the "cultural differences" alluded to in the paper are just as great between different groups within the two countries as between the countries themselves. Educational institutions have traditionally forced the student to conform to the learning styles (and the "culture", if you like) that developed amongst the small elite that sought education in the last century, and have not made much of an effort to adapt to the cultural diversity that exists amongst the populations that many of them are supposed to serve. Studies of this kind tend to be met with something between dismissal and apathy on the part of the academic establishment, so I am happy to see this one here. ---------- 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: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 15:36:38 -0400 From: William Harwood Subject: paper 4 response Steve Lower comments that we could have provided some detail regarding mastery of chemical knowledge by the students in the courses. Our reason for not including this information was the lack of a specific control group. However, the syllabus of this course is typical of many non-science major courses in introductory chemistry. Students were expected to perform at different cognitive levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, synthesis and analysis. They had quizzes, exams and (for many) a final exam in both countries. The achievements of the students by these measures were not significantly different from other classes of similar type that the instructors have taught previously. Still, we have been struck by the enthusiasm and improvements in attitudes toward the study of chemistry that these students have demonstrated. Moreover, a major goal of these courses, and the World of Chemistry video programs, is to demonstrate that chemistry is in us and around us. Students in America and Israel got this message easily, clearly, and enjoyably. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 16:38:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES PAPER 4 DISCUSSION ON USE OF VIDEOS TO: AUTHORS AND PARTICIPANTS In the paper the authors indicate: > " The use of video as a primary or supplementary means of presenting > information on science issues . . ." I wonder how extensively "The World of Chemistry" videos are used: 1. In high school chemistry 2. In teaching non-chemistry undergraduates 3. In teaching undergraduate chemistry majors Are they used: a. in lecture (tutorial or quiz sessions), b. as required homework assignments, c. or as optional resource materials? I imagine that the tapes have been used in all of these ways in particular courses. Do the AUTHORS have any statistics on such use? In the courses described in their paper the authors seem to be discussing 2-a and b usage. Have they used the materials in other ways? How have PARTICIPANTS used these tapes and other materials? Describe how the course is organized and how useful the videos have been. Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 22:35:13 EDT From: Dan Swartling Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES We have used the video series as lab material for our chemistry for liberal arts class. The tapes are very informative and very well received. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 21:31:04 -0500 From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In-Reply-To: <9306292056.AA10856@umd5.umd.edu> On Tue, 29 Jun 1993, Donald Rosenthal wrote: > PAPER 4 DISCUSSION ON USE OF VIDEOS > > TO: AUTHORS AND PARTICIPANTS > > I wonder how extensively "The World of Chemistry" videos are used: > Houston Community College System offers three freshman level and organic sophomore level chemistry courses. I use the World of Chemistry vidoes in all these courses. I cannot imagine teaching without " The Mole" (one faculty member reported applause after her students viewed this video.) I use this video in all freshman level courses. " Signals from Within" is an excellent introduction to infrared for the organic chemistry students. "Water" is another of my favorites for the freshman level courses. Our three freshman courses are (1) introductory chemistry for students who never took chemistry in high school (a 3-hr lecture/lab), (2) a 4-hr (lecture/lab) course for those following a health career path, and general chemistry. I also use parts of many of the other videos; only time limits prevents my inclusion of additional videos. The World of Chemistry is a high quality program that always hold the attention of my students. Carolyn S. Judd Central College, Houston Community College System 1300 Holman Houston TX 77004 713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 09:01:11 CST From: John Moore Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES I have used the World of Chemistry videotapes in categories 2 and 3 of Don Rosenthal's question. I think they worked very well to give the students a view of the forest of chemistry as opposed to the view of individual leaves on the trees that we usually present in lecture or textbooks. The tapes were a semi-required part of the course. I had one tape each week and picked out the half-hour tape that matched what I was doing in lecture that week. Tapes were available in a laboratory room and at the end of the week in the big lecture hall with a 3-gun video projector. Students watched them raptly until the summary review at the end, at which point they figured everything was over. I was present at most of the showings, except when I was out of town. By semi-required, I mean that the tapes were said to be required but the points to be gained by watching them were only a small fraction (1.6%) of the total for the course. Most students watched the requisite number of tapes, and I think they got a good overview of each week's content as well as a much better idea of how that content fit into real-world applications of chemistry. I was quite pleased with the way this worked. John Moore University of Wisconsin-Madison As a reminder, Don Rosenthal's categories 2 and 3 were: >2. In teaching non-chemistry undergraduates > >3. In teaching undergraduate chemistry majors > Our main freshman course includes some chemistry majors but lots of other science majors and some students who are satisfying a science distribution requirement. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 09:08:25 CST From: John Moore Subject: Re: Carolyn Judd on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES Re the comment that more World of Chemistry tapes would be used if there were more time, it is not necessary to use and entire tape and consequently an entire half hour's time. Conference participants should be aware that Nava Ben-Zvi has edited many of the demonstrations and animations from World of Chemistry into two hours worth of video laserdiscs that have been published by Journal of Chemical Education: Software as World of Chemistry: Selected Demonstrations and Animations I and II. The laser videodisc format makes it possible for you to go to any desired demo or animation and show only the part that you want. Thus you could use this in lecture without having to show a whole tape or queue up exactly the section you want. The material is barcoded and frame numbers are given for each segment in the written documentation for each disc. Each laser videodisc costs $150. If you want more information contact J. Chem. Educ. Software at 608-262-5153. John Moore University of Wisconsin-Madison ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 10:25:18 -0500 From: "James E. Van Verth" Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES Selected portions of the World of Chemistry tapes are available on two videodiscs, available from JCE-Software, U. Wisconsin, $150 each. The advantage of the videodisc format is, of course, rapid access of any segment, so that a number of short sequences can be easily interspersed within a lecture. James E. Van Verth Department of Chemistry VANVERTH@CANISIUS.BITNET Canisius College, Buffalo, NY 14208 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 11:34:45 EDT From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET> Subject: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In-Reply-To: Message received on Tue, 29 Jun 93 16:50:29 EDT regarding Donald Rosenthal's comment; the WOC tapes have been used all over the world in many different ways, not only in 1,2 and 3 but also in junior high schools and in the workplace, such as industries and also in teachers in-service and pre-service workshops. they were not aonly used as a,b, and c but also as examination materials. We do not have any statistics about the relative different uses, but we have information from various sources about the different ways the WOC tapes are used. Our studeants in the case study described in the paper , used the tapes together with text book, study guide and laboratory guide. Ifmore informationrequested, please write to NAVA BEN ZVI 201226@UMDD ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 11:42:51 EDT From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET> Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In-Reply-To: Message received on Tue, 29 Jun 93 22:36:19 EDT thanks for the information about the extensive use of the WOC tapes. Nava ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 11:44:52 EDT From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET> Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In-Reply-To: Message received on Tue, 29 Jun 93 22:51:31 EDT regarding Carolyn S. Judd's comment; Thank you for sharing with us your experience with some of the WOC tapes. To the best of our knowledge the tapes are shown and used extensively around the world in different languages and for different puposes and the general feeling is that they bring a new dimension to the learning of chemistry. Ifmore information needed, write to NAVA BEN ZVI at 201226@UMDD ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 11:47:10 -0400 From: "Frank W. Darrow" Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In my non-majors courses "Chemistry and Your Body" and "Contemporary Chemical Issues" I use two to three hours of video from "The World of Chemistry" during the semester and in the first year majors course I use about one hour. In our second year organic course we use about one hour. In all cases the video is used during class sessions and is preceded with an overhead or two, or blackboard, preparing students for what they will see and what they should look for. The video is followed by lecture and discussion about it. The faculty manual that accompanies the telecourse is useful in preparing the pre and post showing things. We bought one of the videodiscs and we will use it instead of the videotape when appropriate this next year. Like most we also use other videos, discs, and demonstrations. In my non-majors courses they account for about one-third of class time, in the major course about one-fifth (the extent of content problem). Whatever is most appropriate to get the job done as we see it. Students receive these things well, and the change of pace/style of presentation is useful in keeping students "on task". ---------- Frank W. Darrow, Chemistry Dept., Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY 14850 Darrow@Ithaca.BitNet (607) 274-3991 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 12:18:02 EDT From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET> Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In-Reply-To: Message received on Wed, 30 Jun 93 10:06:14 EDT REGARDING JOHN MOORE'S COMMENT; THANK YOU FOR SHRING YOUR OWN EXOERIENCE WITH THE WOC.DID YOU TRY TO USE A SEGMENT OF THE TAPE AS AN EXAM QUESTION? NAVA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 12:21:10 EDT From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET> Subject: Re: Carolyn Judd on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In-Reply-To: Message received on Wed, 30 Jun 93 10:08:30 EDT REGARDING JOHN MOORE'S SECOND COMMECT; YES, WE DO HAVE DEMONSTARATIONS AND GRAPHICS FROM THE WOC SERIES ON VIDEODISCS. OUR NEXT STEP WILL BE THE CD-ROM. ANYBODY WANTS TO JOIN IN? NAVA AT 201226@UMDD ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 15:28:51 EDT From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET> Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In-Reply-To: Message received on Wed, 30 Jun 93 11:51:23 EDT REGARDING FRANK BARROW'S MESSAGE IT IS VERY PLEASING TO READ HOW THE WOC MATERIALS ARE USED IN A VARIETY OF SHEMISTRY COURSES WITH A STRONG STS APPROACH.THANKS. NAVA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 15:23:00 MDT Reply-To: bagaddis@uccs.edu From: bagaddis@HAPPY.UCCS.EDU Subject: Re: Carolyn Judd on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES I'd like more information about the CD ROM. Barbara Gaddis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 18:14:08 CST From: John Moore Subject: Re: USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES > >REGARDING JOHN MOORE'S COMMENT; >THANK YOU FOR SHRING YOUR OWN EXOERIENCE WITH THE WOC.DID YOU TRY TO USE A >SEGMENT OF THE TAPE AS AN EXAM QUESTION? >NAVA The answer to this is no, because I never had an exam where all of the students were in a room where I could show the tapes. However, I would like to use the videodisc this way. John Moore ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 18:16:54 CST From: John Moore Subject: Re: Carolyn Judd on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In Message Wed, 30 Jun 93 16:57:35, chemconf@umdd.bitnet writes: > >REGARDING JOHN MOORE'S SECOND COMMECT; >YES, WE DO HAVE DEMONSTARATIONS AND GRAPHICS FROM THE WOC SERIES ON VIDEODISCS. >OUR NEXT STEP WILL BE THE CD-ROM. ANYBODY WANTS TO JOIN IN? >NAVA >AT 201226@UMDD In another six months JCE: Software will begin distributing CD ROM discs, but I do not know what will be on the first one yet. We would have to get permission to do WOC from the videodiscs, right Nava? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 20:09:32 -0500 From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd Subject: John Moore on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In-Reply-To: <9306301429.AA20228@umd5.umd.edu> John, Thank you for the ideas for using the Videodisc The World of Chemistry. Hopefully J. Chem. Ed: Software will soon receive orders from my college for both volumes. Carolyn S. Judd Central College, Houston Community College System 1300 Holman Houston TX 77004 713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 22:37:06 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Use of WOC videos in Courses I have used WOC videos in non science majors courses for the past two years. I use these videos as an alternative to lecture. Before viewing the video I provide the students with a typed page of questions that they must complete after viewing the video. The assignment involves concept identification and clarification as well as application of the concepts to new situations. This year was the first year for using the question sheet. Student feed back was that they wanted more oportunities to review the video so as to get the correct ideas written down. They convinced me that it would also be good to have a discussion period after the video in which they could explore their understanding more thoroughly. I will do this in the comming academic year. Regarding 15-20 page papers. Students at Niagara like students everywhere are great procrastinators. Term papers are postponed to the last minute with stress build up at the end of the semester. I have found that more frequent shorter papers on more focused topics with 2-4 page limits at the rate of one every two weeks or so interspersed with other writing assignments keeps up a steady pace and facilitates learning. It also releaves me of the burden of grading so many long papers at the end of the semester. Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University Niagara University NY 14109 Roszieli@ubvms ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 23:19:46 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: paper 4 It is not surprising that materials produced in one country are not fully transferable to another even if that other country has a similar technological base. Even within one country the situation can be very complex when materials are used in non traditional learning situations or in bits and pieces to fit a traditional course. Further complications arise when age and cultural differences within a country are included. This makes assessment of the materials difficult. But instead of waiting for the perfect assessment tool for a diverse population of practitioners and students, assessment should proceed and the findings incorporated as they are discovered as is indicated in this paper. My interest in assessment is relatively new. I am trying to learn how to do it appropriately. I know that I don't want more numbers for my roll book. I want to assess learning during learning while I have time to affect the out come of instruction. In my opinion exam time is too late for identifying cognitive problems. What are people doing about assessing learning during instruction? My interest is to use pre and post assessment with my chem majors in pchem - first, to discover misconceptions (I am aware of Bodner's work in this area). Unfortunately all those misconceptions that I discovered in students over the past 25 years were not written down and since I have a poor memory I am now trying to get them any way that I can. Second, I would also like to assess the degree of learning due to a particular activity. In the paper it mentions that students overall chemical literacy improved as did their attitudes toward chemistry. These are two very important outcomes for the student who must now become an independent learner of science in an ever more complex and technological world. One of my goals as a teacher is to make science "user friendly" or rather to generate some friendly users of science. Toward this end I would be very interested in assessing science literacy and science attitudes in my classes for non science majors. I heard that assessing science attitudes was very difficult. What tests did you use for science literacy and science attitudes. Would you be able to share the tests or the sources? I am trying to generate assessment tools for my own students and would appreciate any help that could be extended in this area. Theresa Julia Zielinski Chemistry Department Niagara University Niagara University NY 14109 Roszieli@UBVMS ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 09:19:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 5 -Discussion PAPER 5 IT'S HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME by Joyce C. Brockwell This is an interesting proposal. If well planned and implemented, such software could be very useful. In Appendix A the dialog ends with the student having selected two compounds and being told (s)he has guessed the identity of the compound. Personally, I would like to see another question asked: What could you do to determine which of the two (or more) compounds you actually have? This question could be asked on the worksheet. SQUALOR is a Simulated QUAL ORganic analysis program which is quite well done. Has the AUTHOR used this with her students? What do some of the other PARTICIPANTS think of SQUALOR? Does it play a useful role in teaching students something about Qualitative Organic Analysis? Donald Rosenthal Box 5810 Department of Chemistry Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 09:45:57 -0400 From: Mary Swift Subject: Paper 5 I would like to suggest that the program to grade to the organic qual unknowns could be made into an instructional tool that aids the student in developing his thinking/problem solving skills Once the data base is created the "front end" would be structured as a laboratory. That is the student would be presented with an unknown and given "access" to a set of tools. The student would select the analyses to be carried out and come to his conclusion about the identity of the unknown. For an example of this type of instructional package see the BioQUEST library which was received an EDUCOM award as best curriculum last year. In some ways these applications come very close to the ways in which we try to approach our own problem solving and the students are "given" access to equipment that would normally be to expensive to let them "play" with. Mary L.Swift ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 09:05:57 MDT Reply-To: bagaddis@uccs.edu From: bagaddis@HAPPY.UCCS.EDU Subject: Re: Paper 5 -Discussion We have used SQUALOR as a supplement to qualitative organic analysis in both the majors and non majors organic chemistry lab. Students liked this program very much. They felt it prepared them both for the actual laboratory exercise and for the lab exams. Many students came in on their own time to work additional problems over what had been assigned. I think it is good as a supplement, but I would hate to see it replace hands-on work in the lab. Barbara Gaddis' U.C.C.S. Science Learning Center P.O. Box 7150 Colorado Springs, CO 80933-7150 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 10:53:56 -0500 From: Joyce Brockwell Subject: Re: Paper 5 In-Reply-To: <01H00T7INZG00011VI@nuacc.acns.nwu.edu> from "Mary Swift" at Jul 1, 93 09:45:57 am Mary Swift has suggested that the qual grader become an instructor as well, through the simple expedient of allowing the students to study the system and the analysis process by taking hypothetical unknowns through the program. This, indeed, would be a powerful use of such software, allowing the sudents to achieve a level of "comfort" with, e.g. single unknown, to present them with more challenges in the real lab (mixtures!) Yes, it would have that very practical use implicit in its construction. J.C.Brockwell ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 11:02:10 -0500 From: Joyce Brockwell Subject: Re: Paper 5 -Discussion In-Reply-To: <01H00SE51ASG000F9I@nuacc.acns.nwu.edu> from "Donald Rosenthal" at Jul 1, 93 09:19:00 am Don Rosenthal has inquired about the possibibility of a "back end" function on the qual program--a last inquiry to the user about distinguishing the specific unknown from the choice of two given by the final guesses. Such an extension would be possible, but , I suspect, better done in "wetware"--student-teacher interactions. Either way, its a natural. Don, as well as Barbara Gaddis, have inquired about SQUALOR, the award-winning software simulating qualitative analysis in organic chemistry. SQUALOR, and other useful instructional programs, may potentially shorten the learning curve in mastering strategy in qual. With practic3 on the simulator, students may learn to ask themselves the next question during the analysis. Use of the comuputer cannot replace the laboraty experience, but it can make it "easier" for the students, thus reducing stress and allowing the experiments to be a bit more challenging. At present, Northwestern lacks the hardware to dedicate to chemistry service courses on computers. In fact, we are in a better position to allow the laboratory experience (including instrumentation!) However, the computers will eventually find their way into our curriculum, allowing simulations to expand the students' experience and enhance their laboratory learning. Joyce Brockwell ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 18:06:36 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: paper5 discussion - SQUALOR I heard the author of SQUALOR speak at the Fall ACS meeting in NYC in 1991. I also have seen the program in action. I recall that one of the purposes of the program was to allow students intensive practice with a variety of samples (many more than could be done practically in lab by one student in one semester). There was no intention that the program be used to substitute for real wet lab work. As I recall the program allows input of new compounds including spectra. With a secure set of unknowns in a separate file it can even be used for assessment with or without the professor at the elbow of the student. The main problem that I anticipate with SQUALOR or the program proposed here is that the success depends on the attitude of the instructor. If simulations are a valued type of educational tool then the instructor will foster use of the program. If the instructor views simulations as just so much guessing then the students will not get much out of the program and it will probably not be used often or effectively. Even a good and interesting program like SQUALOR can be made a boring chore for the student if the correct parameters are set in class or lab by the instructor. Personally I prefer the SQUALOR approach. Its goal is to foster student learning by providing painless rapid practice sessions. Probably the best of all worlds would be to have both programs, SQUALOR and the one proposed here, especially at larger departments. It is important to get the instructor out from behind the desk and out from under a pile of papers and into the lab talking to and mentoring students. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 17:16:20 -0500 From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd Subject: Re: Paper 5 In-Reply-To: <9307011408.AA15070@umd5.umd.edu> On Thu, 1 Jul 1993, Mary Swift wrote: > For an example of this type > of instructional package see the BioQUEST library which was > received an EDUCOM award as best curriculum last year. I would like to hear more about this instructional package. Carolyn S. Judd Central College, Houston Community College System 1300 Holman Houston TX 77004 713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 20:05:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Re: Paper 5 In-Reply-To: <9307012222.AA20976@umd5.umd.edu> > I would like to hear more about this instructional package. BioQUEST is a set of simulations and related material for biology instruction (genetics, biometrics, molecular biology, etc.). It's a significant, highly-rated cooperative effort of several institutions. It is being published in a very enlightened way by the U. of Maryland Academic Software Development Group. Write to asdg@umdd.umd.edu. You can also download a very nice introduction to the project from cs.beloit.edu /public/bioquest. Tom O'Haver ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 10:13:57 +1000 From: Adrian Blackman Subject: Paper 5 and TORGANAL Paper 5 - It's how you play the game, by Joyce Brockwell There have been several references to SQUALOR. I would like to draw attention to another program which simulates organic qualatative analysis. It is called TORGANAL - Tasmanian organic analysis. The program aims to simulate the process a chemist would use to identify an unknown organic compound. It includes both physical (including spectroscopic) and chemical tests. It has been designed as a pre-laboratory rehearsal so that students can approach the real task of identifying an organic unknown with more confidence and efficiency. TORGANAL has been very favorably reviewed in 'Software Reviews' volume 7, pages 20-21 (published by the CTI Centre for Chemistry, University of Liverpool, UK) and in 'Chemistry in Australia', May, 1993, page 226. There are licenced users in the USA, UK and Australia. An IBM compatible computer is required with at least EGA graphics and 640K RAM. The program is available as shareware from SIMTEL-20 in the directory EDUCATION as the file TORG311.ZIP or from Budgetware, PO Box 496, Newtown, New South Wales, Australia, 2042, as catalogue number PC8115. Dr Adrian Blackman E-Mail Adrian.Blackman@chem.utas.edu.au Chemistry Department University of Tasmania PO Box 252C,Hobart Tasmania Australia 7001 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 06:08:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Re: Paper 5 and TORGANAL In-Reply-To: <9307020016.AA26360@umd5.umd.edu> Here are some other FTP sources for TORGANAL: torg310.zip: Organic chemistry ID of unknowns simulator Host ftp.uu.net Location: /systems/ibmpc/msdos/simtel20/education FILE -rw-r--r-- 172682 Apr 21 1992 torg310.zip Host rigel.acs.oakland.edu Location: /pub/msdos/education FILE -rw-r--r-- 172682 Apr 21 1992 torg310.zip Host wuarchive.wustl.edu Location: /mirrors/msdos/education FILE -rw-r--r-- 172682 Apr 21 1992 torg310.zip Tom O'Haver ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 09:02:07 EDT From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET> Subject: Re: Carolyn Judd on USE OF WORLD OF CHEMISTRY VIDEOS IN COURSES In-Reply-To: Message received on Wed, 30 Jun 93 19:15:50 EDT regarding John Moore's comment about CD ROMs. Yes, we have to get permission to use the WOC on CD ROM and I will be delighted tohelp and get us started. Nava ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 09:36:10 EDT From: Jim Holler Subject: Re: Paper 5 and TORGANAL In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 2 Jul 1993 06:08:00 EDT from I don't find torganal as torg310.zip at any of the three sites you suggest. Any ideas? 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: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 09:48:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Re: Paper 5 and TORGANAL In-Reply-To: <9307021338.AA21080@umd5.umd.edu> I just did another Archie search and came up with: Host gatekeeper.dec.com Location: /.2/micro/msdos/simtel20/education FILE -r--r--r-- 172682 Apr 21 1992 torg310.zip Host gdr.bath.ac.uk Location: /simtel-cdrom/msdos/educatin FILE -r-xr-xr-x 172682 Apr 21 1992 torg310.zip Host nctuccca.edu.tw Location: /PC-MsDos/Garbo-pc/science FILE -r--r--r-- 172949 Apr 10 1992 torg310.zip Host plaza.aarnet.edu.au Location: /micros/pc/garbo/pc/science FILE -r--r--r-- 172949 Apr 10 1992 torg310.zip Host wuarchive.wustl.edu Location: /mirrors/msdos/education FILE -rw-r--r-- 172682 Apr 21 1992 torg310.zip Location: /mirrors4/garbo.uwasa.fi/science FILE -rw-rw-r-- 172949 Apr 10 1992 torg310.zip Things are always changing on the Internet, and I suppose that even Archie might be out of date, since it's my understanding that individual sites are polled by Archie only about once a month. Tom O'Haver ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 09:47:56 -0400 From: HANKS@FRMNVAX1.BITNET Subject: Re: paper5 discussion - SQUALOR Several people have discussed the use of programs which simulate the traditional "Organic Unknown" lab, ofter with the caveat that the programs should not replace the wet chem lab. Last year, we began using SQUALOR to do just that. Our reasoning is that while the logic process taught in the unknown lab is valuble, many of the techniques are not. Organic chemists in the "real world" rely of modern spectroscopic methods to identify compounds while rarely resorting to a Tollen's test and etc. Please note that while we no longer do a wet lab organic unknown, we have not reduced the amount of time students spend in the wet chem lab. Rather, the wet chem lab now focuses more on synthetic techniques and spectroscopic identification of products. Timothy Hanks Department of Chemistry Furman University Greenville, SC Hanks@frmnvax1.