The Chemistry Book

Significant changes are due for the Spring 2010 chemistry students. Wonderful feedback has shown ideas that worked during the fall semester and ideas that failed. I appreciate everyone’s positive and negative feedback. I look forward to implementing these changes in hopes more students will be able to grasp the chemistry concepts covered during the school year.

Workbooks

In order to add efficiency and clarity to the chemistry lessons, I’ve started to combine documents into workbooks. Workbooks are equivalent to agendas, problem sets, reading guides, lecture notes, and lab activities. Due dates remain the same; I will collect work only on Wednesdays and Fridays –  just like the due dates for Problem Sets and reading guides.

• Workbooks will go into effect Spring semester 2010. The new layout will hopefully help students focus on the correct material and help them get better prepared for exams.
• I will enhance the Workbooks by adding a “study guide” section. This is an expansion of the “objectives” section.
• To help students better prepare for the STAR, Workbooks will now include the state content standards covered in each topic.
• Lecture notes will be enhanced by adding links to select pages in the “Chemistry Text” (formerly called “the wiki”).
• I will attempt to add links to practice quizzes available in the digital classroom.

At this time, Workbooks are incomplete but the page is available. I will upload documents as they are completed.

Digital Classroom

The second significant change is the addition of the digital classroom for all students. The digital classroom was started for the academy students and they have worked out several of the challenges. For example, drop boxes were being used during the fall semester. This took several weeks to work through and I thank the students for their patience and cooperation as we found problems and made corrections.

• Drop Boxes
  Drop boxes allow students to turn in work without using paper. The drop boxes will be available for the Workbooks (do not use the problem sets or reading guide drop boxes). However, the drop boxes will be optional. Students who prefer pen and paper may continue to use their preferred method of study. The drop boxes for Workbooks have not been created for the semesters.
• Calendars & Agendas
  The main use for most students will be the calendars and agendas available in the digital classroom. We had a significant problem with due dates this year. In hopes to get more people completing the work, I changed due dates. Instead of enhancing instruction, the due date changes caused problems. I’ll lock down the due dates for the second semester.
• Practice Quizzes
  A student has been helping me add practice quizzes to the classroom. This should help students who want to practice their skills before taking an exam. I look forward to enhancing this area of the website.

Navigation

Moving through this site remains complex and I will hopefully find a way to help clear up the navigation bars. Some of the navigation will clear up after I combine the problem sets, etc. Stay tuned.

The enhancement to the wiki has always relied on YouTube or another video storage site in order to provide videos. While this is a nice feature, being able to upload videos from our own lab activities or videos of the PowerPoints is much nicer.

The domain CHEMvideos.com was registered the other day and several test runs have been completed to ensure videos could be uploaded. These videos were then linked to TheChemBook wiki – and now we are ready to enhance the wiki more.

The chemistry virtual classroom is now available to students in period 2 and 4. Registered students are able turn in their assignments into the drop box for grading. Instead of printing the problem sets and reading guides, students are completing the work on a Tablet PC or netbook and turning in the digital copies.

Teaching Assistants are also adding online practice quizzes for all students. Expect some of these to become available in the next few weeks.

The link to the virtual classroom is now available in the menu bar.

The state educators have announced approval of several free open source chemistry textbooks. You may find these available on the Digital Textbook Initiative. Our district has not approved these but students may find the reading equivalent to the topics in our textbook.