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 09:05:37 MDT From: Reed Howald Subject: Re: paper 5 > Spectroscopic data including ir and 1Hnmr absorptions, possibly uv and 13Cnmr will be included as well >Hanks: >Organic chemists in the "real world" rely on modern spectroscopic methods to identify compounds while rarely resorting to a Tollen's test, etc. Ms. Brockwell's paper is a well thought out approach to the development of a computer program for grading unknowns in organic qual. I would like to develop one aspect of writing such programs which is touched on in the paper but which needs further consideration: How can programs be developed so that they can be adapted to the needs of other teachers? One obvious answer which Ms. Brockwell presents is separating the data base from the program. Thus the data base will be useable by those including spectroscopic techniques in the organic qual. I agree with the use of C/C++ in writing code for programs like this. However we must recognize that most teachers do not know this language. Thus it seems to me that it is nexessary to move all the content out of the program and into editable files. Without some separation like this I do not see how a program like Brockwell's could be used with the prganic qual program here at Montana State University. I am working hard on considering how computer assisted instruction can be written with this sort of separation. I would appreciate ideas on this from any and all conference participants. My E-mail address is "uchrh@earth.oscs.montana.edu". sincerely, Reed Howald ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 18:48:20 -0400 From: "Mr. Science" Subject: Re: paper 5 "Number One, engage text-extractor beam... NOW!!" "Aye, Captain!!" BBBZZZFFFTTT!!! "Captain, previous message locked into extractor beam. Begin reply?" "Mr. Riker... Make it so!" > >One obvious answer which Ms. Brockwell presents is separating the data base >from the program. Thus the data base will be useable by those including >spectroscopic techniques in the organic qual. > >I agree with the use of C/C++ in writing code for programs like this. However >we must recognize that most teachers do not know this language. Thus it seems >to me that it is nexessary to move all the content out of the program and into >editable files. Without some separation like this I do not see how a program >like Brockwell's could be used with the prganic qual program here at Montana >State University. > >I am working hard on considering how computer assisted instruction can be >written with this sort of separation. I would appreciate ideas on this from >any and all conference participants. My E-mail address is >"uchrh@earth.oscs.montana.edu". > Hey guys, since Windows and other Windowing environments (XWindows, OS/2, Mac UNIX) allow for graphics and "movies" to be displayed, why not use Borland's Object Windows to allow different instructors to use the database (appropriately configured to be used within Object Windows, of course!) to design indivudal programs? That would solve the problem entirely, as Object Windows really doesn't expect anyone to have a great deal of programming background in any real sense. Just my two cents worth! regards, Tony ;> Date this awe-inspiring message was sent: 2-JUL-1993 18:45:27 *-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-* | 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: Sat, 3 Jul 1993 09:39:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 1 - General Discussion Period Re: Paper 1 - General Discussion From: Donald Rosenthal --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 23:46:12 -0400 ======== > From: theresa Julia Zielinski > Organization: University at Buffalo > Subject: paper1 > I have some questions that I could not ask because I was out of town. > Do your students remain in lab for the full three hours? * The experiments were designed so they would take the full three * hours. Some student pairs work more efficiently than others * and some less efficiently. Some students finish early. Some * students need additional time in which to finish - they may stay * beyond the three hours or else arrange to come in to finish an * experiment. ----------------------------- > Do the students have 6 hours of lab per week? I was not sure > from the text. * Yes * There are six scheduled hours of laboratory each week for each * student in this course. ----------------------------- > Why do You use nylon as the polymer? Wouldn't the standard > polystyrene in toluene or methanol/toluene mixtures or > BSA in aqueous urea mixtures be > as good for the purpose. This might free up some lab time > for a laser experiment or a molecular modeling exercise. * Generally, this is the only required polymer synthesis the * students perform at Clarkson. The synthesis of Nylon-66 involves * the interfacial reaction of a solution of adipyl chloride with a * solution of 1,6-hexanediamine and gradually withdrawing the polymer * rope. Students seem to enjoy the experiment. * Molecular modelling is performed in organic chemistry using PC Model, * HyperChem or SPARTAN. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1993 19:29:00 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. ====================================================================== WHAT SHOULD EVERY CHEMISTRY STUDENT KNOW ABOUT COMPUTERS AND COMPUTING? Your Name (Optional) _________________________________________________ Address (Optional) ___________________________________________________ e-mail address (Optional) ____________________________________________ 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. 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). For each question, following the line where the above information is requested you are asked to identify specific software or topics you would recommend. For example, in answer to 1, you might indicate that an undergraduates should know PASCAL, but a graduate student needs to know PASCAL, BASIC and FORTRAN. In the last column I am asking 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. Undergraduate Graduate You Student Student % 1. High Level General Purpose Programming Language _______ _______ ___ Which language(s)? ______________________________________________ 2. Spreadsheets _______ _______ ___ Which spreadsheet(s) ___________________________________________ 3. Databases _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 4. Numerical methods software _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 5. Statistical methods _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 6. Molecular Modelling _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 7. Plotting _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 8. Graphics _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 9. Operating system(s) _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 10. Utilities Programs _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 11. Electronic mail _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 12. Networks and Networking _______ _______ ___ _________________________________________________________________ 13. On-line searching _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 14. Other languages or software _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 15. Computer interfaced instruments _______ _______ ___ Which? __________________________________________________________ 16. Computer Hardware _______ _______ ___ and Architecture Which? __________________________________________________________ 17. Interfacing _______ _______ ___ _________________________________________________________________ 18. Other computer skills _______ _______ ___ or software Which? __________________________________________________________ GENERAL QUESTIONS QUESTION 19 On the average how many hours do you spend on all the above listed computer activities each week? ______ hours QUESTION 20 Many universities require chemistry graduate students to exhibit proficiency in foreign languages by passing an examination or examinations. Some universities have accepted demonstrated proficiency in computing or a computing language as fulfilling the requirement for one foreign language. Is this desirable? ________ Provide information on the policy of your university or other universities with respect to this ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Please return this form by JULY 16 to: Donald Rosenthal (ROSEN2@CLVM.BITNET) and NOT to CHEMCONF. A summary of responses will be distributed during the General Discussion between August 16 and August 20. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1993 10:13:00 EDT From: ROSEN1 Subject: Paper 5 - Joyce Brockwell's Answers to Short Questions To: CHEMCONF Participants For some reason I did not find Joyce Brockwell's Answers to Short Questions. She sent me a copy and I am forwarding it to CHEMCONF, since some of you may not have seen the memorandum. Don Rosenthal ====================================================================== SHORT ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS AROUND PAPER 5: "IT'S HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME" I am taking the opportunity to collate the questions which I received and generalize a few of the replies. This is one of the distinct advantages of an electronic conference, that and being able to sit down, wear blue jeans and listen to the radio while I "confer". Well, here goes... *1* Alan Stolzenberg asked about using mixtures for unknowns in a qual scheme employing a computer "grading" system. I would anticipate that in organic chemistry, in the very least, mixtures would present few problems. A significant part of a student's learning in the organic laboratory is the process of separating and purifying materials, so that the separation and purification processes become part of the qualitative analysis. As such, questions apropos to this would be incorporated into the grading scheme: "was a separation process attempted?" "what methods were used?: chromatography, distillation, fractional crystallization, extraction, etc." "How many components (do you think) were obtained?"... Once the user had indicated that separation was accomplished in a usable fashion, the questions about the individual components would follow in due course. In an inorganic scheme, or even some organic schemes, particularly employing spectroscopy and only analytical chromatography, questions would be posed as being applicable to the mixture or the individual components: "What was the pH of water exposed to the mixture?" "Were the tlc's of the whole mixture and the mixture after treatment with bicarbonate solution comparable?"... *2* Professor Stolzenberg and Mary Swift further ask about the obvious task demand created by answering the computer's questions, the phenomenon I termed the "worksheet effect". The particular list of questions (an electronic worksheet) has the effect of channeling a student's thinking and performance in the laboratory to the point of their performing inappropriate tests simply because the program asks about them. I have attempted by several means to avoid making the strategy for identifying any particular unknown a "set piece". One means I tried to indicate in the program design is that succeeding questions would be triggered by replies to previous questions, i.e. beyond the most basic processes appropriate for all analyses (bp, mp, solubility, pH), the next question asked would depend on the answer to the previous one. Inherent in this scheme would be an algorithm testing for the plausibility of the set of responses, so that a "manufactured" set of replies would not elicit the full set of questions. A clever student would likely still be able to dump out the set of questions, but not without doing some chemistry homework, and that would teach him/her the chemistry which is the whole point anyway! In the design of my qual labs, I divided the unknowns into groups that do not completely overlap in terms of strategy, so that learning on one group is applicable to the next, but not necessarily sufficient for success. In fact, in preparation for this conference I used a qual "guess sheet" in the spring quarter laboratories that was a reformatted list of the questions from the program. At least in this case, the questions were not a significant effect in altering the students behavior or success from previous qual labs. The largest effect on a student's performance is the interaction with the teaching assistant in the lab which follows from the students' awareness that the TA is the person giving them their lab grade. As formulated, this would NOT be altered by use of the machine grader! The human-computer interaction would not be the largest nor the most crucial to the student in learning from qualitative analysis--that would remain the long, active dialog between the students and the TA's and their fellow students. Which brings me to Mary Swift's second question, Professor Stolzenberg's third, and the first related to the program structure: *3* What can be done to prevent the system being "hacked"? What will prevent a clever, computer-oriented student from altering the system so that the computer yields disinformation, both chemical and grading? Happily, the occurrence of hacking is a sure means of identifying a student who can help make the program better than it is. As long as there are computers, there will be hackers, but those people are the ones who can be put to work on the computer and the program to make both more useful, interesting and reliable. In answer to the question, the system (which is what this is) must necessarily be treated as though it were constantly compromised. At the start of each qual scheme, the files identifying the students, their id numbers and the unknowns must be recorded in fixed media--memory which is physically isolated from the system (back-ups!). In addition, the program itself must backed up and restored when tampering is suspected. As the qual labs proceed, frequent automatic redundant back-ups must be made to minimize the loss of information from alteration of the system. Most importantly, the electronic record must not be the only record of the student's work. The laboratory notebooks are the primary source of information, and a "guess" not documented in the notebook should not be validated. While the possibility of altering students' scores in a computer system is always present, the numbers are less of a concern in my laboratories because the largest proportion of the grade is assigned on a subjective basis by the TA ("technique"--one undergraduate TA described this as the ultimate secret grading method). This has the salutatory effect of making the TA's pay attention to the students (grades are NOT undocumented), and lifting the emphasis of getting "the answer", shifting it to "class participation" (brown-nosing is explicitly discouraged). The whole course is designed to de-emphasize the grades and re-emphasize the work itself. Even in the very large classes, I have a significant personal presence which over the long-term has allowed me to see transient problems in students' ability to perform, TA's ability to teach or lead or grade, physical problems with the laboratories, etc. The computer program would be integrated into this environment, and, unless the hacking were exquisitely subtle, "what hurts us only makes us stronger". *4* (isn't it time for new topic?) Platform: I have written programs for the Macintosh, and my own computer is a Mac. I live in a department which prefers command-line operating systems, so I know what goes into both. The design of the tutor as it appears in my paper is sadly very menu-ish, very like the oldest and ugliest command-line programs. It would become interesting in the hands of some young programmer who who was raised on MTV and nurtured by Hollywood. (My theories of programming assign it as a sublimated urge to wreak havoc among certain segments of our young population.) As a set of window, tools, objects, devices and images, it would zip along in a very entertaining mode. My answer: the design is largely independent of platform, particularly since I suspect it must be written in a high-level code, C++ being my preference. At this point, my questions change from inquiries about the nuts and bolts of the program and its hardware, to the "wetware" questions--pedagogy and administration. *5* On to meta-levels: Douglas Coe has inquired of us all about the extent to which organic qual is required of chemistry majors in our various schools. At Northwestern, qual is the fourth segment of the lab, the second half of the second quarter of lab--in a course which is an elective for all but the chemistry majors, for whom it is a requirement. The laboratory curriculum is set by my choices, and largely independent of the lecture course of which it is a part. I keep qual in the curriculum for the reasons I have stated in the paper: it is a solid, comprehensive review of the skills which may only be learned in an empirical setting, and it hones the problem solving skills of the students (it separates the quick and the dead). The strategy of playing "Betty Crocker" and using file copies of old laboratories even in discovery labs, is not effective in a qual lab. I do infinitely prefer writing a recommendation letter for a student who has elected to take that second quarter of organic lab, be it for summer jobs, graduate or professional school, or what have you. We had a faculty member who described the experience as "character building", and I have to agree. I have used multi-step experiments; I use discovery labs as a matter of course, and I encourage constructive collaboration while downgrading the "two body-one brain" syndrome frequently encountered in labs. I have tried using assigned "partnerships" in qual itself, but not successfully. The problems are set a level which is accessible to all of the students and the means to finding solutions so rich and so abundant that success is not difficult to find. In this context, I find qualitative analysis to be a discriminating filter in student performance not found elsewhere, and so I keep it in the curriculum. *6* Professor Coe has asked a second general question: how many of us have expended the time and effort to write a computer program to ease the burden of some repetitive task, specifically grading a large class? I have engaged in this (frustrating) activity at two levels: I am an incessant tinkerer and have tinkered with grading methodology among other things. I use a spreadsheet now, instead of the BASIC program which I wrote years ago, to "level" the grades in the lab sections having different TA's. I may have from 6 to 24 different TA's in one course, necessitating that there be some consistency in the grading across sections. I do not have an objective scoring system--I consider it counterproductive for pedagogy, so I need to minimize the effects of my very subjective grading scheme. This is done in the usual fashion by finding the "grand mean" (and standard deviation and recalculating the section means and standard deviations to match. My second and far more significant foray into programming was the creation of Beaker. This program was created in demand for some means to have organic chemistry, commonly (erroneously!) perceived to be a bunch of memorization, be more easily learned by students with a rigorous mathematical orientation. The proposal was to have the students themselves write an electronic page turner. My response was to have them write an electronic tutor. The result of 3 years of work, some 30,000 lines of C by two excellent programmers is an expert system which embodies no more than 40% of the original design--at a cost of ~$70,000. It would be nice to have another go at it, but it would have to be a full-time job. So, yes, I have put in my time on some keyboards. *7* And last, but not least, my student clientele. Mary Swift asks about the "default" chemistry student at NU: the pre-meds, to wit "For the pre-meds (75% of the class), what is the major objective - development to critical thinking skills or development of manual dexterity? If it is critical thinking, how many wet labs are absolutely necessary to permit the students to get an acceptable level of manual dexterity?" In fact, the settings of the experiments are simple enough that manual dexterity is not a deciding factor in assessing performance. Students who have more than some minimal level of manual dexterity will succeed easily in the labs, and improve rapidly in those techniques which are repeated in several experiments (distillations, tlc, melting points, etc.). Students lacking manual dexterity tend to turn in a poor performance in other areas as well: observations, record keeping and interpretation. This is particularly evident in those experiments where the students are paired up and may thus compensate for a weak performer on technique by having the more dextrous partner perform the work. Too often, the weak partner is still not able to draw conclusions from the experimental observations. My chief objective in the organic laboratories is to give the students a real appreciation for the empirical nature of science.: to have them learn that an experiment is the physical equivalent of a question; that the observations made during the process are essential; that interpretation of the outcome of an experiment is not "did it work" but "what did you see?" and that learning is engaged most strongly where the learner engages the experimental process. Students who distance themselves from the labs because "they don't count" may fail even though their academic record is strong, while weaker students who do "engage" may succeed in the labs. The engagement develops critical thinking as one of a constellation of critically useful skills, among them thinking in "real time", and problem solving on a very practical plane. How many labs are required? Lab improves with practice, so more is better in my opinion. I would hesitate to trust the skill of a student who worked through fewer than a dozen elementary laboratory experiments: in two quarters, my students are required to carry out 18 experiments. *8* Mary Swift further inquires: "How many of the pre-meds obtain admission to medical school?" and "While one must acknowledge the goals of the student, would it not be better to emphasize that there are many careers, including medicine, that require the use of problem solving skills?" The historical placement rate of pre-meds from Northwestern exceeds 90% (more than 250 per year); among chemistry majors, the rate is not significantly different from 100%. And yes, throughout their career in the service courses in the chemistry department at NU, the students, be they science majors (chemistry, biology, geology, integrated science program, speech pathology, etc.), engineers or pre-professionals are immersed in an atmosphere where problem-solving at all levels, explicit and implicit, is key to success in their course work and subsequently in their careers. From: jbrockwe@vmspop.ucs.indiana.edu Subject: Paper 5 answers to short Q's ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1993 09:14:06 +1000 From: Adrian Blackman Subject: Re: Paper 5 and TORGANAL >I don't find torganal as torg310.zip at any of the three sites you suggest. >Any ideas? > >Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884 >Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069 >University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU >Lexington, KY 40506 The most recent version of the Torganal program is TORG311.ZIP, dated 29 Mar, 1993. It is available from simtel20 and oakland and various other sites which mirror these e.g. rigel.acs.oakland.edu location /pub/msdos/chemistry ftp.uu.net location /systems/ibmpc/msdos/simtel20/chemistry src.doc.ic.ac.uk location /computing/systems/wsmr-simtel20.army.mil/chemistry archie.au location /micros/pc/oak/chemistry Adrian Blackman Email: Adrian.Blackman@chem.utas.edu.au Chemistry Department University of Tasmania Hobart, Tasmania Australia ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1993 10:29:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 6 - Short Question PAPER 6 - Short Question INDIVIDUAL COMPUTER-GENERATED GRAPHICAL PROBLEM SETS Frank M. Lanzafame, Monroe Community College, Chemistry Dept., 1000 East Henrietta Rd., Rochester, NY 14623 Internet: FLANZAFAME@ECKERT.ACADCOMP.MONROECC.EDU In Section VI > B. Generation of Statistical Fluctuations about a Value: > The program uses a function called ErrFactor (relative standard > deviation). This function returns a statistically generated > multiplier with a mean value of 1.00 and a standard deviation > given by the relative standard deviation specified. For > example, if it is desired to apply a 5 percent fluctuation to a > given value, the function called is ErrFactor (0.05). The > function returns a randomly generated value of 1.00 +/- 0.05 > which is applied as a multiplier to the value one wishes to > randomize. Thus a multiplier between 0.95 and 1.05 is generated > approximately 2 of 3 times. Since this follows a normal > distribution, occasionally one finds the 2 or 3 or 4 sigma > variation. This produces fluctuations with points which are > outside the limit (here 5 %) about 1 of 3 times. * In normal unweighted least squares calculations it is implicitly * assumed: * * 1. There is no error in X values, only in Y values. * 2. There is equal probability (0.5) of finding positive and negative * deviations from the true value of Y. * 3. The error in the value of Y is normally distributed (i.e. larger errors are less probable than smaller errors). * 4. The magnitude of the error in Y is independent of the value of X. * * QUESTION: Does your program generate errors which conform to * conditions 3 and 4? * * If the program multiplies the true value by a factor, * the error depends upon the value of X. * * There are algorithms which will generate normally * distributed errors which conform to condition 4. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1993 10:33:59 MDT From: Reed Howald Subject: paper 6 short questions - figures I have gotten the binary files from simon fraser university as suggested (I think) I have pgen11zp.exe, and an executable to unzip itself is the proper way to distribute zipped files. My question is where are the three figures referred to? Using GET PAPER6 FIGURE3 with LISTSERV doesn't work. sincerely Reed Howald ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 08:13:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 7 - Short Questions Paper 7 INTEGRATING COMPUTERS INTO THE HIGH SCHOOL CHEMISTRY CLASSROOM William J. Sondgerath, Chemistry Teacher, Harrison High, West Lafayette, Indiana (BSONDGER@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU) Short questions on this paper: July 6, 1993 QUESTIONS: How would your course with integrated appear from the perspective of a student or a teacher? 1. Is there a course text? Do most students read the book? 2. Do you lecture and provide time for class discussion and problem working sessions? 3. Are computers integrated into the class hours or do students use the computers during study hall hours and after school? 4. On the average what fraction of the course is devoted to each type of activity? What about traditional laboratory work? 5. Computer activities must replace other activities. Which are the activities replaced? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 16:32:25 EET From: Mirja Karjalainen Subject: Paper7 short questions Paper 7, short questions: I. How did you select the classes for CAI? Should the students have any prior computer skills? IX. I'm not familiar with the Safety in Science Lab software. Is it designed specially for the high school science education? How much does it contain data about properties of chemicals? Could I get some further information about it (a demo?) through the Internet? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 09:59:06 EDT From: "R. T. Wilson" Subject: Paper7 by William J. Sondergrath It sounds like you are doing a great job of bringing your students into productive contact with computers in a variety of ways. I have a few logistical questions: 1. How many students are in your typical lab, and how long are the lab periods? 2. How much time does a typical student require to finish an experiment and report which requires word-processing or a spreadsheet? Do they usually finish the report during the lab period, or do they have to do it later in the media center? 3. You say: Subject: short questions paper 6 I am concerned about the question Lanzaframe raises, how do we give our students more experience with graphing? I would hope integrating computers into courses can spped up certain processes, including data collection and graphing. My question is - Do you find that using computers gives your students more experience with graphing, or do you have a net loss of time to spend on fundamentals like graphing? sincerely Reed Howald ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 09:50:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 8 - Short Questions PAPER 8 - Short Questions USING THE AIRWAVES: A SATELLITE M.S. FOR INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTS. K.J. Schray, N.D. Heindel, J.E. Brown. and M.A. Kercsmar. Department of Chemistry and Office of Distance Education, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015 (KJS0@Lehigh.edu) QUESTIONS 1. Will you elaborate more on the format of these courses. a. How many times does a given course meet each week - and how long is each class meeting? b. How much class time is devoted to lecture in the "average course" and how much time is devoted to discussion and in-class problem solving? How much assigned homework is there? Do most of these graduate courses have a textbook and reading assignments? Since classes can be videotaped, there should be a good opportunity for analysis of how class time is utilized. c. If a student has a question and is on-site, hopefully he would raise his hand and be recognized. How do you handle off-site participants? - Do they just yell out? d. What fraction of the total number of students in the "average course" are off-site? e. How do student course evaluations compare when the same course is given by the same instructor in regular and satellite mode? How do on-site students react to the somewhat different format of this course? Are there significant differences between evaluations received fron on-site and off-site students? 2. Lehigh has opted to teach its courses synchronously rather than asynchronously. There are some advantages to this choice, but there are also distinct disadvantages. You allude to the scheduled time being a problem - particularly for students in different time zones. You indicate that back-up videotaping is used. Such tapes would be quite satisfactory for lectures and off-site students would be able to hear (and see) the discussion of on-site students. THIS conference is being held asynchronously. Participants have an opportunity to ask questions which authors (and other participants) answer at scheduled times. What would you think of a format involving taped classes (for off-site students), asynchronous questions, and a few synchronous discussion sessions (which could be taped and viewed asynchronously)? It seems to me you have an opportunity to experiment with somewhat different formats. 3. Is electronic mail being used at all? This could be a useful communication tool in research and courses. For example, see Linda M. Harasim (editor), "ONLINE EDUCATION: Perspectives on a New Environment",Praeger, New York, 1990. Have you considered the use of a LISTSERV with access controlled by the manager? (LISTSERV is being used to run this conference.) Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13676 ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 13:34:26 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: paper8 questions 1. Would you provide a reference for the 15000 to 6000 drop in BS chemists and 80% to 20% drop in those intending to do graduate work? 2. Could you provide some data for the numbers of non chemists entering positions in industry requiring a chemistry degree? 3. I would be interested in obtaining a course syllabus for the "bridge" physical Chemistry course. Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University Niagara University NY 14109 Roszieli@ubvms ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 15:29:13 -0500 From: George Long Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania Subject: Re: Paper 8 - Short Questions to follow up on Donald Rosenthal's question concerning the use of E-mail in the off-site courses, 1)do you think that it may be possible to teach these courses without the standard lecture format, using perhaps interactive computer worksheets( produced using mathematica). This would Eliminate the need for the expensive satelite uplink, and video production help could be given via EMAIL. On site students could take the lectureless courses as well. 2) what type of research projects are most common among your students? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 17:46:57 -0600 From: "Douglas A. Coe" Subject: Short Questions for Paper 8 I have three questions: 1. Lehigh's course numbering system seems to be non-standard. Can you briefly explain it? 2. Does Lehigh have master's programs that emphasize physical, inorganic, or other areas of chemistry, but which are not offered as satellite courses? If you do, are there plans to offer these as satellite courses? 3. What are the prerequisites for the courses listed in Table II. Doug Coe Montana Tech ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 05:35:15 CDT From: Charles Fox Subject: QUESTIONS-PAPER 8 I am interested in finding what the cost per hour or per course is for your MS/Chemistry via the air waves and how it compares to your normal coursework? Thanks, cfox@saunix.sau.edu Instructor St.Ambrose University 518 W. Locust St. Davenport, IA 52803 voice 319-383-8921 fax 319-383-8791 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:48:44 -0400 From: "Thomas C. O'Haver" Subject: Files for Papers 6 and 11 now complete on LISTSERV Dear CHEMCONFers: The figures for Paper 6 are now available on the LISTSERV database: PAPER6 TEXT PAPER6 FIGURE1 PAPER6 FIGURE2 PAPER6 FIGURE3 Paper 11 and its related files is now available on the LISTSERV database: PAPER11 TEXT PAPER11 BATCH PAPER11 EMAIL PAPER11 EXTRCR PAPER11 HINTS PAPER11 HWK PAPER11 MENU PAPER11 NOTES PAPER11 SYLABUS PAPER11 WRDLIST The meaning of these files is described in the paper itself, PAPER11 TEXT. Tom O'Haver CHEMCONF ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:59:28 -0500 From: "Steven G. O'Neal" Subject: Short Questions Paper 9 > But the need for training at a time of great transition is enormous. .... > Our employers, Federal and state agencies, foundations, and others must help > us find the time and money. I agree wholeheartedly! Many of us are also still struggling to find resources to obtain the necessary equipment and software. Would the members of the conference be willing to share successful strategies and sources toward gaining this important goal? Our community (Norman, OK) has created a foundation for competetive grants to acquire some materials or training, but the maximum amounts available ($1,000) are insufficient for computers, monitors, printers, etc. Any thoughts here would be welcome. Steven G. O'Neal, Ph.D. Norman Public Schools Steven G. O'Neal, Ph.D. 1220 Crossroads Court Norman, OK 73072 soneil@ncsa.uiuc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:58:47 -0500 From: Carolyn Sweeney Judd Subject: Re: Short Questions for Paper 9 In-Reply-To: <9307072346.AA07463@umd5.umd.edu> Great food for thought found in your paper! Can you elaborate on the following excerpt from your paper: > The currently available >programs, the successors to those distributed on the >ChemSource CD-ROMs, will check your chemistry at that level. What are these successors? Carolyn S. Judd Central College, Houston Community College System 1300 Holman Houston TX 77004 713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 09:49:24 EDT From: "Frank M. Lanzafame" Subject: Paper 7 viewing SOND*.PIC files I have been unable to view the figures with Paper 7 using VPIC ver. 5.0 This viewer has worked with all GIF files for all other papers. The program indicates the files are not valid PIC files. I have used binary to FTP the files. Has anyone else had similar problems, or success in viewing (and with what viewer on a PC)? Thanks in advance. Frank Lanzafame flanzafame@eckert.acadcomp.monroecc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 09:47:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 9 - Short Questions PAPER 9 - Short Questions Staff Development is the Biggest Cost in Computing: Ask For Released Time! David W. Brooks, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0355 E-mail: dbrooks@unlinfo.unl.edu In this paper you make a number of interesting comments > We have to begin with ourselves, not > our students. .... Are we well enough prepared? > The answer is almost certainly, 'no.' > Ask for released time. > How little training can one have and still be an > effective tool user? QUESTION 1 In your paper you mention - CAI, grading, word processing, spreadsheets, being aware of software that is available, etc. a. What do TEACHERS need to know? b. Suppose a teacher has had an introductory programming course, (s)he knows how to turn on a computer and load software. What should (s)he be taught in a one semester course entitled "Computers for Chemical Educators"? --------------------------------------------------------------- > Time spent in having students acquire skills that pit them > against the software now available is wasted time. There > are drill and practice program that really help to build > skills in certain areas -- gas law problems, mole problems, > assigning oxidation numbers, naming compounds and writing > formulas, etc. The existence of these programs is prima > facie evidence that the skill probably is not a worthy skill > to teach! QUESTION 2 If STUDENTS are not to use the software which is now available - spreadsheets, word processors and existing CAI, what should they be doing? QUESTION 3 a. Are you saying that students don't really need to know how to solve gas law problems, mole problems, naming compounds and writing formulas, because we have computers that can do this for us? If we really understand something, we should be able to use our knowledge and apply it (to solving problems). b. Should children be taught to add, subtract, multiply and divide? After all,we have calculators which can do this for us. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 09:01:24 EST From: "William J. Sondgerath" Subject: Re: Paper 7 viewing SOND*.PIC files In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 8 Jul 1993 09:49:24 EDT from I apologize for not having a way to view pic.files. I tried to get help from Purdue University to convert to gif. The only way that I know you could view would be to have access to storyboard plus from IBM or simply the file called storyboard driver. Sorry about inconvenience. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 10:24:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Re: Paper 7 viewing SOND*.PIC files In-Reply-To: <9307081343.AA09625@umd5.umd.edu> I was also unable to view these files. There are evidently some sort of special non-standard format, dispite the standard extension. The author does not know how to convert these to a standard format and I do not have access to the (commercial) software that generated the figures in the first place. I think we're stuck in this case. Tom O'Haver ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 09:23:50 MDT From: Reed Howald Subject: short questions paper 9 >ask for released time >Yes, that includes art teachers, music teachers, and . . . This is a challenging paper. But we can't all get years of released time. Is it possible to devise computer assisted instruction that would show a music teacher how to use computers in his or her daily classroom use in two or three hours total time? Do we need to concentrate on software for his or her students instead? What will happen when students exposed to this training get to our freshman chemistry classes 5 to 20 years from now? Sincerely, Reed Howald ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 12:18:56 EST From: Larry Wier Organization: Saint Bonaventure University Subject: Paper 9 - Short Questions As pointed out by Dr.Brooks, the "hidden" cost of and need for training are both extremely large. Does anyone have strategies for convincing administrators of this? How does one get that release time? Also, how does one convince others that such training is a worthwhile use of one's time? (It probably does not qualify as "research" in the eyes of many.) Larry Wier ============================== Dr Larry Wier Dept of Chemistry St Bonaventure University St Bonaventure, N.Y. 14778 (716)375-2116 INTERNET:lwier@sbu.edu ============================== ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 13:10:42 -0400 From: Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster Is PIC the same as PICT? If so then use picttopbm then pbmtorast then rasttoppm & ppmtogif or ppmtops OR if you have a laserjet picttopbm then pbmtolj Get the pbmplus family of format converters from ftp.uu.net An archie search came up with a lot of hits (68)for /pic especially in connection with groff and 386-bsd/unix -- e.g. /systems/unix/bsd-sources/usr.bin/groff/pic on ftp.uu.net This (groff) is apparently gnu-ware so I would look in the gnu archives for pic manipulation programs (since apparently groff makes pic files which must eventually be printed!). Mike Whitbeck whitbeck@maxey.unr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 12:42:43 -0500 From: david brooks Subject: Re: Paper 9 - Short Questions In-Reply-To: <01H0ALJD1YJ4002QS6@crcvms.unl.edu> from "Donald Rosenthal" at Jul 8, 93 09:47:00 am Responses to Don's short questions: Citations from my text labeled as >> Copies of his question material labeled as ?? ?? In this paper you make a number of interesting comments >> We have to begin with ourselves, not >> our students. .... Are we well enough prepared? >> The answer is almost certainly, 'no.' >> Ask for released time. >> How little training can one have and still be an >> effective tool user? ?? In your paper you mention - CAI, grading, word processing, ?? spreadsheets, being aware of software that is available, ?? etc. ?? a. What do TEACHERS need to know? Teachers need to KNOW that machines will DO most of the "intellectual" work that well-trained professionals once did. Knowing that is much more than being able to spout it back -- it means having a sort of knee-jerk reaction to a problem in which the teacher turns first to a computer for assistance, guidance, and perhaps solutions. Teachers need to KNOW that the tools used in a task change the nature of the task -- even when the task is "thinking." ?? b. Suppose a teacher has had an ?? introductory programming course, (s)he knows how to turn ?? on a computer and load software. What should (s)he be ?? taught in a one semester course entitled "Computers for ?? Chemical Educators"? This is THE most important practical question. Even if we don't know where we are headed, it makes no sense to do (teach) nothing until 'things settle down.' It is agreed that we will teach something. Interfacing experiments and automating the process of collecting data is important. Widespread use of a very large variety of software packages is the best kind of introduction we can make. My best guess is to focus on achieving outcomes rather than worrying either about creating or understanding deeply the software leading to those outcomes. In other words, I would be much more interested in having students use a prepared worksheet (template) for stoichiometry than in creating all of the cell formulas that perform stoichiometry calculations for them. Many years back, a group at UCLA made a step in this direction by publishing a book in which spreadsheets formulae were given to handle essentially all of the computations used in an introductory biochemistry course for majors. I would cite the book, but it disappeared from my bookshelf. Sandra Lamb at UCLA chemistry was involved. She has a very good sense of 'the possible' with respect to instructional computing in chemistry. The Beaker program created by an author at this conference has numerous features to help one think. It was her program that cemented an idea for me two years ago. After seeing a half- dozen exhibitors demonstrate powerful molecular structure programs, I sat down during a symposium session and heard a speaker discuss the teaching of nomenclature using CAI. The punch line was meta-nitroanisole. From the molecular structure programs, it was clear that one could create meta- nitroanisole on a computer screen. One might not know if that substance had a history or even what it might be named, but just know that it was a good molecule to accomplish a particular task -- say binding to a protein. It was clear to me that some day one could 'circle' in the computer sense of that word any structure drawn on the screen and get back not only its name but a raft of information about the substance. The first structure I created with Beaker was -- you guessed it! It doesn't give that name back. I bet you can guess the name it does give back!! If you follow my suggestion, your students will never know of meta-nitroanisole unless they look up alternative names in a database or enter that name into a machine! The remarkable thing to me was that Beaker already existed and was available when the thought first occurred to me -- ignorance impeded my thinking. The world already was where I thought it might one day be. Using software tools changes how we think. That usage changes which tasks we think are important. That usage changes how we undertake tasks. ------------------------------------------------------------ I WANT TO ANSWER DON'S QUESTIONS OUT OF ORDER >> Time spent in having students acquire skills that pit them >> against the software now available is wasted time. There >> are drill and practice program that really help to build >> skills in certain areas -- gas law problems, mole problems, >> assigning oxidation numbers, naming compounds and writing >> formulas, etc. The existence of these programs is prima >> facie evidence that the skill probably is not a worthy >> skill to teach! I'M MOVING AHEAD TO QUESTION 3B . ?? QUESTION 3 ?? b. Should children be taught to add, subtract, multiply and ?? divide? After all, we have calculators which can do this ?? for us. Children today are not taught to multiply and divide in the same way that I was taught. They are taught to use machines (calculators). Both of my children (ages 23 and 21) would never think of doing arithmetic by head and hand. They use head and machine. One of them is at least as good a mathematician as I ever was, and the other is so much better that it makes my head spin. The time that I spent learning skills she has spent in learning more and more powerful mathematical concepts. Machines perform the skills for her. Are the children of today better (or worse) than I am or -- if you're past 35, you are? Who knows? They certainly are different. Finally, for reasons that are well understood, unused skills wane. My mental arithmetic skills are not only much poorer than they used to be, they are much poorer than they were 10 years ago when I taught general chemistry. There was a sharp number sense that came with head and hand skills that, for me at least, does not seem necessary for head and machine tasks. In summary, machines make the thinking process different and, therefore, make the people using them different. There are very real limits to this. All of us would be "better" if we knew al of the knowledge available in our libraries. The existence of knowledge in the world does not in and of itself enhance problem solving. If an internist is always looking up potassium, then my guess is that many of her/his patients die "out of balance." There are some things one needs to know. To use Donald Norman's jargon, there is some knowledge we need to "have in our head" and not just "in the world." I have little respect for colleagues immersed in a complex task who say 'there's software to do that' but have no idea of the software, what it does, or what it means. A professional knows what the software does at more than a glib, cocktail party level. QUESTION 2 ?? If STUDENTS are not to use the software which is now ?? available - spreadsheets, word processors and existing CAI, ?? what should they be doing? Interfacing experiments makes a great deal of sense to teach. There is no problem in teaching (rather in requiring the use of) a modern word processor. It doesn't write for you -- it helps you to write. More important, it handles the technical aspects of writing. Creating new, clear thoughts is still the task of the writer and not the software. Writing with LATEX is something you do when you don't own or can't access a good $1K machine with $200 worth of software. (Yes, that was a shot.) Spreadsheets are a different matter. For spreadsheets, there are opportunities for: a. creating cell formulae b. entering data into templates It is a general sense that most work today focuses on the former. My sense is that not only is the latter OK, it's good -- something to be preferred instead of disdained. Sorry, I don't use a hand calculator to check the arithmetic outputted from MacInTax. Analyzing data with graphics programs makes sense. Creating problem sets where different analyses give different results also makes sense. Using different approaches within software packages is probably the best way to teach data analysis that we have available today. CAI is an entirely different matter. If the CAI is drill and practice oriented -- say aimed at making the student a better balancer of chemical equations -- then the time is mostly wasted. Wasted! The kind of CAI that makes the most sense is the stuff that comes with the software package teaching you how to use that package. So far, the considerable time I have spent learning to use Internet has not paid off. Phones and fax machines are still ahead. Internet is catching up. ?? QUESTION 3 ?? a. Are you saying that students don't really need to know ?? how to solve gas law problems, mole problems, naming ?? compounds and writing formulas, because we have computers ?? that can do this for us? If we really understand ?? something, we should be able to use our knowledge and apply ?? it (to solving problems). ?? b. Should children be taught to add, subtract, multiply and ?? divide? After all, we have calculators which can do this ?? for us. Understanding is a word with the kind of definition that amounts to no definition. Here is an official definition of "understand": (Webster's Unabridged) "to apprehend or comprehend; to know or grasp the meaning, import, intention, or motive of; to perceive or discern the meaning of; as, to UNDERSTAND a problem, an argument, an oracle, a secret sign, indistinct speech, etc." What does it mean to UNDERSTAND a mole problem? Two ideas underpin mole problems: conservation of atoms, and (almost) constant mass of atoms. At one level, a person can parrot that back. At another level, they can know that these two ideas imply that a set of mathematical relationships can be written to express the ideas. At a quite different level, one can transform those ideas into mathematical rules, and take a set of numbers (or data) to predict other numbers. Creating spreadsheet formulae amounts to one step beyond the latter. A prepared spreadsheet (a template) can do ALL of the crunching for a general chemistry student. A question that remains is "what must a teacher do to enable the learner be able to use the spreadsheet template appropriately." That is, how much head and calculator instead of head and spreadsheet work is appropriate in order to make use of the template effectively? The answer lies somewhere between solving no stoichiometry problems at all and solving any stoichiometry problem that the spreadsheet might be capable of solving. I suspect the equilibrium position lies to the left, toward the no crunching side. Understanding certainly does not include writing cell formulas -- that is not chemistry, even though ever chemist respects it and knows that it takes a very competent chemist to do it or to team with someone who does it. On the other hand, if a spreadsheet is a tool for chemists and you want to be creative, then you need to be able to write cell formulae or otherwise instruct a spreadsheet. Even though writing spreadsheet templates is not a chemist's business, it is probably something most chemists ultimately want to know. It is hard to say how long that skill will be important, but one suspects that it is not long lived. How to design a balance of approaches and topics in teaching chemistry remains an unanswered question. Teachers who spend much of their time on crunching as was spent ten years ago clearly are on the wrong path. That is too much time to spend on head and calculator crunching. I doubt, however, that I successfully can cover conservation of atoms and conservation of mass in just one lecture period. The message can be transmitted in seconds, but it takes days to receive. The ideas must be tied to other ideas within the student in order for reception to occur. I admit to having used some functions from Mathematica to crunch for me that I have no idea either what they did or how they did it. The result was judged on the basis of chemical sense -- not mathematical sense. Black boxes used to be very scary. The more one uses them, the less scary they are. THE MAIN THEME OF THIS PAPER IS THAT CHEMISTRY TEACHERS NEED TO SPEND A GREAT DEAL OF TIME LEARNING ABOUT WHAT MODERN TOOLS WILL DO FOR THEM AS INTELLECTUAL PARTNERS. IF YOU KNOW WHAT THEY CAN DO, YOU HAVE A BETTER SENSE OF WHAT TO TEACH ABOUT USING THEM. MANY OF THE DISCUSSIONS IN THE FIRST PHASE OF THIS CONFERENCE SUPPORT THAT NOTION! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 12:48:01 -0500 From: david brooks Subject: Re: Short Questions for Paper 9 In-Reply-To: <01H0AJRMYKEO002BT3@crcvms.unl.edu> from "Carolyn Sweeney Judd" at Jul 8, 93 07:58:47 am > > Great food for thought found in your paper! Can you elaborate on the > following excerpt from your paper: > > The currently available > >programs, the successors to those distributed on the > >ChemSource CD-ROMs, will check your chemistry at that level. > What are these successors? > > Carolyn S. Judd > Central College, Houston Community College System > 1300 Holman Houston TX 77004 > 713-630-1103 cjudd@tenet.edu > When it is born, ChemSource is going to be one of the largest, heaviest babies ever. It is many months overdue. Connected with ChemSource are two other tools -- Chemistry Lesson Planning and Chemistry Laboratory Assistant. The CLA tool has the abilit to create and modify recipes for preparing solution and chemicals used by students. Look for CehmSource in December, 1993. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 14:48:00 CDT From: "J.J. Lagowski" Subject: paper 5 late The discussions concerning SQUALOR and inorganic qualitative analysis seem to suggest that these laboratory activities are supposed to reflect the way "real chemists" do analysis. The other point of view is that they represent an interesting way to learn some descriptive chemistry (which everyone agrees as dead boring) and it has nothing to do with what "real chemists" do, rather it is a way of learning what "real chemists" know. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 17:17:24 -0500 From: John Woolcock Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania Subject: Re: Paper 9 - Short Questions >Many years back, a group at UCLA made a step in this direction >by publishing a book in which spreadsheets formulae were given >to handle essentially all of the computations used in an >introductory biochemistry course for majors. I would cite the >book, but it disappeared from my bookshelf. The book you remember is entitled "Dynamic Models in Biochemistry" by Atkinson, Clarke and Rees. There are two others: "Dynamic Models in Chemistry" and "Dynamic Models in Physics". Available from N. Simonson & Co., Marina del Rey, CA Telephone: (213) 301-2847. These come with disks for Mac or PC which contain the spreadsheet templates. The text has tutorials on how students can create their own templates including the cell formulas for stoichiometry, kinetics, etc. However, we tend to only ask our students to do what we have already done ourselves. I will never use this in my courses until I have gone through it myself. This takes time that I don't have so it has been sitting on my shelf for 2 years! You are absolutely correct that one of the biggest impediments to the implementation of any teaching strategy is finding "faculty development time" to learn to use it. John Woolcock Chemistry Department Indiana University of PA WOOLCOCK@grove.iup.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 00:17:28 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: paper9 - questions Questions: 1. Some of us have considerable investments in IBM PC type machines and can't or won't switch especially since windows makes work so easy. Is there a software package for the PC market that is equivalent to HyperCard? 2. We who are participating in this conference have various levels of computer skills. I doubt that I could write a tutorial program for student use without spending allot of time and energy. Nevertheless I firmly believe that computers should be used extensively in undergraduate instruction. I know that I am not alone but sometimes I feel isolated when I hear colleagues remark that the only way a student learns about graphing is with a pencil and paper. How do we effectively get the message out that more can be learned by using a computer effectively? I think that there is a need to see more articles in J.Chem Ed. on this subject. Especially one on developing the idea of using computers as tools for learning and drill. 3. What does one do with/to colleagues who refuse to use software even when it is available? Part of the problem is, as you pointed out, that there is a steep learning curve for the novice and there are many novice chemistry faculty out there, those who can't or won't even learn word processing. Another part is that there is a tradition of poor quality CAI programs from the past that has left a bad impression on established teachers. There just doesn't seem to be enough experience at the grass roots level to make a significant difference yet. Perhaps a critical mass of interested faculty needs to be developed before substantial change can occur. 4. Another problem that I see as inhibiting the spread of computer usage is the poor reception given to development of learning tools and innovative curricula when evaluating a young faculty member for promotion or tenure. There is a need to recognize that research into and development of CAI software is an appropriate activity for faculty. If I do pedagogical research then it is OK because I'm a woman or because I teach at a small school and there isn't much else to do. If I do research in QM or MD or Modeling then it's just theory and who believes that anyway. It's a no win situation with many students feeling that they are incapable of participating. How can we present our computer expertise especially to novice students so that they do not feel intimidated by it all and go off to study history or criminal justice? Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University Chemistry Department Niagara University NY 14109 Roszieli@UBVMS ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 07:05:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Paper 9 : Short Questions James Kaput uses the term "cognative technology" to label those constructed tools and technologies that help us think and communicate better that we could without them. The most important of those historically are probably writing, arabic numerals, printing, symbolic notation, and now, perhaps, computers. These technologies are empowering; for example, any child using arabic numerals today can perform arithemitic tasks that a senator of ancient Rome could not. Do you feel that the computer will eventually, say in 10 or 20 years, develop into a cognative technology at that level of importance? Consider how we build writing and mathematics into our education systems continuously from day one. Will we someday grow up with computers as we all grow up with mathematics? To some extent it is already happening in some school systems, where 5-6 graders are doing most of their "serious" writing on computers. (Kids pick this sort of thing up much faster than adults and teachers). In 5 years these kids will be in high school and in 10 years in college. What must we do to prepare for them? Tom O'Haver U. of Maryland ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:13:43 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: paper10 questions Questions Paper 10 1. How much math and pchem (courses/semester hours) do the students take prior to this course? 2. What windows development tool is used to develop hyperbook? (Boy would I like to work on a pchem HyperBook project) 3. I would like to have an english copy of the course topics for the pchem course(s) that is(are) prerequisite to this course. 4. I am currently writing up a Mathcad exercise for item B1 of your paper. It should be ready by mid August. My students enjoy working this way to learn. they learn more and they learn more deeply. 5. I think that my students would enjoy the oscillating kinetics experiment. Would you pass on one or two english references to get me started. 6. What is the source of data for figures 8, 9, & 10. 7. For figure 11, can students rotate and view it from different angles. Diagrams of this type are very useful pedagogically. Where does one get a copy of SURFER? Theresa Julia Zielinski Chemistry Department Niagara University Niagara University NY 14109 Roszieli@ubvms ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 11:56:58 -0500 From: david brooks Subject: Re: Paper 9 : Short Questions In-Reply-To: <01H0BV0O7RTS002Q7Z@crcvms.unl.edu> from "to2" at Jul 9, 93 07:05:00 am Try reading "Cognitive Artifacts" by Donald Norman in Designing Interaction, J. M. Carroll, ed., Cambridge, Cambridge, ISBN 0-521-40921-7 pbk, 1991, pp. 17-38. >> Do you feel that the computer will eventually, say in 10 >> or 20 years, develop into a cognative technology at that >> level of importance? The time scale is off. In our world, it already has. When I came to Nebraska, it was because they would support TA training using video. Video was too big a deal for the place I left in 1973. Hard to imagine, isn't it. Early on during the intervening 20 years, the rate of home sales of player recorders reached 1 million units per month. >> Will we someday grow up with computers as we all grow up >> with mathematics? Yes. >> What must we do to prepare for them? Bring ourselves up to speed first. Ask for a leave! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 11:58:26 -0500 From: david brooks Subject: Re: paper9 - questions In-Reply-To: <01H0BHCZWZDU002ML0@crcvms.unl.edu> from "theresa Julia Zielinski" at Jul 9, 93 00:17:28 am >>Is there a software package for the PC market that is >> equivalent to HyperCard? 1. Toolbook by Asymmetrix PO Box 40419, Bellevue WA 206- 637-1600 is the best. There are two that advertise cross platform features. Plus has been around for several years. Windowcraft just came out. >> How do we effectively get the message out that more can >> be learned by using a computer effectively? I think that >> there is a need to see more articles in J. Chem Ed. on >> this subject. Especially one on developing the idea of >> using computers as tools for learning and drill. 2. Most CAI is designed to pit students against machines -- to impart the machine's skill to the student. Poor strategy -- the learners always lose. (When they are recognizing pictures, they may operate at 100 MIPS, but when they're solving mole problems, they can't.) The computer is my friend; it is my main tool. Teach me how to use the tool. >> What does one do with/to colleagues who refuse to use >> software even when it is available? 3. Worry about ourselves; let someone else worry about our colleagues. >>..the poor reception given to development of learning >> tools and innovative curricula when evaluating a young >> faculty member for promotion or tenure. 4.. There are several avenues to publication that can be counted just the same as tradition work. J. Chem. Educ. software is one. There are 10-15 reviewed publications put out by the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), 800-336-5191. Finally, traditional publications such as J. Chem. Educ., J. Research in Sci. Tchg, J. Coll. Sci. Tchg., etc., regularly publish contributions of this nature. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 10:10:53 PDT From: David Green Subject: Re: spreadsheets In-Reply-To: ; from "John Woolcock" at Jul 8, 93 5:17 pm > > >Many years back, a group at UCLA made a step in this direction > >by publishing a book in which spreadsheets formulae were given > >to handle essentially all of the computations used in an > >introductory biochemistry course for majors. I would cite the > >book, but it disappeared from my bookshelf. > > The book you remember is entitled "Dynamic Models in Biochemistry" by Atkinson > Clarke and Rees. There are two others: "Dynamic Models in Chemistry" and > "Dynamic Models in Physics". Available from N. Simonson & Co., Marina del Rey, > CA Telephone: (213) 301-2847. These come with disks for Mac or PC which contai > the spreadsheet templates. The text has tutorials on how students can create > their own templates including the cell formulas for stoichiometry, kinetics, > etc. > > > John Woolcock > Chemistry Department > Indiana University of PA > WOOLCOCK@grove.iup.edu > Another book with spreadsheet templates that I have used a few from is "Concepts and Calculations in Analytical Chemistry, a Spreadsheet Approach", by Henry Freiser, CRC press. It covers stoich, equilibrium, activity, and other things. The sheets are written for QPro for DOS but are very easily converted to 1-2-3, Excel, and QPro for Windows. The student will need to have a little prowess on the spreadsheet to do the problems. David Green Natural Science Division Pepperdine University Malibu CA dgreen@pepvax.bitnet dgreen@pepvax.pepperdine.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 14:11:00 EDT From: "Peter Gold, Penn State U. (814) 865-7694" Subject: Re: spreadsheets In-Reply-To: DGREEN AT PEPVAX.BITNET -- Fri, 9 Jul 1993 10:10:53 PDT Yet another book on using spreadsheets to solve chemistry problems is O. J. Parker and Gary L. Breneman, "Spreadsheet Chemistry" (Prentice-Hall, 1991). ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 11:43:02 -0700 From: Sandra Lamb Subject: Re: Paper 9 - Short Questions For Don, there is a program called HyperBook for the PC that allows you to convert hypercard files to pc readable and useable programs. It is analagous to Hypercard. A good person to talk to about that is Paul Schatz, UWis, he has used it to convert Spectra Deck for the Mac to SpectraBook for the PC. Also, I would be happy to answer any spreadsheet questions. They are very powerful for doing chemistry problems of all types, including reaction kinetics and thermodynamics. I strongly recommend teaching students how to set up their own spreadsheets rather than using a template although there is time involved in teaching students how to handle the spreadsheet software. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 14:56:43 CST From: JOHN GELDER Organization: Oklahoma State University Subject: spreadsheets The phone number for N. Simonson & Co is (310) 301-2847. The area code has changed. Dave Barclay handles the book. He has an e-mail address of 2849430@mcimail.com if you want to go directly to him. John Gelder Department of Chemistry Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 74078 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 09:46:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Discussion of Paper 10 It is now 9:48 EST on Friday, July 9,1993 Short Questions for Paper 10 should be sent to CHEMCONF during this day. Discussion of this paper will not begin for several weeks. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 09:58:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 10 - Short Questions PAPER 10 - SHORT QUESTIONS PERSONAL COMPUTERS IN TEACHING PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY Aleksei A. Kubasov, Vassilii S.Lyutsarev, Kirill V.Ermakov, Chemical Faculty of Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Republic. E-MAIL: LASER@mch.chem.msu.su > The advanced course in Physical Chemistry for students of > Chemical Faculty of Moscow State University > Special group of students with profound studying of mathematics > and physical chemistry ... Fundamental course of physical chemistry > for these students ... QUESTION 1 a. How many students are there in this course? b. Are these undergraduate or graduate students? c. If they are undergraduate students, is this the first course in physical chemistry these students have taken, or is this an advanced course? d. How much chemical kinetics have they been taught prior to taking this course? e. How many students are there at Moscow State University? How many undergraduate and graduate chemistry majors? How large a chemistry faculty does the University have? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Reform freshman computer course. QUESTION 2 a. Prior to taking your course, how much of a background in computers do the students have? b. Do all chemistry majors take a freshman computing course? c. What is presently taught in the freshman computing course? d. What computing facilities are available for students generally at Moscow State University? e. What computing facilities are available for students taking your course? Do you have enough computers for the number of students you are teaching? Do students routinely use word processing? Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13676 ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 17:03:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 10 - Short Questions PAPER 10 - SHORT QUESTIONS PERSONAL COMPUTERS IN TEACHING PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY Aleksei A. Kubasov, Vassilii S.Lyutsarev, Kirill V.Ermakov, Chemical Faculty of Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Republic. E-MAIL: LASER@mch.chem.msu.su > The advanced course in Physical Chemistry for students of > Chemical Faculty of Moscow State University > Special group of students with profound studying of mathematics > and physical chemistry ... Fundamental course of physical chemistry > for these students ... QUESTION 1 a. How many students are there in this course? b. Are these undergraduate or graduate students? c. If they are undergraduate students, is this the first course in physical chemistry these students have taken, or is this an advanced course? d. How much chemical kinetics have they been taught prior to taking this course? e. How many students are there at Moscow State University? How many undergraduate and graduate chemistry majors? How large a chemistry faculty does the university have? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Reform freshman computer course. QUESTION 2 a. Prior to taking your course, how much of a background in computers do the students have? b. Do all chemistry majors take a freshman computing course? c. What is presently taught in the freshman computing course? d. What computing facilities are available for students generally at Moscow State University? e. What computing facilities are available for students taking your course? Do you have enough computers for the number of students you are teaching? Do students routinely use word processing? Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13676 ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 20:51:02 EDT From: Jim Holler Subject: Re: paper9 - questions In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 9 Jul 1993 11:58:26 -0500 from >4.. There are several avenues to publication that can be >counted just the same as tradition work. J. Chem. Educ. >software is one. There are 10-15 reviewed publications put >out by the ISTE (International Society for Technology in >Education), 800-336-5191. Finally, traditional publications >such as J. Chem. Educ., J. Research in Sci. Tchg, J. Coll. >Sci. Tchg., etc., regularly publish contributions of this >nature. At most state universities, faculty get demerits for publishing in these journals. Until this attitude changes, we cannot in good conscience that young faculty members publish in this way. Someday maybe. Not now. Jim Holler Phone: 606-257-5884 Department of Chemistry FAX: 606-258-1069 University of Kentucky Email: HOLLER@UKCC.UKY.EDU Lexington, KY 40506 ======================================================================= ANNOUNCEMENT & CORRECTION: Section IV: The simulated potentiometric titration problem set HAS now been ported to the program which is available by anonymous FTP. It is included in version 1.1 of the program, not 1.0 which was first submitted with the paper. Thus, PGEN11ZP.EXE, is the self-extracting zipped version 1.1 of the package, including the potentiometric titration problem. ====================================================================== From: Reed Howald > I have pgen11zp.exe, ... where are the three figures referred to? Since you have pgen11zp.exe, the three figures are included there, PAPRFIG1.GIF, PAPRFIG2.GIF, and PAPRFIG3.GIF Additionally, they are available via FTP from FTP: info.umd.edu Directory: info/Teaching/ChemConference/Paper06 Both GIF and UUE versions are available in this directory. > Using GET PAPER6 FIGURE3 with LISTSERV doesn't work. Copies of the three figures were not initially placed in the listserv filelist. They are currently in place and can be obtained by the above command. ====================================================================== From: Donald Rosenthal > In Section VI >> B. Generation of Statistical Fluctuations about a Value: >> The program uses a function called ErrFactor (relative standard >> deviation). This function returns a statistically generated >> multiplier with a mean value of 1.00 and a standard deviation >> given by the relative standard deviation specified. For >> example, if it is desired to apply a 5 percent fluctuation to a >> given value, the function called is ErrFactor (0.05). The >> function returns a randomly generated value of 1.00 +/- 0.05 >> which is applied as a multiplier to the value one wishes to >> randomize. Thus a multiplier between 0.95 and 1.05 is generated >> approximately 2 of 3 times. Since this follows a normal >> distribution, occasionally one finds the 2 or 3 or 4 sigma >> variation. This produces fluctuations with points which are >> outside the limit (here 5 %) about 1 of 3 times. > In normal unweighted least squares calculations it is implicitly > assumed: > > 1. There is no error in X values, only in Y values. > 2. There is equal probability (0.5) of finding positive and negative > deviations from the true value of Y. > 3. The error in the value of Y is normally distributed (i.e. larger > errors are less probable than smaller errors). > 4. The magnitude of the error in Y is independent of the value of X. > > QUESTION: Does your program generate errors which conform to > conditions 3 and 4? Yes, all conditions including 3. and 4. are satisfied. As indicated in Section VI A., The random number routines were taken from "Microsoft Quickbasic Programmer's Toolbox" by John Clark Craig, Microsoft Press, ISBN 1-1-55615-127-6, p. 353-364. "RandShuffle (key$)" was changed to "RandomizeOn (seed)" to make it both more readable and more like the "Randomize seed" in QuickBasic. "RandNormal! (mean!, stddev!)" was programmed as a function, and changed to "ErrFactor (RelativeStandardDeviation)" with mean value set to 1. and passing the relative standard deviation to the function. In this way if you want to apply a 5% random fluctuation to a given set of values the BASIC syntax is Y = Y * ErrFactor(0.05) The Y values ARE normally distributed with larger errors being less probable than smaller errors. The error produced in Y is independent of the value of X and dependent only upon the relative standard deviation desired. One does need to be careful in selecting the relative standard deviation, because one can expect to see the 2, 3, and 4 sigma variations with the appropriate frequency. > If the program multiplies the true value by a factor, > the error depends upon the value of X. I am not clear what is meant here. The error generated depends upon the value of Y being changed, and the relative standard deviation in Y which is sought. Y's are generated from X values according to the relationships of the particular phenomena. The fluctuations are then applied to the generated values of Y. > There are algorithms which will generate normally > distributed errors which conform to condition 4. I believe this is such an algorithm. The magnitude of the error in Y is independent of the magnitude of X, but is dependent on the magnitude of Y since what is being specified here is the relative standard deviation in Y. ====================================================================== From: Reed Howald > I am concerned about the question Lanzafame raises, how do we give > our students more experience with graphing? I would hope > integrating computers into courses can speed up certain processes, > including data collection and graphing. My question is - Do you > find that using computers gives your students more experience with > graphing, or do you have a net loss of time to spend on fundamentals > like graphing? You raise some very interesting questions. 1. I use the computer to generate unique problems for the individual student to do. The principal advantage is that one can grade the assignments with more confidence that each student is doing his own work and not copying someone else's work and submitting it. What I find from grading the exercises is that many students do not have the ability to work with linear relationships that they think they have. This is quite evident when I have computer generated keys for each data set that a student analyzes graphically. In this respect, I think that it does help to provide a bit more experience and, with answer keys, a better experience. I hand back the answer keys with the graded assignments. 2. I suspect that the use of computers to "speed up certain processes" is a bit more controversial. (I only very reluctantly stopped requiring my students to use a slide rule. ;-) ) I think that there is pedagogic value in manually plotting graphs and putting the best line through the data. While there is the perception (by students and some faculty) that students already have these skills, my experience with these graphical problem sets is that too many students do not. I think there is a lesson to be learned from the high school algebra problem. Here, the practice and drill of algebra and word problems was considered a waste of time. All students had to do was learn the principles. After all, those of us with experience and hindsight could see the few principles whose applications were really quite repetitive. If the student mastered the few principles, they could certainly apply these principles and "do algebra". The result is that all too many high school graduates cannot "do algebra" and of course, there is no point in struggling with menial algebra when doing calculus. The result is sometimes students who cannot take the principles of calculus to a real answer because they cannot "do algebra". I confess that I am bothered when I find that students are using graphing software to process data at the general chemistry level. I believe that the manual processes should be mastered before using a graphing software. If those skills are mastered in the general course, I believe that the software solution can be used profitably by students in later courses. We must keep in mind that most of these problem sets are used with General Chemistry students. After these skills are mastered, I am less concerned with allowing students in Physical Chemistry, for example, to use computers for linear regression and graphing. 3. I guess there is "a net loss of time ... spent on fundamentals like graphing" relative to what could be done using software packages. In my opinion, this is time which must be spent when students do not already have these skills. 4. In our second year analytical course, students learn to calculate regression results from x's, y's, and sums of squares etc. We believe they should learn how to do the basic calculations before using regression programs like black boxes. Too many regression programs do not calculate the errors in the slope and intercept with which the student can propagate the errors in quantities derived from these regression slopes and intercepts. In the analytical course, the computer generated potentiometric titration of an unknown polyprotic acid mixture provides an experience which parallels the mixed phosphate titration which is done in the lab but provides some unique aspects. Here, students can analyze titration curves for acid mixtures which would be difficult to construct in the laboratory with accurately known compositions. This is not a graphing exercise of linear relationships. Further, we take the opportunity to have students analyze the end points using first and second derivatives. This shows what "noise" does to a signal which is differentiated. It vividly explains the sensitivity of the first derivative mode on the auto-titrator. Students are graded on their interpretation of the titration curve and the written laboratory report. The mixed phosphate grade is based on the quantitative results. ====================================================================== ----------------------------------------------------------- | 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: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 11:34:19 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Help - Name of Book Some time in the last week or two a reference was given for a revies , that is, review article about computers in chemical education. I can't find the citation in all the pages of paper that I have accumulated. I would appreciate the title and author again. Thank you. Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University Roszieli@ubvms ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 11:10:01 MDT From: Reed Howald Subject: paper 6 discussion Paper 6 discussion errors Rosenthal's question and answer? >4. The magnitude of the error in Y is independent of the value of X Radioactive decay is a good example of data where plotting a logarithm of a measure quantity is useful. It is included as an example in the program. However one glance at Figure 2 shows immediately that this is not experimental data. The program has put in fluctuations, but not so that the proportional error increases at later times, when the count is low and statistical fluctuations get worse. This problem is what Rosenthal apparently had in mind when he said > If the program multiplies the true value by a factor, > the error depends upon the value of X. Not really. However the error should depend upon the value of Y, and in this case and many others, the error does not depend linearly on Y as is assumed by this method of calculation (and shown in Lanzaframe's examples). Random errors in practice are more complicated than either of the easy assumptions: random error is independent of Y or random fractional error is independent of Y. I strongly believe in giving students experimental data to work with in order to avoid data which gives a grossly incorrect idea about the nature of random errors (as this does, at least in this example). To make a program like Lanzaframe's useable the error generation subroutines must be made more complex. Perhaps three percentage errors could be specified, and three random numbers generated to give E1, E2, and E3 errors. Then the calculated Y value could be Y(true) * (1+E1) + sqrt(Y(true) * (1 + E2) + E3. We are fortunate in this case to have the source code in Quickbasic available, so a programmer can make the required corrections and try the revised program before giving it to students. Many good commercial programs are unfortunately unusable because corrections like this are impossible. I strongly agree students need more practice with graphing. I am somewhat concerned with students copying answers from other students. That's one reason I like interfaced laboratories, students can get lots of data to graph which is unique. I disagree with Lanzaframe on the value of denying freshman chemistry students the use of graphing programs. We give our students at this level a program (B4) which does spreadsheet type calculations and does graphing. If you want (as I do) to have students test alternate ways to graph one set of data, they really need the speed of computer graphing. I can see real value in Lanzaframe's program in assigning even more graphing problems to our students. However before I will use it the treatment of random errors must be improved so that the data would at least be indistinguishable from real data. And if we are to assign ten times as many problems as Lanzaframe does, I think we would have to abandon hand grading. The computer that assigns the problems will have to do the grading also. I personally would also need the capability of continually adding new types of problems to the system. I know what I need in the way of computer assisted instruction, and I find that it is not yet available. But I may be a minority of one. I would like to know what other conference participants think. Sincerely Reed Howald "uchrh@earth.oscs.montana.edu" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 14:32:39 CDT From: "GARY L. BERTRAND" Subject: Re: paper 6 discussion In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 12 Jul 1993 11:10:01 MDT from Regarding Least Squares Regression I think that both comments on Rosenthal's question are missing the point. The experimental uncertainty is a function of the experiments. Sometimes the uncer tainty in Y is independent of Y (which is assumed by normal unweighted regressi on), sometimes the error is directly proportional to Y as in a constant % error (unweighted least squares treats this properly if log(Y) is linear with X), and sometimes the relationship is more complex (proportional to sqrt(Y) for counting). To deal properly with these situations, one must not only under- stand the experiment, but weighting procedures as well. Joe Noggle's EasyFit Program and Discussion is the best treatment I've seen. ************************************************************************* * 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: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 13:10:09 -0700 From: Stephen Lower Subject: Re: Paper 6 Reply to Short Questions >2. I suspect that the use of computers to "speed up certain processes" > is a bit more controversial. (I only very reluctantly stopped > requiring my students to use a slide rule. ;-) ) I think that > there is pedagogic value in manually plotting graphs and putting the > best line through the data. [Reed Howald] ... maybe once or twice in one's lifetime, but let's face it: manual plotting, like manual titration, is fast ceasing to be a valued skill. Far better, in my view, to spend the time on getting students to actively think about and interpret graphs; that's one reason why I make my students work with log-concentration vs. pH graphs, for example. The idea that plodding manual operations (such as taking lecture notes) somehow enhances learning has a certain appeal, particularly to those of us who had to do things the old way, but it does not seem to be very well supported by the research literature. ---------- 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: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 16:23:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 6 - Discussion on Least Squares and Plotting > Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 09:18:40 EDT > From: "Frank M. Lanzafame" > Subject: Paper 6 Reply to Short Questions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > From: Donald Rosenthal > In normal unweighted least squares calculations it is implicitly > assumed: > > 1. There is no error in X values, only in Y values. > 2. There is equal probability (0.5) of finding positive and negative > deviations from the true value of Y. > 3. The error in the value of Y is normally distributed (i.e. larger > errors are less probable than smaller errors). > 4. The magnitude of the error in Y is independent of the value of X. > > QUESTION: Does your program generate errors which conform to > conditions 3 and 4? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > YOUR ANSWER > Y = Y * ErrFactor(0.05) *************************************** > The Y values ARE normally distributed with larger errors being less > probable than smaller errors. The error produced in Y is independent > of the value of X and dependent only upon the RELATIVE standard > deviation desired. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >MY STATEMENT > If the program multiplies the true value by a factor, > the error depends upon the value of X. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > YOUR RESPONSE > I am not clear what is meant here. .... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * Suppose the student performs an experiment on Temperature Conversion * where different temperatures are measured using both Fahrenheit and * Celsius thermometers or such measurements are simulated. (See * Section III-A of your paper. An unweighted linear least squares * fit of the equation: F = k C + a * where F = Fahrenheit temperature C = Celsius temperature k = the slope (theoretically 1.8) a = the y intercept (theoretically 32) * assumes NO ERROR in Celsius temperature readings, and that the * error in Fahrenheit temperature readings does not depend upon * the Fahrenheit temperature (perhaps it would be + or - 0.1 Fahrenheit * degrees with a reasonably good thermometer) * I am not certain what your equation Y = Y * ErrFactor(0.05) * means, but I assume it means that the error in Y (Fahrenheit) would * be zero when Y = 0 F and 100 times larger (on the average) when * Y = 100 F as compared to when Y = 1 F. IS THIS CORRECT? * If not, I don't understand Y = Y * ErrFactor(0.05). * If what I say above is true, then the equation should be fitted by * a WEIGHTED rather than an UNWEIGHTED least squares calculation. * IF THE EQUATION FITTED IS: * LOG Y = A X + B * THEN Y = Y * ErrFactor will result in errors in LOG Y (but not Y) * which are independent of LOG Y. Thus, what you did * is appropriate for two of your examples (the LOG ACTIVITY * and LOG Vapor Pressure fits). ====================================================================== * In your response to Reed Howald you indicate: > 1. I use the computer to generate unique problems for the individual student to do. * Good > 2. I think that there is pedagogic value in manually plotting graphs > and putting the best line through the data. * I tend to agree that freshmen should perform one or two plots by * hand. I'm not certain that David Brooks (Paper 9) would agree. > I confess that I am bothered when I find that students are using > graphing software to process data at the general chemistry level. * When I taught freshmen general chemistry lab, I had the students * prepare manual plots AND use linear least squares and plotting * programs (see Paper 1 and my article in Spring 1992 Computer in * Chemical Education Newsletter). Much more can be learned from the * statistics obtained from linear least squares calculations. * Comparing manual plots with what computers can do is instructive. * Of course, what you do will depend on the availability of * computers. Should practicing engineers and scientists be doing * manual plots or using least squares and plotting software? * For some undergraduates the chemistry laboratory course may be the * only laboratory course the student takes. What should the student * learn from such a course? > 4. In our second year analytical course, students learn to calculate > regression results from x's, y's, and sums of squares etc. We > believe they should learn how to do the basic calculations before > using regression programs like black boxes. * I don't agree with this. Such calculations are laborious. In my * opinion a student's time is much better spent trying to understand * the results of least squares calculations. Students who really want * to understand the calculations should take a course in statistics. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 17:22:43 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: Paper 6 Reply to Short Questions >>2. I suspect that the use of computers to "speed up certain processes" >> is a bit more controversial. (I only very reluctantly stopped >> requiring my students to use a slide rule. ;-) ) I think that >> there is pedagogic value in manually plotting graphs and putting the >> best line through the data. [Reed Howald] >... maybe once or twice in one's lifetime, but let's face it: >manual plotting, like manual titration, is fast ceasing to be >a valued skill. Far better, in my view, to spend the time on >getting students to actively think about and interpret graphs; >that's one reason why I make my students work with log-concentration >vs. pH graphs, for example. The idea that plodding manual operations >(such as taking lecture notes) somehow enhances learning has a certain >appeal, particularly to those of us who had to do things the old way, >but it does not seem to be very well supported by the research literature. >[Steve Lower - Vancouver, Canada] This points out a weakness that so many of us share. We lack information on the effectiveness of our teaching strategies. It may be time for us to investigate the use of assessment as an aid to instruction. There are many quick and effective strategies that would only take two or three minutes to do in a class and can be randomly or more carefully examined to see if the students have 'gotten it' whatever it may be. In the mean time we should not redo the sliderule/calculator wars into a manual.plotting/computer.plotting graphgate. You know which will win, its just a matter of time. The real issue as Steve points out is how the students are thinking about the printed word or the pretty graph. We need to develop a critical attitude in our students. This also requires an understanding of their developmental levels. Some skills cannot be learned at early developmental levels. Computer images and nice looking graphs prepared with a minimum of tedium fosters interest and learning. My own experience in PChem shows that students learn more effectively about the significance of their graphs when they are using the best technology that I can offer them for preparing their graphs. This is true for gen chem too. Unfortunately, so many gen chem labs are not equipped to offer this way to learn. This is an area where we all can help by pushing for more computers for the 1st year chem. students. Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University Roszieli@ubvms ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 20:08:54 -0500 From: George Long Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania Subject: Re: Paper 6 Reply to Short Questions I agree completely with Theresa, assesment of our students is paramount. This is particularly true at smaller (or less well funded) schools where the cost of such technology is not trivial. If the school invests in the equipment there should be an assurance that educational quality improves. George Long Indiana Univ. Of PA GRLONG@grove.iup.edu(or iup.bitnet) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 21:10:48 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Help request - reference I found the reference that I thought was sent out through this list. You all may be interested if you haven't heard of it yet. "Computational Chemistry in the Undergraduate Curriculum" by Roger L. DeKock (Calvin College), Jeffry D. Madura (University of South Alabama), Frank Rioux (St. John's University), and Joseph Casanova (California State University at Los Angeles). in Volume 4 of REVIEWS IN COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY 1993 ed by K.B. Lipkowitz (IUPUI) and Donald B. Boyd (Lilly Research Laboratories). ISBN 1-56081-620-1 VCH Publishers, Inc. 303 NW 12th AVE Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442 tel: 800-367-8247 price $75 information obtained from the mail exploder : chemistry@osc.edu - a computational chemistry list. Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University Roszieli@ubvms ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 22:20:45 EDT From: Sherman Henzel Subject: Maual graphing and manual titrations Steve Lower wrote that manual graphing and manual titrations are no longer performed. I teach Analytical Chemistry at MCC and have occasion to visit many laboratories with my students. They have the same attitude toward titrations that Steve Lower does. They think that when to industry they will never do another (manual) titration again. They are always surprised to find how many titrations are still done manually. While there may be few if any graphs being done by hand, there are many titrations still being done that way! ___________________________________________________________ | Sherman Henzel Department of Chemistry | | Monroe Community College 1000 East Henrietta Rd. | | Rochester, NY 14623 (716) 292-2000 Ext. 5124 | | Internet: shenzel@eckert.acadcomp.monroecc.edu | ----------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 01:08:29 EDT From: "Frank M. Lanzafame" Subject: Paper 6 Reply to some of Monday's Discussion ###################################################################### REGARDING ERRORS GENERATED IN THE DATA: Judging from some of the comments and discussion thus far, this paper has not been a masterpiece of clarity: 1. My goal was simply to provide some computer generated data as exercises for students--principally in General Chemistry. 2. These sets currently represent four or five graphical problems for students to do. This should not be an undue burden for manual analysis. It should be simple review for most students, but too frequently turns out to be otherwise. 3. To provide a bit of realism, I decided to produce some scatter in the data rather than present perfectly linear data where any two data points would have sufficed. 4. I chose to apply normally distributed scatter in the Y values which would correspond to relative standard deviations of the order of a few percent. 5. Students are told that there is scatter in the points which is meant to simulate errors which might be made in collecting the data. They are asked to do the best they can to determine the slopes and intercepts characterizing the data. They are then asked to use these slopes and intercepts to answer some questions about the phenomena they have just characterized. ###################################################################### Reed Howald's comments on radioactive decay errors: > The program has put in fluctuations, but not so that the > proportional error increases at later times, when the count is low > and statistical fluctuations get worse. I agree with Reed Howald that the error in my radioactive decay problem is not realistically distributed, but I'm not sure that many freshmen can tell the difference. The scatter in Figure 2 represents about a one percent relative standard deviation in the log (Activity). If I recall correctly, standard deviations in radioactive measurements varies with approximately the square root of the counts. Thus for Figure 2, the higher counts should show about a one percent deviation in the Activity (NOT the log (Activity) ) and about a three percent deviation in the Activity for the lower counts. Since the program has been written modularly, and I have tried produce readable code, it should be relatively easy to modify the program to suit individual tastes. ###################################################################### >From Steve Lower: >> I think that there is pedagogic value in manually plotting graphs >> and putting the best line through the data. > ... maybe once or twice in one's lifetime, but let's face it: > manual plotting, like manual titration, is fast ceasing to be a > valued skill. ..... The idea that plodding manual operations (such > as taking lecture notes) somehow enhances learning has a certain > appeal, particularly to those of us who had to do things the old > way, but it does not seem to be very well supported by the research > literature. It seems to me that the students I work with require more than once or twice in a lifetime to understand what they are doing. It is not clear to me that this once or twice in a lifetime approach has not contributed to our students' inability to do algebra. How many have noticed the increase in very basic algebra which has been added to general chemistry texts to compensate for student's lack of facility with algebra. I think it is important to stress fundamentals. Yes, even manual titrations. Many of our chemical technology students still find they can earn a living with these antiquated skills. Not every small company can afford auto titrators, and not every large company will dedicate one for every occasional titration. ###################################################################### From: Donald Rosenthal > Suppose the student performs an experiment on Temperature > Conversion where different temperatures are measured using both > Fahrenheit and Celsius thermometers or such measurements are > simulated. (See Section III-A of your paper. An unweighted linear > least squares fit of the equation: F = k C + a where, > F = Fahrenheit temperature > C = Celsius temperature > k = the slope (theoretically 1.8) > a = the y intercept (theoretically 32) > assumes NO ERROR in Celsius temperature readings, and that the > error in Fahrenheit temperature readings does not depend upon the > Fahrenheit temperature (perhaps it would be + or - 0.1 Fahrenheit > degrees with a reasonably good thermometer) I am not certain what > your equation Y = Y * ErrFactor(0.05) means, but I assume it means > that the error in Y (Fahrenheit) would be zero when Y = 0 F and 100 > times larger (on the average) when Y = 100 F as compared to when > Y = 1 F. IS THIS CORRECT? YES! > If what I say above is true, then the equation should be fitted by > a WEIGHTED rather than an UNWEIGHTED least squares calculation. Point taken. >> In our second year analytical course, students learn to calculate >> regression results from x's, y's, and sums of squares etc. We >> believe they should learn how to do the basic calculations before >> using regression programs like black boxes. > I don't agree with this. Such calculations are laborious. In my > opinion a student's time is much better spent trying to understand > the results of least squares calculations. Students who really want > to understand the calculations should take a course in statistics. Our students do not have a statistics course available which is appropriate for science students. We have used Harris and Kratochvil in the laboratory and "Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry" by Skoog and West from 3rd edition through the current 6th edition. They have always had (in my opinion) an excellent presentation of statistics for the analytical student including confidence limits, propagation of errors in calculations, and linear regression with errors in slopes and intercepts (calculated from the formulas involving sums of squares etc.). Harris and Kratochvil extend this with the equation for calculating the error resulting from applying a calibration curve to an unknown. This formula is presented in the text from the sums derived for the regression calculation. I think it is instructive to look at how the terms in this equation relate to the uncertainty in the quantity derived from the calibration curve. I believe that, while somewhat laborious, these calculations are worth the effort and provide the student with a good basic understanding of statistics. These calculations do lend themselves rather nicely to using a spreadsheet as a template for the calculations. We have experimented with this approach without as much success as we would like. It is probably worth some additional effort. ###################################################################### From: theresa Julia Zielinski > We lack information on the effectiveness of our teaching > strategies. It may be time for us to investigate the use of > assessment as an aid to instruction. There are many quick and > effective strategies that would only take two or three > minutes to do in a class and can be randomly or more carefully > examined to see if the students have 'gotten it' whatever it > may be. I would be interested in an example or two of what you have in mind here. ###################################################################### ----------------------------------------------------------- | 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, 13 Jul 1993 05:15:43 -0400 From: ALEX@SUYARS.BITNET Dear networkers, I need an advice or a kind of urgent help to find addresses of chemicists in Japan , working on the aromatic nitrogen containing polyfunctional compounds. I am from Yaroslavl university (Russia) and have an APPORTUNITY WITH ALL NESESSARY FUNDING TO SPEND UP TO 3 MONTHES IN JAPAN (university,firm any chemical institution) as a visiting scientiest Thanksin advance for any help an advices, Dr. Vladimir Orlov Biological depertament ,Yaroslavl University.Russia. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 09:36:22 MCK From: Alex Rouss Subject: Need help to communicate with Japan chemistry. I need an advise or a kind of support to find a way to start communication with Japan chemicists, firm or academic, interested in cooperation with Yaroslavl University, Russia. Our scient. interests - organic sinthesys and reaction ability models for nitrogen containing polyfunctional aromatic compounds. I have a financial support for approximately 3 month full accomodation in Japan as a visiting scientist. Thanks in advance for any kind of help. Dr. Vladimir Orlov Biological Departament Yaroslavl University Russia. temp.e-mail: alex@suyars.bitnet alex@icn.yars.free.msk.su ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 09:12:09 EDT From: "Frank M. Lanzafame" Subject: Paper 6 Reply: The error of my errors. From: Donald Rosenthal RECALL: > ...I am not certain what > your equation Y = Y * ErrFactor(0.05) means, but I assume it means > that the error in Y (Fahrenheit) would be zero when Y = 0 F and 100 > times larger (on the average) when Y = 100 F as compared to when > Y = 1 F. IS THIS CORRECT? YES! > If what I say above is true, then the equation should be fitted by > a WEIGHTED rather than an UNWEIGHTED least squares calculation. Point taken. ADDITIONALLY: > IF THE EQUATION FITTED IS: > LOG Y = A X + B > THEN Y = Y * ErrFactor will result in errors in LOG Y (but not Y) > which are independent of LOG Y. Thus, what you did > is appropriate for two of your examples (the LOG ACTIVITY > and LOG Vapor Pressure fits). Actually, this is not "correctly" done either. In the LOG ACTIVITY and LN Vapor Pressure cases, the fluctuations were created in the logs of the quantities not in the Y values before the log was taken. I began playing with the idea of generating graphs for students almost ten years ago and reconstructing the choices made has been a bit slow to return. (The joys of being one of the old of which Steve Lower speaks.) As I indicated, the goal was simply to generate unique problem sets for students, the answers to which were available to the instructor for grading. I further indicated that the fluctuation in the data was introduced to provide some realism. On further reflection, the reason for generating the errors in the WAY that I did was to help insure that the student saw the line as averaging the fluctuations in the data points. Once the "best" line is placed, the line represents the data and the line should be used to determine the slope and intercept. Students often have a tendency to to draw a line through the points, and then use two of the data points to determine the slope and intercept (totally ignoring the line). I played with the fluctuations to produce points which would appear linear, but for which the line would clearly be the best representation of the data. I did not want the student to luck into the correct answer by ignoring the line and choosing two points to represent all of the data. This was best achieved by introducing a few percent relative standard deviation in the Y values of the graph. In the example of the radioactive decay, the standard deviation in the Activity varies approximately as the square root of the Activity. By the time one takes the log of the Activity, the fluctuation begins to disappear in most cases except those of very low Activity. Thus, the error was chosen to provide data which would require the student to think about the differences between the data and the line and the fact the "least squares" was a mathematical way (through calculus) of selecting the slope and intercept to minimize the "squares" of the error produced by the placement of the line. In introducing the assignments, I discuss the differences between the "least squares" calculation from computer or calculator, and this "eye-ball least squares" that they are being asked to do. I hope in this way to give them a better appreciation of what the calculator is doing. The result is "error" in the error for pedagogic reasons. ----------------------------------------------------------- | 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, 13 Jul 1993 08:46:24 -0500 From: aubrey mcintosh Subject: Archives An associate has a system to produce one-off CD-ROMs in final testing. How much info is in the Chemconf archive? (a CD-ROM will hold approximately 600 Mb) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 09:08:50 MDT From: Reed Howald Subject: paper 6 discussion evaluation >We need to evaluate our teaching methods >There are quick and easy methods The schools of education spend a lot of time and effort on evaluation without producing anything which I can respect scientifically. It is nice to see the output of student questionaires as in paper 7. There is however a placebo effect here. Students will respond favorably to the teacher's enthusiasm in trying something new whether or not it is an improvement. Is there any method which is reasonably accurate and reasonably reliable for evaluating a teaching method? I think there is one. It is machine graded multiple (15) choice examinations with partial credit. I am firmly opposed to the use of standard 5 choice examinations. They either encourage quessing, or else like the ACS tests in physical chemistry they are tricky, giving lower scores to students who know a little instead of nothing. However if one provides 15 answers to choose from the situation is quite different. Guessing is not encouraged. And commonly chosen wrong answers can be awarded partial credit, just like we would do if we could do accurate hand grading for large classes. If one has a large selection of good 15 answer questions on a particular topic, one could get reliable measures of performance on a topic from different sections, different years, and different schools. This type of exam question was developed by Dr. B. P. Mundy, Dr. A. C. Craig, and myself in 1989. I will show you a 10 choice example from 1991: 10. (7 points) Determine the empirical formula of the compound with the following percentage composition: 52.14% C, 13.13% H, and 34.73% O. a. CHO b. CH3O c. C2H2O d. C2H5O e. C2H6O f. C3HO6 g. C3H6O h. C4H12O2 i. C4H13O2 j. C5HO3 Of course on the actual exam we could use subscripts. Ten item multiple choice forms are available commercially. 15 item forms will be printed and graded if we create the demand. Student results on this particular question were: answer number of students points awarded a 5 0 b 14 0 c 4 0 d 7 0 e 239 7 f 35 2 g 4 0 h 29 5 i 110 3 j 58 0 Who is interested in sharing machine graded exam questions for the evaluation of teaching methods? Sincerely, Reed Howald "uchrh@earth.oscs.montana.edu" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 12:46:23 -0700 From: Stephen Lower Subject: Re: Paper 6 Reply to Short Questions >I agree completely with Theresa, assesment of our students is paramount. >This is particularly true at smaller (or less well funded) schools where >the cost of such technology is not trivial. If the school invests in the >equipment there should be an assurance that educational quality improves. >George Long This assurance can never be possible because the "educational quality" that results from the introduction of new technology tends in practice to be limited more by the attitudes and openness to change on the part of the faculty than on the technology itself; at least this is what I have seen with CAI for the last 20+ years. As for costs, consider that if a $1000 software package can deliver 10% of the instruction of a $40,000 teacher, this represents a savings of $3000 in the first year and $4000 in subsequent years. The educational establishment has been remarkably impervious to the implications of this fact of elementary economics, but the public and the politicians are beginning to take notice (I noted Senator Moynihan's remarks on this topic in last Sunday's "Meet the Press"). I would suggest that we can't afford NOT to invest in technology and make sure we learn to use it effectively. (I'll be preaching a sermon on this subject at one of the ChemEd93 workshops next month.) ---------- 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: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 17:11:45 -0500 From: George Long Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania Subject: Re: Paper 6 Reply to Short Questions I agree that we can't afford to not invest in educational technology. Also it is imperative that we learn to use the available technology well, but there is a point of diminishing returns. To determine where that point is we need to know how good the technology is, and some type of student assesment is essential to this determination. Also, the cost of training (discussed in paper 9) should be considered in this discussion (I'll save it for later). As a last comment, I believe many faculty unions have impeded progress in this area because they believe the application of educational technologies will reduce the number of staff. It would be far better if faculty would push for more release time to learn how to apply technology effectively, and provide evidence for improvement of educational quality. george Long Indiana Univ. of PA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 18:43:51 EDT From: Charlie Abrams Subject: Re: Paper 6 Reply to Short Questions In-Reply-To: In reply to your message of TUE 13 JUL 1993 10:11:45 EDT > it for later). As a last comment, I believe many faculty unions have impeded > progress in this area because they believe the application of educational > technologies will reduce the number of staff. It would be far better if If it is true that faculty resist this progress, it is based on a myth. The work doesn't go away just because you have a program. In my limited experience, I have found just the opposite to be true: my students' questions have been more insightful, and require more work on my part to answer, because the software gives them a better understanding of the basics. (I'm using IR Tutor for ugrad organic.) Furthermore, advances in technology have always led us to increase our expectations of productivity - how many of us used (or needed?) a word processor 10 years ago? Charles B. Abrams McGill University (514) 398-6224 cx7q@musica.mcgill.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 19:29:40 -0400 From: Scott VanBramer Subject: Paper6discussion In response to Reed Howald regarding Paper6 < I can see real value in Lanzaframe's program in assigning even < more graphing problems to our students. ... I personally < would also need the capability of continually adding new types < of problems to the system... This past year I gave take home exams for the Instrumental Analysis course at Lock Haven University. Because I was concerned about students cheating I wanted to generate more than one version of a question but was daunted by the size of this task. By using a spreadsheet (Lotus 123) I was able to add random noise and quickly generate multiple versions of a question. Appropriate parameters can be used to randomly pick a slope and intercept for the data. "Lifelike" data can then be generated by adding some random noise to predicted value of a data point. This can be generated as follows: (@rand+@rand+@rand+@rand+@rand+@rand+@rand+@rand+@rand+@rand-5)/5 This returns a random normally distributed value between -1 and 1. The accuracy of the gaussian distribution can be improved by increasing the number of iterations. By incorporating this "noise" into the spreadsheet calculation (in whatever form appropriate for the data) the question is much more realistic. Students were often surprised to receive questions that did not plot as perfect lines (This indicates the addition of noise into questions at all levels would be advisable). After the spreadsheet is set up it is easy to graph the data, print the question, and print the answers. Additional questions can be quickly produced by recalculating the spreadsheet to generate a new set of random numbers. Obviously this will not work for large classes, although it could be automated with macros. It makes it easy to write questions, find answers, and generate a number of versions of the same problem. This makes it difficult for students to copy (Or at least requires enough effort that they will still learn). The effort required to grade all this can be reduced by generating several versions of each question (rather than unique questions for each student). Randomly picking from the available versions creates millions of unique exams from a much smaller number of questions. Although students could still cheat, they will not be able to help each other very much unless the entire class cooperates. Scott Van Bramer svanbram@eagle.lhup.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 17:31:52 MDT Reply-To: bagaddis@uccs.edu From: bagaddis@HAPPY.UCCS.EDU Subject: Re: paper 6 discussion evaluation I would like more information about machine graded exam questions. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 19:42:00 CDT From: Ray Sommers Subject: Paper 6 Titration Curves 1. In the titration data presented there is the _meter pH_ and the _true pH_. Is this common practice to do this sort of calibration? Comments? 2. In scanning the source code I do not seem to find any consideration of activity coeficients. Is this true or did I just miss it? |==================================================================| | | | Ray Sommers, Chem Dept. +----+----+ | | | | U of Wis @ Stevens Point | | | | | / \ Stevens Point WI 54481 /^\ | /^\ | | / UWSP \ rsommers@spu1.uwsp.edu (___) | (___) | | (__________) rsommers@uwspmail.uwsp.edu /^\ | |==================================================================| ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 23:20:28 EDT From: "Frank M. Lanzafame" Subject: Paper 6 Titration Curves -- Reply > 1. In the titration data presented there is the _meter pH_ and the > _true pH_. Is this common practice to do this sort of calibration? I don't think it is common practice. Most modern meters have capability for two point calibration built in--ours do and the students use them that way in the lab routinely. Although, the first time they learn to use the meter, we do have them check the meter and electrode system with 5 buffers, plotting this type of "calibration curve". It builds some confidence in the electrodes. I just took the opportunity of having them work with another calibration curve and built this into the problem generator. > 2. In scanning the source code I do not seem to find any consideration > of activity coeficients. Is this true or did I just miss it? I did not build any consideration of activity coefficients into the titration problem. ___________________________________________________________ | 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, 13 Jul 1993 23:36:59 -0400 From: theresa Julia Zielinski Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: paper 6 discussion Frank Lanzafame writes >The goal was simple to generate unique problem sets for >students.....to provide some realism. This is very important in teaching. Although is very interesting to read about the precise and correct way to represent error fluctuations we need to remember that we can't do it all in one course. As you all know, for any learning situation we need to set goals and objectives and then design appropriate learning modules/units/lectures to get students to achieve those objectives. Sometimes it is not necessary to do things perfectly in order to accomplish a set of objectives. This occurs everyday in gen. chem. Concentrations are routinely used instead of activities, simplistic explanations of orbitals, etc. the list is long. It's OK. We teach in layers of repetition and increasing sophistication. Greater refinement and insight is gained as the students progress and mature. This is true when anyone, including ourselves, starts studying in any area that is new to us. For example, someday I hope to study the piano. I will start with scales and move my way up (I'll use a new shiny electronic piano with attached computer to study). It will be great fun. The purists may say, "Oh, no not me I won't play unless I have an authentic grand piano." The sound is not the same. Well I'll be playing and they won't. So use any CAI that gets the job done even if its not the grand CAI of our dreams. If it's a good CAI students will learn enough to move on to the next level of sophistication. ---------- Reed Howald mentions > Placebo effect Well pass out those placebos. I'll use anything that will entice students into my web of learning. Once their hooked their hooked for good. His idea about multiple choice questions with 10 - 15 choices is really interesting. This can be coupled to the idea of assessment in the service of learning and instruction. This is one of those easy ways to evaluate our teaching (Frank, this is not the easiest example that I have, in fact I just invented it today). At the end of a learning unit the instructor can give a question of this type to the class. The class works for 5-10 minutes. The TA collects the answers and runs over to the scoring machine. Class and instructor get immediate feedback because each wrong answer corresponds to a unique but incorrect type of thinking on the part of the students. Instructor then analyzes results with class or if time is of essence just picks out the one or two most serious error types and works on correcting those misconceptions. The key here is that misconceptions are discovered before they do permanent damage to the learning progress. You say you don't have time, well you may be able to find some by letting students do some chapter work without your lecturing the same material that can be found in the book. If you hold them accountable with this type of exam they will comply (of course some will never comply, but we can't solve all problems). To use this type of question only on exams is to miss out on a powerful tool to aid instruction. Corrections of mislearning must be done before the students get to exams that determine their grade. This is an essential part of instruction that enhances critical thinking skills in students. I certainly would be interested in sharing exam questions for detecting student success in learning, i.e. questions that would detect their misconceptions before a learning experience and then again after their learning experience. I want to know if they have gained by the experience, do they understand better, can they think better. Time and effort spent on evaluation is very important. NSF guidelines for programs funded through the Undergraduate Education Directorate require both summative and formative assessment strategies. -------- Steve Lower again makes an important point The success of new technology is >limited more by the attitudes and openness to change on the >part of the faculty than on the technology Elaborating on his idea Technology should not reduce staff. The professor is still needed to create the learning environment and implement the sequence of learning for the student. To watch a tape of me lecturing is not the same as me diagnosing, developing and directing effective strategies for learning. Like a physician I must see and observe the students in action in order to do this effectively. So maybe the role of the professor is shifting from presenting facts and stuff toward assessing the success of students 1) to diagnose and improve learning and 2) to monitor mastery and assign grades. --------- What is source for Noggle's Easy Fit program? ----------- To add to Don Rosenthal's contribution of 7/12 @ 16:23 Since we can't so it all we must select both the topics and the depth of instruction. It might help to combine objectives in order not to waste time (student time is a valuable resource). For students with little/no prior spreadsheet experience and little/no knowledge of curve fitting I use the first lab period in the following way. I give them 100 points to plot, the spreadsheet program and the tutorial for the program. I expect them to use linear least squares equations to get the equation for the line and compare it to the regression result from the program. The resulting graph is needed for one of their next experiments. There are several layers of objectives here. 1) learn to use the computer quickly. 2) learn spreadsheets fast - your life in this course depends on it. 3) data analysis is easier with a computer. 4) LLS fitting is not so much a black box. 5) they learn to get paper plots etc. They are not proficient by any standard but they are on their way to being independent. A few more weeks and they're teaching me tricks. There's that hook again. ----------- Theresa Julia Zielinski Niagara University Niagara University NY 14109 Roszieli@Ubvms ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 05:39:56 EST From: "William J. Sondgerath" Subject: Q & A to Paper 7 Questions from Donald Rosenthal 1. Is there a course text? Do students read the book? Response: Yes, we use Heath Chemistry and we make regular reading assignments. Most students read the book. 2. Do you lecture and provide time for class discussion and problem work- ing sessions? Response: Yes, we still lecture, but we try to keep this time to minimum to retain their attention span. They are not usually as good at taking notes as college students. Discussion time we feel is very important for their understanding. 3.Are computers integrated into the class hours or do students use the com- puters during study hall hours and after school? Response: Most of the time is to work on computers is done during class time. Make-up work or word processed reports are done on their own. 4. On the average what fraction of the course is devoted to each type of activity? What about traditional laboratory work? Response: When we integrated computers we examined the chemistry course content and applied the use of computers wherever they could be appropriately used. For example--per cent composition concepts instead of lecturing, the students use INTRODUCTION TO CHEMISTRY software from Stan Smith of University of Illinois. Or when they learn to use thermistors instead of thermometers, they use them in the lab. Once they learn does not take much more time. Spreadsheets and graphing take more time initially, but after they learn their use not much more time than tradition- al. The traditional labs that we were doing, now we are using thermistors, pH probes, and/or spreadsheets and graphing in about 1/2 of them. 5. Computer activities must replace other activities. Which are the acti- vities replaced? As I stated in 4, we try to do computer activities in place of some other activity. i.e. Instead of a worksheet on writing formulas or naming compounds, a computer skills building software is used. Yes there are probably some topics that don't get as much attention in first year chemistry such as molality, kinetics, equilibrium. Questions from Mirja Karjalainen 1. How did you select the classes for CAI? Should the students have any prior computer skills? Response: 1) Two rooms in our high school are used for chemistry, one has computers and one does not. Students were place in each randomly according to their schedule needs. The teachers, Dolores Handy and myself were assigned by administration so that 1/2 of Chemistry I classes would be in computer classroom. 2) Initially when the project was started not very many students had computer experience, but since there were three student/computer, we assigned at least one person who had computer experience to each group. The cooperative learning we found to be most useful. Most students now have used Microsoft Works at least in word processing now when they come to chemistry so that is very helpful in learning spread- sheeting in Microsoft. II. I'm not familiar with the Safety in Science Lab Software. Is it designed specially for the high school science education? How much does it contain data about properties of chemicals? Could I get some further information about it (a demo?) through the INTERNET? Reponse: 1) It contains two separate programs one for K-6 and one for 7-14. 2) It has a data base for inventorying and it give the common hazards such fire, toxicity,..., and labels can be printed. 3) To schedule a workshop or seminar dealing with laboratory safety and/or to discuss the safety software, call or write. JaKel, INC 585 Southfork Dr. Waukee, IA 50263 U.S.A (515-225-6317) Questions from R. T. Wilson 1. How many students are in your typical lab, and how long are the lab periods? Response: 24 is usually the maximum and the periods are 50 minutes. 2. How much time does a typical student require to finish an experiement and report which requires word-processing or a spreadsheet? Do they usually finish the report during the lab period, or do they have to do it later in the media center? Response: Typically one period is used taking data and recording it in a spreadsheet and then following day calculations are done in spreadsheet and graphing. Sometimes the slower students have complete and print in the media center. 3. You say: Is this in paper or computer format? When during the year is it used? Are the "20 instructional days" on which it is used consecutive? What do you mean exactly by "tutorials?" Response: Last question first. A tutorial to me is a method that a student can learn a concept and in my case it is taught by the student interacting with a computer software package such as Stan Smith's. So for example if I am going to teach Percent Composition, I give a study guide and the students will work through Stan Smith's lessons on percent composition. Sometimes we use the software to introduce topic, sometimes to reinforce, sometimes to conclude, and other times as remediation. Finally, all concepts that are taught are not adequately covered in the software, but where and when we can find appropriate software we utilize it in our curriculum at the appropriate time. Such as during nomenclature, gas laws, solutions, acid-bases, periodicity we use software tutorials. THANKS FOR ALL QUESTIONS AND I HOPE THAT I ANSWERED THEM SATISFACTORILY. IF NOT I AM ALWAYS HERE! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 09:20:46 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Paper 6 Reply to Short Questions George long notes that: >I agree that we can't afford to not invest in educational technology. Also >it is imperative that we learn to use the available technology well, but >there is a point of diminishing returns. To determine where that point is >we need to know how good the technology is, and some type of student >assesment is essential to this determination. Also, the cost of training >(discussed in paper 9) should be considered in this discussion (I'll save >it for later). As a last comment, I believe many faculty unions have impeded >progress in this area because they believe the application of educational >technologies will reduce the number of staff. It would be far better if >faculty would push for more release time to learn how to apply technology >effectively, and provide evidence for improvement of educational quality. The best way to learn we tell our students is to do something. That applies to faculty as well. The resistance on the part of some of our colleagues is perhaps fear of the new, that which we wern't taught, but virtually nothing that I teach or do research in was taught to me -- at 53 I'm too old. The first computer I used was a multi-million dollar IBM system less powerful than today's pocket clculators and the Mac on my desktop that I write this from is more powerful than Brock's first Burroughs mainframe 25 years ago. It doesn't take release time to learn to use computers any more than release time was needed when FTIR replaced dispersive instruments or AA replaced old sparck and arc photographic spectrographs. 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, 14 Jul 1993 09:27:16 MDT From: Reed Howald Subject: paper6 discussion reply to bagaddis >I would like more information about machine graded exam questions Machine grading offers us two important features: exactly consistent grading for a large class and a full record of the numbers of students selecting each answer for each question. Partial credit multiple choice requires several passes through the grading process, and a separate key for each point value. We gave exams with problems worth 3, 4, 5, and 7 points, and prepared keys for 7, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point. Making keys and being sure they are correct takes maybe two hours of the instructor's time. Our test scoring department could grade a set of 600 exams within 24 hours, so exam results were always posted before the next class period. The time required was less and results were available faster than when we used TA graders. The biggest advantage was a very big reduction in student complaints about grading. There is a substantial increase in time required in selecting wrong answers for inclusion. Dr. Craig was very good at this. But with 15 (or even 10) answers included you don't need to be perfect, some answers can be completely arbitrary. One thing clear from our results was that about 5% of the students were guessing randomly at most of the questions on the exams. I am pretty sure this is a subset of the students who failed to attend classes. I am lobbying for a bar code reader in our lecture hall so we can take attendance and monitor for exam ringers better. But the possibility of exam question sharing in a situation where a full record of answers for each class is readily available is intriguing. Spending an hour of staff time on getting a good question and set of answers is reasonable for 600 students, but it is clearly cost effective if the question can then be used for 6000 students. Reed Howald "uchrh@earth.oscs.montana.edu" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 11:28:40 EDT From: Jim Holler Subject: Re: paper6 discussion reply to bagaddis In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 14 Jul 1993 09:27:16 MDT from On Wed, 14 Jul 1993 09:27:16 MDT Reed Howald said: >Partial credit multiple choice requires several passes through the grading >process, and a separate key for each point value. We gave exams with problems >worth 3, 4, 5, and 7 points, and prepared keys for 7, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point. >Making keys and being sure they are correct takes maybe two hours of the >instructor's time. Our test scoring department could grade a set of 600 exams >within 24 hours, so exam results were always posted before the next class >period. The time required was less and results were available faster than when This is hardware and software dependent. We have one-pass grading with a departmental machine on multiple-choice, partial credit exams, and we can have scores posted in 1-2 hours. 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, 14 Jul 1993 11:35:56 EDT From: Jim Holler I keep forgetting that general discussion occurs later. The immediacy of email is too compelling. My apologies. 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, 14 Jul 1993 10:42:56 -0500 From: "Alfred J. Lata" Subject: 'Signatures' Dear Colleague: Please be sure to 'sign' your postings to the Conference. Include affiliation. Some of the 'From' addresses are difficult to decipher. Thanks. Alfred J. Lata Dept of Chemistry, Univ of Kansas lata@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 10:06:13 PST From: "Edward H. Piepmeier" Subject: MANUAL OR COMPUTER PLOTTING? I have struggled with what to do in my courses with manual and computer-generated plotting. Tom O'Haver's comment on July 9 in the short questions about Paper 9 clarified in my mind the need to emphasize computer-generated fitting and plotting: "These technologies [writing, arabic numerals, printing, symbolic notation...] are empowering; for example, any child using arabic numerals today can perform arithmetic tasks that a senator of ancient Rome could not." What does a computer-generated fit and plot do that a manual plot cannot? A least-squares fit provides results that everyone can agree upon: a curve that is the best fit to that set of data, and a set of uncertainties and confidence intervals in the numerical results that are obtained using the fit. Manually drawn curves differ with the person who draws them, and numerical values and uncertainties obtained from the curves also differ, and are subject to reading errors. A computer-generated fit also provides the deviations of the data from the fitted curve even for very close fits to the data points. Systematic patterns in these deviations often suggest that a different mathematical model should be used for the fit, or may indicate that systematic errors have been made in collecting the data. (There are even statistical (numerical) ways to determine when an appropriate level of polynomial fit has been reached.) Deviations are difficult to evaluate from manual plots, especially when the fit is close to the data. Manual plotting allows unconscious weighting of the data points. Even a weighted least-squares fit will vary with the weights that are given to the data points, but any disagreement about the values for the weights encourages a more careful evaluation of the reasons for the uncertainties in the data than might be done otherwise. SO WHY MANUAL PLOTTING? It is well known in the field of education that students have several learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Those who learn most easily by kinesthetic means may learn more quickly by making manual plots. Therefore I hesitate to remove this manual experience from my courses. However, once they have learned the basics, they should advance to the more empowering computer-generated fits and plots, and learn how to interpret the information that is available from these fits and plots. Those who learn easily by visualization may not need a manual-plotting introduction. For those who learn most easily by auditory means, lectures or discussions are helpful, at least until the next step in the computer world allows them to listen to a computer. TEMPLATES? Unfortunately we seem to be in a situation where most curve- fitting programs present extraneous information (such as the correlation coefficient, when the variables are already known to be correlated) and leave out other information important to our applications. This leaves it up to us to show the student how to make that information available via spreadsheets or other programming language. Templates are ok, but they leave the student in dark about how to obtain this information in situations outside the classroom. Ed Piepmeier Oregon State University Corvallis, OR ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 16:37:12 MDT Reply-To: bagaddis@uccs.edu From: bagaddis@HAPPY.UCCS.EDU Subject: Re: 'Signatures' My apologies. I "control-Zed" before I was finished with the message. Barbara Gaddis Science Learning Center U.C.C.S. Colorado Springs, Co ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 21:16:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: PAPER 7 - ANSWERS TO AUTHOR'S QUESTIONS Paper 7 INTEGRATING COMPUTERS INTO THE HIGH SCHOOL CHEMISTRY CLASSROOM William J. Sondgerath, Chemistry Teacher, Harrison High, West Lafayette, Indiana (BSONDGER@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To: PARTICIPANTS From: Donald Rosenthal It seems to me that authors have generally done a much better job answering participant's questions than other participants have done in answering author's questions. I think Bill Sondgerath has asked some interesting questions. I would like to read PARTICIPANT'S ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS. I'm appending the questions to this memo. (Pages are from my printed copy of the author's text.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS FROM AUTHOR TO PARTICIPANTS Questions on Page 4: 1. What tutorials have you found to be useful in teaching high school chemistry? 2. What methods do you employ to evaluate concepts learned from using tutorials? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions on page 6: 1. How have you used KC? Discoverer that would be helpful for other chemistry teachers to know? 2. Are there other databases that you find useful? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions on page 7: 1. Do you know of any good, reasonably priced color LCD's? 2. What have you done with visualization that could enhance chemistry instruction? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions on page 7: 1. Does anyone require word-processed reports? 2. Could you make a contribution on how you successfully utilize word processing in your chemistry program? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions on page 21: 1. In what ways do you find spreadsheeting and graphing from the computer useful? 2. Do you have any unique use of spreadsheets and graphs from the computer? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions on page 22: 1. What types of experiments involving interfacing do you use, or would you like to use? 2. Do you have any advice for someone starting to use interfacing? -------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions on page 22: 1. Do you have a powerful gradebook? 2. Do you have any suggestions to other teachers in using such a management tool? ------------------------------------------------------------------- IX. Safety in Science Lab last Questions: 1. Would software like this be valuable to you? 2. Have you found any safety software that would be useful to other chemistry teachers? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:00:00 EDT From: dana barry Subject: paper7 question What difficulties do you encounter by having three students per computer? dana barry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:59:00 EDT From: jbarry Subject: paper7question There has been a trend in high schools across the country to decrease the num- ber of "wet" lab experiments because of safety, expense etc. Do you think that computer simulations of experiments will accelerate this trend? What effects might this have on the abilities of chemists to work with chemicals in the real world? jbarry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:46:53 EDT From: "R. T. Wilson" Subject: Re: PAPER 7 - ANSWERS TO AUTHOR'S QUESTIONS Don, I think most of us are a little reluctant to answer Bill Sondgerath's questions because he is way out ahead of us. He is certainly ahead of me, anyway. His paper was a real eye-opener. I simply did not know people weredoing stuff like this in high school. I teach first year college chemistry. Our computers are not in the lab, but are down the hall on another floor of the building. We have plenty of them, but it is not very convenient to try to use them during lab time. I have not tried any interfacing, but it sounds like maybe I should get started on it. We do have one experiment involving analysis of the data collected by the whole class with a spreadsheet which is turned in the week after the experiment is done. Most of our experiments are turned in the same day they are done, so I don't ask students to do any word-processing. I do usually ask them to write a couple of reports as part of their class work, and those are word-processed. We have used KC-discoverer, but to be honest, I didn't like it too much. I may give it another try this year. My grade book is a Q-Pro spreadsheet which I made up myself. Sorry Don (and Bill), but those are about all the comments I can make. After reading your paper, I feel like the Flintstones, but I will try to do better. Terrell Wilson Virginia Military Institute Lexington, Virginia 24450 {fchwilson%faculty%vmi@ist.vmi.edu} ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 10:53:02 -0400 From: Estela Blaisten-Barojas Subject: doctoral research assistantship is available --------------------------------------------------------- | Research opportunities leading to a Ph. D. | | in "Computational Sciences and Informatics" | | at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia | | (see ad in Physics Today, May issue 1993, page 96, | | and again in the September 1993 issue). | |----------------------------------------------------- Research assistantships are available in computer intensive dynamical simulation of large atomic systems as applied to condensed matter problems and materials sciences. Candidates should be interested in massively parallel computer platforms and applications of Molecular Dynamics,Monte Carlo and cellular automata. The stipend fluctuates, upon candidate credentials, between $11,000 and $14,000 for the year plus waiver of full time tuition. Requirements: Computational experience and M. S. in either Applied Physics, Physics, Materials Sciences, Theoretical Chemistry, Chemical or Electrical Engineering. Other assistanships and post-doc opportunities are also available. Interested applicants should write to Dr. E. Blaisten-Barojas, CSI-Dep. of Physics, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444. Please send vita, copy of undergraduate and graduate transcripts, and three letters of reference when responding. For additional information send e-mail to eblaiste@gmu.edu. ---------- Estela Blaisten-Barojas, Professor CSI-Physics Department FAX: (703) 993-1993 George Mason University email: EBLAISTE@gmuvax.gmu.edu Fairfax, VA 22030 Phone: (703) 993-1988 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 10:48:10 EDT From: Allan Smith Subject: Re: PAPER 7 - ANSWERS TO AUTHOR'S QUESTIONS In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 14 Jul 1993 21:16:00 EDT from On gradebook "programs": I believe that the best way to handle grades is with a spreadsheet, not a dedicated gradebook program. Sure, it takes a while to learn how to use a spreadsheet, but the general capability that you then have at your fingertips is far more useful than any gradebook program will ever be. For small classes, I enter student names manually into Excel running on my Mac, then set up columns for each graded activity - labs, quizzes, mid-terms, the paper. I put the Excel file on another Mac so that the teaching assistants can enter grades. When I compute the final class averages, I enter a formula with the appropriate weights and copy that formula down a whole column. Whenever students come to my office to check their grades, I start up Excel and look at the records. This system has worked well for me for several years in classes of 100-200 students. Our student information system on the university mainframe now has a capability for downloading class-lists in a flatfile format, thus making transfer to a spreadsheet very easy. The whole system is simple and effective. Allan Smith, Drexel University Chemistry Department ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:22:59 MDT From: Reed Howald Subject: paper 7 questions >From: jbarry >Subject: paper7question >X-To: computer conference >To: Multiple recipients of list CHEMCONF >There has been a trend in high schools across the country to decrease the num- >ber of "wet" lab experiments because of safety, expense etc. Do you think >that > computer simulations of experiments will accelerate this trend? What effects >might this have on the abilities of chemists to work with chemicals in the >real > world? jbarry Yes, it will accellerate the trend. But there are two other trends that we can push harder to lessen the problem. There is an increasing trend toward involving younger students in experimental science. A lot is being written encouraging teachers to plan occasional experiments for a whole class. There are many valuable and interesting things which can be done at the 5th and 6th grade levels (before students have become disillusioned about science in school). A very satisfactory alternative to simulated experiments in the computer collection of real experimental data. There are a lot of things all of us can do to encourage this: Plan good experiments for our own students at all levels, share experiments, share equipment, simplify good experiments for a younger group of students, talk with general science teachers, etc. Simulations will not hurt if the students get enough experience in collecting real experimental data to understand the limitations of the simulations. Let me give an example. I have built several pressure sensors to work with Amend's interface. Two of them are in regular use in our P-chem laboratory for gas law, vapor pressure, and kinetics experiments. However I would like to see this equipment in use measuring sound waves in music classes or measuring atmospheric pressure at one hour intervals over the two week period while a teacher is covering a unit on weather. Rosenthal wants us to answer all of the questions in paper 7. I don't see any easy way to do that, nor what use it would be. However let me try to summarize my thoughts with regard to the two on "interfacing". >What types of experiments involving interfacing do you use, or would you like to use? For p-chem about 80% of the experiments are interfaced. We use the pressure sensors, thermistors, block colorimeters, pH and other electrodes, and a simple DC conductance cell. We have several good kinetics experiments including hydrolysis by conductance, and the enzyme catalyzed decomposition of hydrogen peroxide with dry yeast and the pressure sensor. I am not now involved in our freshman laboratories, but they use the interfaces regularly in titrations with pH electrodes and also in thermometric titrations (which work very well with thermistor temperature measurements with 0.007 K standard deviation, normally given by Amend's interfaces). I would like to measure density of solutions from vibration frequencies, and measure heat capacities with low power electrical heating with a new interface which can get to a standard deviation below 0.001 K on temperature. I would like to help develop additional experiments for all levels of science teaching. I would like to analyze the vibration frequencies of a building or an automobile. >Do you have any advice for someone starting to use interfacing? Yes. Do it and be proud. At whatever level of equipment you have, talk up its virtues. Apple game port interfacing is good, and you can do a lot with it. If you are working with large numbers of students, be sure that your TA's are well trained in the use of the equipment. The most important thing is ATTITUDE. I pushed a little too fast at the beginning, and our freshman chemistry laboratory got very low student evaluations in some sections, those in which the TA did not think the interfacing was a good idea. Secondly, try to involve your students in the design of the experiment. Computers are versatile, and interfaced experiments are even more so. You can vary what is measured, how often, etc. If data collection is fast you can afford to make mistakes and try again to do better. Do a class experiment. Get the data into a spreadsheet. Work on the data analysis with real data. A few students will understand the results quickly. Send them off to change the experiment to get better data while the rest of the class is still working on what the data they have means. Third, share. Find teachers with the same or similar equipment. Trade experiments. Share successes. Let your students see what other classes are doing. Encourage them to try to do better, or to extend environmental sampling into new geographical areas. If you record the temperature and pressure changes as a cold front comes in, try to get another class 100 miles away to take similar readings and measure the velocity of the front. Fourth, be open minded. Try new experiments. Try new kinds of experiments. We really don't know yet what all this new technology can do. However it will revolutionize the teaching of science. If it did nothing more than raise the teacher's enthusiasm we would see the results in our students. Reed Howald "uchrh@earth.oscs.montana.edu" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 13:51:00 EDT From: RICHARD GRAHAM Subject: Grading - Paper 7 The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York several years ago automated the whole recording of grades. The "mainframe" computer generates the class lists that are sent to departmental servers. These are then accessible by the individual faculty members for the sections they are assigned. The instructors download the necessary files from the server to their individual machines. At the desk, the instructors can then input grades, edit grades, produce reports in a variety of fashions (including instructor defined), weights can be assigned to individual types of assignments (labs, quizzes, etc). Cutoff scores for assignment of letter grades is also accomplished. The instructor can also change individual letter grades if desired. The instructors are urged then to upload the information to the server where it is available for the department chair to examine. The rolls are uploaded to the server by the instructors each time a new score is posted. Thus there are two copies of the grade book for each instructor. At the end of the semester, when the department chair has cleared grades, the instructor uploads the file from the departmental server to the "mainframe". Paper is never used to transmit grades, etc. I used the system for a couple of years and it worked marvelously. Dick Graham Towson State University, Department of Chemistry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 13:48:00 EDT From: "j.barry" Subject: safety The paper mentions many good ideas in regard to safety in the laboratory. However, it is important for us to be good role models. If we walk aroundthe lab without an apron on or with safety goggles on our foreheads we are giving the wrong message to our students. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 13:42:37 EST From: "William J. Sondgerath" Subject: Re: paper7 question In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:00:00 EDT from When the students are learning a new concept, most of the time 3 students to a computer is useful. They are very good at helping each other. If I have given oral instructions, one of the three more than likely will pick up the information needed. We are fortunate to have a computer lab which can be scheduled for individual work such problem practice (skill building). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 13:51:20 EST From: "William J. Sondgerath" Subject: Re: paper7question In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:59:00 EDT from I'm sure that the more dangerous labs may be demonstrated with videodic aided by computers, but hopefully that instead of the traditional "wet" lab may be computer simulations will be used to show how it is done in research and industrial labs. Microscale labs can be very useful, too. Hopefully through a good selection process students will be able learn chemical principles with "relatively" safe reagents if larger scale experiments are necessary. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 16:03:39 CDT From: "Harmon B. Abrahamson" Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network Subject: paper 7 In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:46:53 EDT from Dear Conferees: I would like to echo the comments by R.T. Wilson, inasmuch as many of the applications of computers in chemistry teaching discussed in this conference are ahead of what we at the Univ. of North Dakota are currently able to do. Our primary limitation has been severely shrinking equipment budgets. We were finally able to wrangle an internal grant to get enough computers to begin to use them in chem. major courses. I could use suggestions on how to get access to enough hardware to use computers in our General Chemistry course with enrollments over 600 each fall semester. As far as gradebook programs are concerned, I use a commercial database program (Microsoft File on Macintosh) that lets me do computed fields. An advantage of the database approach is that I can print a half-page summary for each student towards the end of the semester to let them double-check their records. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Harmon B. Abrahamson | BITNET: UD108726@NDSUVM1 Department of Chemistry | INTERNET: UD108726@VM1.NoDak.EDU University of North Dakota | PHONE: (701) 777-2641 PO BOX 9024 | FAX: (701) 777-2331 Grand Forks, ND 58202-9024 |************************************ | What's nu? E/h of course! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 17:32:38 -0400 From: "Ian Swainson, AECL Research, Chalk River" LIST LOCAL ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 23:06:12 EDT From: David Ostfeld Subject: Paper 7 I think some of the issues raised in this paper deserve more attention. I have also been "wrestling" with the problem of integrating technology into the teaching of high school chemistry. I guess the problems are always the same, but the solutions can vary. I have been using the "Chemical Problem Proctor" -- a program similar to the "Introduction to General Chemistry" mentioned in the article. Actually I have both programs, and just prefer the way the former program does things. I have also found that students "race through their completion like a computer game." I suppose that a program which kept score and then saved the score in a database might help. But then you'd probably have students figuring out how to hack the database. Sondergath counters the racing- through problem by having the students the students complete guidelines. I have been giving quizzes taken from the problems they were solving. Isn't this an easier way to do it? I don't have KC? DISCOVERER for teaching periodic trends. But I do have CHEMISTRY WORKS. It seems like a good way to teach periodicity. Are the programs roughly equivalent? I also use an LCD panel for displaying the results to certain programs. However, I am less happy with it than is Mr. Sondergath. I don't like having to turn off the lights and pull down a screen. The alternative to pulling down a screen is projecting on a dry erase board; but they are bit shinier than I would like. What I think would be ideal would be a VGA to composite video converter. I have a large-screen TV which I use for show- ing video disks and tapes (an aspect of technology which probably deserves a paper by itself). I would like to use this same TV for showing computer results. (This is, after all, a class roon and not a lecture hall.) The problem is which one to use. Despite promises to the contrary, all the converters I have seen tend to flicker excessively. Anyone have any experience? Certainly one needs a spreadsheet for student use. We use Claris Works. I think it handles graphs a bit better than Microsoft Works. (I don't like the graphing capabilities of either program as well as I like those of Harvard Graphics, but HG has other limitations.) Finally there is the IBM Personal Science Lab. I would really like to know how other people use these. It's easy to see what the temperature probes can do. Cooloing curves and freezing point depressions are just two obvious examples. I have been very pleased. I haven't gotten around to ggetting pressure transducers, but I guess that will come next. But what about those pH probes. Is it realistic to plot pH versus time to get titration curves. I think it would be better to just show the students a video of a proper titration rather than that. I would like to see some more discussion of that. Well, I've rambled on enough. I've gotten a lot of ideas from this conference and just wanted to put something back in. Dave Ostfeld Academy for the Advancement of Science & Technology OSTFELD@PILOT.NJIN.NET ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 04:20:16 CDT From: Charles Fox Subject: Re: PAPER 7 - ANSWERS TO AUTHOR'S QUESTIONS But there are a lot of good gradebook programs that allow lots of flexibility and work well for those of us who hate spreadsheets and the 'nightmare'they are to set up the firest time. I quess I believe it depends on the person--both approaches work equally well. Charles E. Fox Chemical _______ Hygiene Officer St. Ambrose Univ. Chemistry/ \Instructor 518 W. Locust St. Lab/ \Coordinator Davenport,IA 52803 Work/ /--\ \Study FAX 319-383-8791 Chem. \ \--/ /Biology Voice -383-8921 Science \ /Department cfox@saunix.sau.edu All \-------/around 'Gopher' ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 09:43:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Paper 8 discussion > Monitor and whiteboards are present allowing a choice of > presentation style (white board or direct camera > presentation). Both formats are thus visible by both groups > of students (classroom and distance sites). Surveys > indicate that classroom students prefer whiteboard > presentation while distance students prefer camera > presentation. I'm not sure I understand the difference between whiteboard presentation and camera presentation. Can you explain further? Tom O'Haver U. of Maryland ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 09:07:15 -0500 From: 01twadams@LEO.BSUVC.BSU.EDU Subject: paper #7 Congrats to Bill for a very cogent presentation of technology in HS chem. I also use Much of the same technology as Bill in my HS chem classes. I use interfacing from Vernier Software, 2920 S.W. 89th St., Portland, OR 97225; phone (503) 297-5317. Simple to use. Less expensive than most. Students react well. Use Temp probes for small quantity heats of reaction and long term (> 2 hours) temp studies. pH probes for potentiometric titration (let the computer keep and plot the data). Starting to mess with pressure sensor and thermocouple. They also have a good lab book for interfacing computers in chem lab. I use KC? Discoverer almost exclusively for student learning of periodic trends. I use work sheets for "guided" learning. Works FINE. Use of spreadsheets for analysis of quantitative data is a must. I have even introduced some elementary statistics for analysis of whole class data by all students. Will be giving presentation about some of this at ChemEd '93 in Indianapolis the first week of August and at regional NSTA in Louisville in November. Would like to talk with anyone interested. Tom Adams Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics & Humanities 01twadams@bsuvc.bsu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 10:30:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Paper 8 discussion Since 1991, the University of Maryland System has been operating a interactive compressed video network between several widely separated sites throughout the state. To date, class offerings include selected advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Chemistry, Computer Science, Business, Mechanical Engineering, and Statistics and various educational and professional seminars. Plans are to eventually interface to national and international compressed video networks. Current plans include linking with the long- distance carriers (AT&T, MCI, Sprint), and become a public site for private and public entities within the State. I have not used this facility myself, and I don't know how this would compare with satellite communication. But it does look like yet another way to do distance education. Tom O'Haver U. of Maryland ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 10:28:13 CDT From: "Harmon B. Abrahamson" Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network Subject: Re: Paper 8 discussion In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 16 Jul 1993 09:43:00 EDT from A comment on Tom O'Haver's whiteboard question... I did some interqctive video classes in the early 80's at Univ. of Oklahoma. There we could either transmit a shot of me writing on the board (green then, not white), or use an overhead camera focussed on a pad (about 7 x 9 in.) on the desk . I found that the remote students preferred the writing on the pad because it was easier to read. This is probably similar to the comment in Paper 8. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Harmon B. Abrahamson | BITNET: UD108726@NDSUVM1 Department of Chemistry | INTERNET: UD108726@VM1.NoDak.EDU University of North Dakota | PHONE: (701) 777-2641 PO BOX 9024 | FAX: (701) 777-2331 Grand Forks, ND 58202-9024 |************************************ | What's nu? E/h of course! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 10:17:28 -0700 From: Stephen Lower Subject: Re: paper 7 >Our primary limitation has been severely >shrinking equipment budgets. We were finally able to wrangle an >internal grant to get enough computers to begin to use them in chem. >major courses. I could use suggestions on how to get access to enough >hardware to use computers in our General Chemistry course with >enrollments over 600 each fall semester. [Harmon B. Abrahamson] Our classes are about the same size, and we do it this way: 1) About one-third of our first-year students have computers of their own, or available to them at home. This significantly reduces the load on our on-campus facilities. Although are not one of those institutions that "requires" students to own a computer, many are coming to see doing so as highly desirable. These students use the lab desribed below only for downloading the software to diskettes that they take home and use there. 2) General-Chemistry students use a public microcomputer facility (about 70 PC's, 20 Macs) "Assignment Lab" that is restricted to students enrolled in courses in which computer use is required, but is otherwise not connected with any single department. Except perhaps in very large institutions, it is probably not very economical for individual departments to go it alone. Our university is as broke as many nowadays, and we are facing severe cuts in many aspects of our operations. Fortunately, however, our administration has seen fit to channel some of these cutbacks into things like better computer labs in the belief that they will deliver more and better instruction per dollar invested than what had been cut... including, in our case, the TA budget. Institutions that do not take this attitude and simply try to hang on to the status quo are likely to find themselves headed for obsolescence and possibly even eventual extinction. ---------- 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: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 12:26:07 -0500 From: Barry Rowe Subject: Re: PAPER 7 - ANSWERS TO AUTHOR'S QUESTIONS Good point that we did not really answer Bill's questions, which are really the most significant part of his fine paper -- we can all help each other with these answers! >QUESTIONS FROM AUTHOR TO PARTICIPANTS > >Questions on Page 4: >1. What tutorials have you found to be useful in teaching high > school chemistry? I use the "HyperChem" Modules from USD. These are HyperCard stacks done with NSF and Dreyfus foundation grants. They are readily available on Macintosh ftp sites. They are very well done, very helpful, and, well, slick -- er make that professional in appearance. >2. What methods do you employ to evaluate concepts learned from > using tutorials? Currently written quizzes, but I hope to start hypermedia based quizzes this year. >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Questions on page 6: >1. How have you used KC? Discoverer that would be helpful for > other chemistry teachers to know? never used it >2. Are there other databases that you find useful? I use several HyperCard stacks about the periodic table that give lots of useful information, and we allow our students (encourage is a better word) to access data over Internet. We want them to access electronic databases to find information about elements and compounds. We at the ChemViz group are working on a program to access the Cambridge Structural Database for 3-space coordinates to use crystalographic data to generate MacMolecule files. >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Questions on page 7: >1. Do you know of any good, reasonably priced color LCD's? none -- they are all too expensive for any of us to use without a 'sugar daddy' to help us afford it. >2. What have you done with visualization that could enhance > chemistry instruction? We concentrate our visualization on atomic and molecular theory using Macintoshes connected to the NCSA Cray. We have the students do calculated Atomic and Molecular orbital images and animations. >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Questions on page 7: >1. Does anyone require word-processed reports? My AP CHemistry class must word process all lab writeups -- whether wet lab or computational lab. >2. Could you make a contribution on how you successfully > utilize word processing in your chemistry program? We provide a lab and some time during class. Mostly they must do their writeups after school and after class. >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Questions on page 21: >1. In what ways do you find spreadsheeting and graphing from > the computer useful? Graphing energy data from our animations is useful to find bond length. Actually we use a graphing program, not a spreadsheet (Graphical Analysis from Vernier Software) >2. Do you have any unique use of spreadsheets and graphs from > the computer? See above. >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Questions on page 22: >1. What types of experiments involving interfacing do you use, > or would you like to use? I have done thermochemical experiements and pH titrations with Apple IIGSs interfaced with kits from Vernier Software and HRM. The software is so user-unfriendly that I have not done much of it in recent years. >2. Do you have any advice for someone starting to use > interfacing? It is a very useful part of Chem Lab. But the overhead to learn the programs is pretty large. The advantage is better data, and automatic time measurement at shorter intervals. >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Questions on page 22: >1. Do you have a powerful gradebook? I use a spreadsheet. I will probably convert to a database next year. FileMaker Pro allows access on Windows machines as well as Macs, and it is extremely powerful. >2. Do you have any suggestions to other teachers in using such > a management tool? The most important part of using an electronic gradebook is to make it available to students on demand. If they can access their grade and attendance information (and only theirs), it will make them more enlightened as to what they must do to get the grade they wish (which is only secondary to them learning what I think they should). >------------------------------------------------------------------- > >IX. Safety in Science Lab last >Questions: >1. Would software like this be valuable to you? yes >2. Have you found any safety software that would be useful > to other chemistry teachers? >no barry [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] Barry E. Rowe browe@ncsa.uiuc.edu NCSA ChemViz group 240 CAB, 152 E. Springfield Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 ANY PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PHYSICS OBVIOUSLY INVOLVES MATTER, AND IS THEREFORE CHEMISTRY. [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 16:08:16 -0500 Reply-To: Ted Labuza From: Ted Labuza Subject: Re: paper 6 discussion evaluation > > This type of exam question was developed by Dr. B. P. Mundy, Dr. A. C. Craig, > and myself in 1989. I will show you a 10 choice example from 1991: > > 10. (7 points) Determine the empirical formula of the compound with the > following percentage composition: 52.14% C, 13.13% H, and 34.73% O. > > a. CHO b. CH3O c. C2H2O d. C2H5O > > e. C2H6O f. C3HO6 g. C3H6O > > h. C4H12O2 i. C4H13O2 j. C5HO3 > > Of course on the actual exam we could use subscripts. Ten item multiple > choice > forms are available commercially. 15 item forms will be printed and graded > if > we create the demand. Student results on this particular question were: > > answer number of students points awarded > a 5 0 > b 14 0 > c 4 0 > d 7 0 > e 239 7 > f 35 2 > g 4 0 > h 29 5 > i 110 3 > j 58 0 > > Who is interested in sharing machine graded exam questions for the evaluation > of teaching methods? I have two questions about your question? 1. Who has determined that 15 multiple choice answers make for a better question? In fact I chose "h" which is according to your scale incorrect provided that you said in class that "empirical formula" means the least common denominator. So it comes down to some memorization and regugitation and some tricks. Having come from a chemical engineering background but teaching physical chemistry and food engineering in an applied biplogical discipline " food science, I had first gotten trapped into what I call the cook and look method of teaching and evaluating science. It makes for easier grading. However after a few years I went back to the way I was taught in that I now use in class open book exams and or take home exams. The students feel more comfortable and you can do more integrative prblems. For example in the above, after the first part you can then give them some information about the reliability of the analysis (eg the error on H analysis is 13  5 %, that it reacts to with Fehlings solution (thus it has a reducing group) and then list the mp or bp range and ask them for the real formula, so they get exercise in using the CRC Handbook. That was my most used text at MIT and I took it to almost all my exams, why don't we still do that today. Questions like this build them into using their knowledge, however if this is just at the start then it has to be simpler, which is what I guess you are doing. I still feel open bok is better and by the way, I found no difference in the average score in closed vs open books but the students feel more comfortable. Those that spend most time hunting to find an answer are the ones how score low since the good students still memorize key factors such as the MW of the simple molecules. I also use what I call validity statements which requires short discussion answers, for example : Dicuss the validity of the following statements: a. Dr. Franks says that using the term water activity to describe the vapor pressure of water surrounding a food in a package is incorrect since foods are never at true equilibrium and the definition of activity suggest equilibrium." (The point here is when are we ever at true equilibrium) b. A break in the Arrhenius plot indicates that the experimenter probably had poor temperature control. (The point here is that their may be a phase change , eg freexing, or a glass->rubber transition. 2. At what number of students do you have to go to multiple choice. I used to teach a class of 450-500 and used multiple choce. It gave a wide distribution but I was never satisfied with it. I had it machine graded. With few TAs or RAs that is the simple route, but why not design take home exams with groups. If some get by on the work of others so be it, perhaps the experience of a group is the best experience for them. In the food and drug field, no one works on their own, there are always product teams, and team work is required. Chem Eng has always done this and so why can't chemists or food scientists. One approach I use at the higher level is to give them a poor published research paper in which they can manipulate the data to gert a better outcome or to criticize the methods. I also use ads which make exagerated claims for physical properties (easy to find in the food and ag field) Perhaps we need a new Chem-Conf on shifting ecvaluation paradigms. One last general poin, on the spreadsheet vs canned written programs. Both work, but I hate to see too much emphasis put on problems where they have to devise a new spreadsheet each time, rather I like to see thought problems where the use the programs to create the numbers that can then be used to answer the question. I always put in some incorrect data and some irrelevant data to see how they handle it, they know I DO this from the first class. As an example homework style I use is the boos just saw this data and thinks this product X can be used to improve our product Y to be more competive and wants you to detyermine if we should incorporate it. The answer is open ended and I make them work in groups with a new group manager responsible for the report each time. There is some poor data in the data, problably because it was recorded wrong sometime intentionally or unitentionally. They then have to learn to make decisions. I tell them at the start that the final answer is not as important as them recording the heuristics they used in solving the problem. Many students don't like to do this but it does help them to learn. The data then can be run through the canned programs with and withou t the outliers to see what difference it makes in the final conclusions, rather than having to spend a lot of time to set up the spread sheet. On the other hand a spread sheet is useful where one wants to do a repetitive calculations for many values between an upper and lower limit to see the influence on another value. A good example of this is in heat transfer, ie when does the thichness of insulation on a pipe with a cool fluid inside flowing at constant temperature get so large that you end up heating it by the outside air. Essentially a double plot of h2rL(Tp-Tair) and k/r vs radius is needed. This is a good spreadsheet and graphing exercise and they see the value of spreadsheets and graphically examining the data. 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: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 19:04:42 -0400 From: Judith Faye Rubinson Subject: Re: paper 6 discussion A number of people have expressed dissatisfaction with relying on graphics packages, saying that students don't learn the basics of graphing and statistics. I find that requiring students to have sensible ranges and interim ticks on graphs means that they must master the basics of graphing, even when using a graphics package. With regard to curve fitting, choosing the type of fit gives them a feel for different types of functional variations. Hurrah for statistics packages of all sorts!!! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 22:05:23 EDT From: "KEITH J. SCHRAY" Subject: Paper 8 short question response-Fox Charles Fox inquires as to the cost to students(companies).... Tuition is $500/credit hour compared to $650/hr on site. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 21:58:05 EDT From: "KEITH J. SCHRAY" Subject: Paper 8 discussion- O'Haver ,Abrahamson Tom asked a question about whiteboard vs. camera. I've been tied up in a teachers workshop here today...hence the late night response. But Abrahamson is describing precisely the system we use and the response of the students is the same. Tom figured out what I did this morning- sent responses to listserv. It didn't like that and so "flushed" me- such a descriptive word. I then figured out what I did wrong ( you have to flush me to get my attention). So I sent the responses to chemconf. When it didn't bounce themI thought they had gone through- I figured the right hand of the system didn't know what the left had done. Apparently it did.So here they come again I hope. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 22:01:16 EDT From: "KEITH J. SCHRAY" Subject: Paper 8 short question response- Zielinski Theresa Zielinski 1. The statistics cited are partly from Future Supply amd Demand in Academic Institutions Porceedings of 1990 Workshop: Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology, Ed. B. Vetter, Washington, DC, March, 1990. and Chemical and Engineering News, 69(20), 29-30, May 20, 1991 On checking these I find my approximations a little rough- in 1979 the BS grads in chemistry were 11,501. The latest number is an estimate based on a survey of sophomores in 1991 which yielded a number of 5200 for 1993(unpublished but by ACS). My colleague is still looking for the source off the numbers of students interested in going on in graduate work- oobviously an ACS source (Heindel is well connected there) and I will send it on when he gets it. 2. Nonchemists doing chemistry is supported by anecdotal evidence only. 3.I will send you the P-chem syllabus under separate cover but it is the first P-chem course taken by chemistry and chemical engineering majors. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 22:04:14 EDT From: "KEITH J. SCHRAY" Subject: Paper 8 short question response-Coe Doug Coe, 1. Concerning Lehigh's course numbering scheme....I'm not sure it makes any sense but you probably refer to the mix of 300 and 400. Strictly graduate courses at Lehigh are 400 level (undergrads are 000-399). For many years it was difficult for undergrads to take 400 courses and often a graduate course was numbered 300 to facilitate this. 2. There are a number of sub-disciplines at Lehigh, of course, whose courses are not offered on satellite. Organic and analytical were chosec in consultation with the charter coompanise. In the fall we will begin the addition of six additionsl courses to support a concentration which can be called bio-organic. Nothing further is planned although we are looking at short courses. 3. The sequences required by prerequisites are: 358< 458r< 451, 455 with 458s and 394 nnot requiring prerequisites and 332< 432,433, 488 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 22:02:23 EDT From: "KEITH J. SCHRAY" Subject: Paper 8 short question response- Long George Long raises the following subjects: 1. Concerning using interactive computer worksheets( mathematica) instead of a satellite link... Two points: The lehigh Board of Trustees has the requirement that courses be live with two-way communication live. I'm not familiar with mathematica but I wouldn't know how this would be practical for a lecture format course which most of these coures are. 2Concerning the types of research projects selected--- The research aspects of the program are just beginning. But based on past (limited) experience with off-site research by part-time local students and the early returns of this program, projects arise from the student and professor having a shared research interest and a high mutual interest factor.I fully expect some broadening of research efforts by flexible faculty because they can explore areas for free- manpower and supplies come free for researchof interest. IN this day of hard to get funding this could be like dying and going to heaven if it is work that fits your own current interests or leads in promising new directions. Some instrumentation capabilities are mmore specialized at the company site and represents an opportunity to the faculty. But it's very early. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 21:59:54 EDT From: "KEITH J. SCHRAY" Subject: Paper 8 short questions response-Rosenthal Don Rosenthal asks questions on the following: 1a.Courses meet either 3 times a week for 50 minutes or twice for 75 minutes- our standard arrangement. Most are going with the twice a week format. 1b. About how much time is spent in lecture, problem solving, discussion it is difficult to generalize but... The average is probably about 90% lecture and 10% interaction of some kind. Some courses becooooome very interactive, up to 50% but the majority are not excpt in response to questions. About half the courses involve extensive homework, half rely only on exams. Homework is Fed-exed. Virtually all courses have a text but usually involve outside reading, articles, etc. Extensive handouts are used in the courses which are not or marginally textbook based. 1c. Off-site questions come like a voice from heaven- quite startling, really. They are screened and queued by a satellite technician but essentially they just arrive. 1d.On-site to offsite student ratios are as follows for example: 10:18, 2:23, 40:20, 4:6. All over the block with a higher number of satellite students predooominating. The big factor is how many on-site students there are and since Lehigh has a typical 15 student entering graduate class, that tends to be small unless undergrads are in the class. With 2or 3 students in the class I tend to talk to the camera, with 10 students in the classroom I tend to talk to the class. 1e. Concerning course evaluations. Satellite students prefer data presented directly while on-site students prefer board work. Everyone likes prepared handouts of material but satellite students very strongly- they can'tlook over at another section of the board so getting behind is more serious- the camera gives them tunnel vision. Material taken from the mmonitor can't be seen again-except on tape. The satellite students are significantly older- more aggressive and more mature, even in their judgements. On-site students are quieter and more attentive in televised than in local- only classes...Big Brother is watching you syndrome. 2. Lehigh requires synchronous teaching (live), a Trustee rule so taped courses as the standard would not be allowed under the present situation. The tapes are used quite a bit both on-site and off-site for missed classes and to review material. I think it is great for students and that we should do it for all courses. I realize that potentially it could(probably?) occur that students would skip lectures and could create problems but I'd love to try it and see how much problem it is because tapes help students a lot. I think that we are in a partially asynchronous mode and would like to go further. 3.E-mail is used outside of class although students tend to use phone and voice-mail(including cooooonference calls) more. I think your suggestion of a listserv is excellent because out of class questions should ideally be open to everyone. I wonder if there's a phone conversation equivalent. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1993 11:20:00 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 8 - Discussion Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 10:30:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Paper 8 discussion > Since 1991, the University of Maryland System has been operating a > interactive compressed video network between several widely > separated sites throughout the state. To date, class offerings > include selected advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in > Chemistry . . . . > Tom O'Haver > U. of Maryland * Which graduate and undergraduate courses in chemistry have been offered? * What enrollments has the University had in these chemistry courses? * Are these courses taught as part of an on-site course? * DO ANY OTHER PARTICIPANTS TEACH AT SCHOOLS WHERE SUCH COURSES ARE * TAUGHT? IF SO, PLEASE DESCRIBE THE FORMAT AND CONTENT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 21:59:54 EDT From: "KEITH J. SCHRAY" Subject: Paper 8 short questions response-Rosenthal > 1d.On-site to offsite student ratios are as follows for example: > 10:18, 2:23, 40:20, 4:6. * It must be strange lecturing to two students and having 23 remote * students participating. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * Does Lehigh have a long-term commitment to the Satellite M.S. program * or is this viewed as a short-term experiment? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * In my opinion it is unfortunate that you are locked in to LIVE * courses. If your figure of 90% lecture and 10% discussion is * typical, it seems to me that asynchronous courses might provide * as much or more discussion and attract more participants. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University ROSEN1@CLVM.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1993 15:31:01 -0500 Reply-To: Ted Labuza From: Ted Labuza Subject: Re: paper 6 discussion In message Judith Faye Rubinson writes: > A number of people have expressed dissatisfaction with relying on graphics > packages, saying that students don't learn the basics of graphing and > statistics. I find that requiring students to have sensible ranges and > interim > ticks > on > graphs means that they must master the basics of graphing, even when using a > graphics package. With regard to curve fitting, choosing the type of fit > gives > them a feel for different types of functional variations. Hurrah for > statistics > packages of all sorts!!! > I could not agree more. I believe that the student should learn manual graphing at the very basic level early on and then use computer graphics. They have come a long way since the cryptic days of main frame graphing with all the control codes and cards. One thing it eliminates to some degree is the computatiuonal errors especially with semi-log plots. I always require students to do both ln Y xs X and a semilog plot of Y vs X and calculate the slope for the true exponential expression ie y = Ae^(sX). This helps them to understand logs vs ln, and what a semi-log plot is. It is amazing how many leave out the factor of 2.303. Some 10-15 years ago there was a paper in J Phys. Chem, I think, which reviewed about 10 years of kinetics papers and found that ~20% had forgotten the 2.3 in the calculation of Activation energy, presumably these were from hand drawn plots. I can't find the reference but will look. This same error was done in a classic review of vitamin degradation in the food science literature in the 50's, and the wrong Ea value was used for 15 years in textbooks until a colleague of mine and I wrote a new chapter and I reviewed the old lit and found the error. We need both methods but the software packages should eliminate some of the errors. If used as noted above, it is like hand drawing and prevents some very stupid graphs from being published, for example someone samples at 61, 132, 184 and 206 hours and that is the tick marks on the X axis. This was quite common in somew of the older literature. Dr Ted Labuza Department of Food Science and Nutrition 136 ABLMS University of Minnesota St. Paul MN 55108 Voice 612-624-9701 or Home 612-633-8928 Fax 612-625-5272 or Home Fax 612-633-0627 There is no such thing as a poverty of time, rather there is a poverty of being able to say "NO". ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1993 15:31:06 -0500 Reply-To: Ted Labuza From: Ted Labuza Subject: Paper 6 discussion From: "Ted Labuza" Date: Sun, Jul 18, 1993 9:35 AM To: bagaddis@uccs.edu Subject: Re: paper 6 discussion evaluation In message <0096F98D.18E0F7A0.5573@happy.uccs.edu> writes: > I am interested in the concept of the take-home or open-book exams and have > integrated quizzes in this format to my general chem classes. I found that > many of the students' papers were identical. Cooperative learning can > be successful. But how do you stop the blatent copying? Do you do all > takehoem/open book tests? > Barbara Gaddis > U.C.C.S. > Colorado Springs, CO > I only do the all take home exams at the graduate student level and design the exam such that despite the mathematical calculations, the written discussion of the results is the critical part. I state emphatically at the start that any plagerism will be dealt with an F in the course, this is agreed on by the students by signing a form on the front of the exam, they must use my exam form. It states " I agree that the written material turned in is my own work and I have received no help from anyone unless specified by the instructor". Generally I note that they can get help from anyone other than course mates as that is what they would do in the real world on a job. I have had only one case of a violation of this in the past ten years. On homework I let them work together and then hand in their own work, that in many cases is the same and if someone did not do anything but copy I will find out when I give an in-class open book exam. I keep the homewortk at no more than 40% of the grade and thus if homework is the building process then the exams and class discussion are the evaluation. In this way I get away from the numerical grades of a 30-50 being a A. Generally I grade at the grad and undergrad level with a A=85%, B=75%, C=60% and D=50%. It seems to have worked well. By the way, I gave a paper last week at the annual meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists, a 25,000 professional membership. My paper was on the logistic hurdles of introducing quantitative skills into food science courses because of its inherent biological nature. I would be willing to share the Power Point slide set with anyone if you leave me an email message. I intend to write it up in the next few months. Or I can ftp it to the Maryland gopher site. Dr Ted Labuza Department of Food Science and Nutrition 136 ABLMS University of Minnesota St. Paul MN 55108 Voice 612-624-9701 or Home 612-633-8928 Fax 612-625-5272 or Home Fax 612-633-0627 There is no such thing as a poverty of time, rather there is a poverty of being able to say "NO". ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 08:22:00 EDT From: Nava Ben Zvi <201226@UMDD.BITNET> Subject: Re: paper 6 discussion In-Reply-To: Message received on Fri, 16 Jul 93 19:07:44 EDT regarding ted Labuza"s comment: are you THe Ted Labuzah of the World of Chemistry series? please tell me Nava Ben Zvi 201226@umdd ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 09:33:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Re: Paper 8 - Discussion In-Reply-To: <9307181522.AA22330@umd5.umd.edu> Re: interactive compressed video network > Which graduate and undergraduate courses in chemistry have been offered? > What enrollments has the University had in these chemistry courses? > Are these courses taught as part of an on-site course? To my knowledge the only chemistry course that has been offered on the U. of Maryland Interactive Video network is Chem 723: Marine Geochemistry, a graduate class with a rather small enrollment. Undrgraduate classes have been offered in several other departments, but not chemistry. The reason this particular course if offered is that it involves faculty and graduate students who are working at the Chesapeake Biological Lab At Solomons Island, Maryland, and Horn Point Environmental Lab, Cambridge, Maryland, whcih are some distance from the main campus at College Park where the chemistry department resides. Tom O'Haver U. of Maryland College Park ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 12:48:49 EDT From: "KEITH J. SCHRAY" Subject: Paper 8 discussion- O'Haver questions Tom asks which courses have been offered. The full course offerings are listed in the table of the analytical and organic concentrations and the first semester P-chem course. We are still in the first time thru so not all courses have been offered yet. So that means 358,458r, 458s, 451, 394, 432,332, 475,433 and and advanced polymers and a clinical course. Also the p-chem. On-site students take these courses- they are simply our regular courses beamed up Scottie. A few presentation changes due to tv but basically unchanged in content or when we offer them(ie what semester). We limited the satellite enrollment to 80 students and originally were offering two courses in each concentration which works out to 20 stucents per course if they take only one per semester and that is just about what we find. As we go to a one course per track format then I expect that we will have about 40 per course. K.J. Schray ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 15:29:06 -0400 From: Richard Jarosch Subject: Re: PAPER 7 - ANSWERS TO AUTHOR'S QUESTIONS In-Reply-To: your message of Fri Jul 16 12:26:07 -0500 1993 Regarding the author's question on gradebooks; one that I have used for a number of years and highly recommend is GradeGuide by Jon Kane, 2814 Regent St., Madison, WI 53705-5218. It is shareware, in its 4th version, and costs about $40 to register (much less for bulk purchases/site licenses). It should be available by ftp (although I haven't tried) from one of the Internet shareware servers, or of course from the author at the address above. rjarosch@uwcmail.uwc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 15:57:51 EDT From: "KEITH J. SCHRAY" Subject: Paper 8 discussion Rosenthal question Don, First of all it is strange to have class with 2 live and 23 remote, but it's better than 0 live and no feedback at all. I did that when taping a session on research interests that we sent them for information purposes by videotape. Lehigh is definitely in this for the long haul. The administration is very much behind this effort and 90% of the faculty are in favor. The biggest questions center on the research component and how the matches, secrecy aspects, quality of research will work out.We are adding another concentration and 6 more courses and have the sequence planned to the year 2000. I agree that being able to go to a mix a live and asynchronous would be good. Maybe we'll wear them down. That was a rule created for circumstances different from this. We just need to move them( trustees) to a mixed format with some required % of live. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 16:34:39 -0400 From: "Keith M. Wellman" Subject: Re: PAPER 7 - ANSWERS TO AUTHOR'S QUESTIONS Regarding gradebook software, we also use "GradeGuide" by Jon Kane for our 600 or so General Chem students. The person, Prof Bill Purcell, who uses it is very pleased with it. Keith Wellman KWELLMAN@UMIAMI ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 10:00:39 -0400 From: Paul Edwards Subject: Paper 9 - Brooks Professor Brooks' paper does indeed have much food for thought; it has certainly had my head spinning for days. I suspect all would agree that the computer is a tool which has dramatically changed the way scientists function. Certainly education in science ought to reflect the computer as a tool of the profession. Indeed, as Professor Brooks argues, we should act as models using computers has much as possible as would a professional chemist. I would go further by claiming that professional applications can be integrated very naturally into the curriculum, and I suspect most of us participating in this conference are already doing as much of that as we can. I also plead guilty to not having as much training as I wish. Unfortunately, I, like so many others functioning under tightening budgets, am not optimistic about the results of a search for release time. However, I think this situation can be turned around into a very healthy learning situation for both faculty and students. We can learn from them! Do faculty have to be molecular mechanics experts before asking advanced students to do a modeling exercise described in J. Chem. Ed.? Or, can we give them the software and the article, and let them figure it out? Isn't that what we are training them to be able to do? Isn't that what an employer or a graduate adviser is going to expect of them in the not too distant future? Finally, I am torn by Professor Brooks' closing thought that the existence of a tool is evidence the skill is not worthy of being taught, particularly with respect to first year chemistry. We certainly do ask especially non-majors to do some calculations they may never see again. Maybe students would focus more on the concepts if we took the emphasis off the calculations by providing computational tools. Equation solvers could be used to avoid some of the simplifying assumptions routinely made. CHEMED-L readers need only recall the recent discussion of the Henderson-Hasselbach equation! But I don't believe the existence of a tool pedagogically negates the need for that skill! I am not excited about balancing equations using numerical methods which mask oxidation-reduction chemistry and the notions of half-reactions which follow. I suspect we would be giving in to students with weak math skills if we were to provide tools for rearranging PV=nRT. I hope we don't make the same mistake with computers that we did with calculators. That battle was over a long time ago, so I'm not trying to restart it, but some of us aren't too happy about the outcome. How many of us deep down inside are a little sick when a student grabs a calculator to divide 25 by 2 and multiply that result by 100? And it isn't just us old fuddy-duddies; a young whipper-snapper in our physics department requires students in his modern physics class to do calculations by hand. The appropriateness of the tool must be considered! I don't think it is unfair to ask a student to use a Periodic Table to calculate the molar mass of sulfuric acid instead of a computer. Paul Edwards edwardsp@evax.edinboro.edu Edinboro University of PA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 16:19:12 MSD From: "Laser Chemistry Dept., MSU" Subject: Paper 9 - Special training can hardly help us. This paper is very interesting for any educator. David W. Brooks shares his wide practical experience which has great value not only in the USA but also, say, in Russia. The author raises some questions that hardly have a unique answer but makes one to think a lot on the problem. Let me comment out only one point. David W. Brooks writes in his paper: > The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the seriousness of > the training problem. We have to begin with ourselves, not > our students. One can hardly disagree with this statement. But his conclusion ("Ask For Released Time!") is more doubtful. Yes, computers and their software are simply more powerful tools like calculators. Almost every new tool changes the world around us. Phones changed it, and TV, and now computers... Did we need a special released time to train using TV? or calculators? It seems to me that efforts made in training faculty rarely produce sufficient outcome. When an educator is ready to accept new tools (s)he accepts it and begins to use. Otherwise either the tool is not good enough or the person has come to its limit in accepting new knowledge. Vassili S. Lyutsarev Chemical faculty, Moscow state university, Russia. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 09:40:24 MDT Reply-To: bagaddis@uccs.edu From: bagaddis@HAPPY.UCCS.EDU Subject: Re: Paper 9 - Special training can hardly help us. In response to Vassili S. Lyutsarev's comments about faculty release time, I agree to a certain extent: when the faculty wants to learn to use the technology they will do so, regardless of having release time or not. To set aside special release time to learn a task has not seemed to work. But I feel an important part of learning any new technology is having resources around to ask questions. We are all capable of learning; but when it comes to new tasks frequently there is no one around to ask for help. How do the rest of you handle teaching faculty how to use computers, software programs, etc.? Do you have an academic computing department that is useful here? We are fortunate in our department to have two computer junkies who love learning and teaching others. Without their help, I fear the rest of us would be lost. Do you have any suggestions for others - how do you get the help you need in order to master a skill? (Many companies do have technical support. But the quality of this support and the time it takes to obtain this support varies greatly from company to company. I was thinking of in-house support.) Barbara Gaddis U.C.C.S. Colorado Springs, CO ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 09:54:42 -0600 From: "David A. Boyles" Subject: Re: Paper 9 - Special training can hardly help us. I appreciate hearing from and respect Vassili S. Lyutsarev's opinion. Among the three-pronged responsibilities of research, teaching, and campus committee work (not to mention all the odd jobs of faculty in chemistry "service" departments at an engineering college), however, there must yet be a place for professional development of faculty. Whether journal reading or learning new computer skills is involved, both require time. If a department is to have faculty capable of training students, the administration must value the professional development of its faculty and demonstrate this value by allowing time for professional development. In this context I agree with Brooks that we must train ourselves. David A. Boyles South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Rapid City, SD 57701 dboydboyles@silver.sdsmt.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 10:24:26 -0700 From: Stephen Lower Subject: Re: Paper 9 - Brooks Congratulations to David Brooks for a stimulating and thought-provoking paper. I share Paul Edwards' difficulty in agreeing with the last part of the paper, but perhaps we are reading more into it than David intended. The problem I see with faculty training is that only a minority seem to be "trainable"; witness the great difficulty many institutions face in trying to get faculty members into sessions intended to help them communicate more effectively in the lecture hall. Perhaps what is most needed is a liberal early-retirement policy! Ultimately, I believe that those who feel an overwhelming need to communicate something will find the tools and take the time to do so; this is why painters paint, composers compose, authors write books. I'm not sure that "training" authors to write better textbooks will have any more lasting effect than training them to write hypercard stacks or CAI programs. Let us by all means provide encouragement and guidance for those who wish to do these things. Ultimately, however, I am not sure that it is such a bad thing that the some personal (and perhaps even professional) sacrifice is often needed to bring creative effort to fruition. It forces us to ask ourselves every day, is this really worth doing, and are we doing it the best way we know how? Anyway, a great paper! ---------- 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: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 13:56:25 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Paper 9 - Brooks Paul Edwards is right when he writes that: > >I suspect all would agree that the computer is a tool which has >dramatically changed the way scientists function. Certainly education >in science ought to reflect the computer as a tool of the profession. >Indeed, as Professor Brooks argues, we should act as models using >computers has much as possible as would a professional chemist. I would >go further by claiming that professional applications can be integrated >very naturally into the curriculum, and I suspect most of us >participating in this conference are already doing as much of that as we >can. > >I also plead guilty to not having as much training as I wish. >Unfortunately, I, like so many others functioning under tightening >budgets, am not optimistic about the results of a search for release >time. However, I think this situation can be turned around into a very >healthy learning situation for both faculty and students. We can learn >from them! > >Do faculty have to be molecular mechanics experts before asking advanced >students to do a modeling exercise described in J. Chem. Ed.? Or, can >we give them the software and the article, and let them figure it out? >Isn't that what we are training them to be able to do? Isn't that what >an employer or a graduate adviser is going to expect of them in the not >too distant future? > Right On. Why shouldn't we learn from our undergrads in the same manner as we learn from our grads. If we adopted the leave proposal, everyone would be taking a research sabbatical and a computer leave such that there would be nobody left to teach. A training leave will leave the person who required it trained for the product or computer that was out of date by the time they got to the point of having to use it. Unless you are committed to continual self training on computing techniques and software, a leave will not help -- I've seen it in seeing what happens to colleagues who have tried this vs my view that faculty members have the same capability as our students, and we tell prospective employers that we've trained our students to learn. A leave for afaculty member or they don't use computers is a cop-out. That suggests a faculty colleague that I'd rather not have. 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, 20 Jul 1993 12:52:24 MDT From: Reed Howald Subject: paper9 discussion I agree that this is a good, thought provoking paper. I agree with the strong thread in the discussion that released time is not the answer. Someone raised the point about calculating the molecular weight of sulfuric acid. This is a good example. We can all agree that freshman students should be able to do this with nothing more than the chemical formula and a periodic table. But in practice if I needed it I would use a computer program that I wrote myself called PERIOD which has in it current atomic weights of all the elements and which can go on to mole fraction calculations for the three or four materials it has just gotten molecular weights for. One needs the fundamental technique if only to test the computer programming, and one needs the convenience and accuracy of good computer tools as well. I would be happy if all the students here got B's or better in freshman chemistry using Brook's stoichiometry program. At least in physical chemistry, offering the students a good tool enables me to cover more material better. I used to spend a lot of time on getting values for equilibrium constants from tables of the Planck function (Also called the free energy function). Now I show them how to use a program which takes a data table and calculates all the thermodynamic variables for the materials in the table at any temperature and pressure specified. They can use H and S, G, or Planck function values to get the equilibrium constants, it doesn't matter. No interpolation is needed any longer, since data files with good heat capacity equations are better than the JANAF tables. I insist that the students be able to test the computer output against the differential expressions, since this is needed to check the programming: Show that dG/dT = -S. However it appears that integral calculus is no longer a needed skill (except us programmers need to be able to program integrals of polynomials). The program is PHF.EXE. Since I have used it in courses here, I am sure Montana State University will claim it. I can ask if they will let me send it to you free. I certainly agree with released time for programmers. My personal situation is that I would have no hope of persuading my administration to grant released time for programming. On the other hand they think they can save money by persuading me to retire. I have agreed, and in the near future I will have some programming time. I need to know exactly what you want. I know the three most basic requirements: 1. Good programs. 2. Very easy to use. One should aim for something a fifth grader can learn to use on her own in less than two hours. A ten page manual is acceptable. 3. Growing. There must be a procedure for updating and improving the programs we use in teaching. One possibility is shareware. Sincerely, Reed Howald ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 15:42:20 -0400 From: George Long Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania Subject: Re: Paper 9 - Special training can hardly help us. Jack Martin Miller writes; If we adopted the leave proposal, everyone would be taking a research sabbatical and a computer leave such that there would be nobody left to teach. A training leave will leave the person who required it trained for the product or computer that was out of date by the time they got to the point of having to use it. Unless you are committed to continual self training on computing techniques and software, a leave will not help. I agree, but continual self training takes time as well. Given a limited amount time, it will always be necessary to cut corners when applying computer technology to the classroom. Perhaps we can all agree that, as David Boyles says " There must yet be a place for professional development of faculty. " and as a response to the significant change communication technology has created in education, more time should be allocated to faculty for this endeavour than has been typical at smaller universities. Finally, Paul Edwards Writes; Do faculty have to be molecular mechanics experts before asking advanced students to do a modeling exercise described in J. Chem. Ed.? Or, can we give them the software and the article, and let them figure it out? Isn't that what we are training them to be able to do? Isn't that what an employer or a graduate adviser is going to expect of them in the not too distant future? I agree, and I have actually done this. It was possible to learn more about the software (MOBY), and was a worthwhile experience. However the students perceived this method as a lack of organization on my part. Several unhappy students mentioned that Dr. Long was helpful, but seemed to be learning the software as he went (actually as they experienced difficulties I had never encountered). They felt I should have anticipated their problems or have been able to fix them easily. While I can rationalize this by saying that the students will be better off in the long run, I still have bad student evaluations for this lab. George Long Indiana Univ. of PA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 16:16:56 MDT Reply-To: bagaddis@uccs.edu From: bagaddis@HAPPY.UCCS.EDU Subject: Re: paper9 discussion I am very interested in your program PHF.EXE and would like to try a copy in the PCHEM class/ Barbara Gaddis U.C.C.S. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 19:57:18 EDT From: Allan Smith Subject: Re: Paper 9 - Special training can hardly help us. In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 20 Jul 1993 16:19:12 MSD from I too have noticed that my chemistry colleagues learn from each other about new software of potential use in their teaching. A few key staff people are critical - the Arts& Sciences' college Electronics Shop head keeps us up to date on our local area network and its email system (this has really cahnged the way we communicate, and has made us a bit more civil towards each other than in