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.

Moodle 2.0 is in beta release but I’ve decided to attempt an installation and determine whether some of the new features would be helpful to students. I started the installation at 9 pm Saturday but have stalled the installation until php 5.2.8 is installed. This may take some time. I’ll update this post when the classroom installation is complete and functioning.

Update: Installation is complete. The php version for the server was updated as well as the soap extension was installed. Not all of the features are complete in this beta, however, the quiz module is more powerful than earlier versions.

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.

Here we go again. Another year started – another new group of students – and another hope to help students learn chemistry.

Knight High School employs four chemistry teachers. Each are more than capable of helping students. This website is used by several to help students develop their study skills. It is also a place to ask questions.

Make sure you register on the Wiki, introduce yourself in the forums, and pay particular attention to the layout of the website.

Best of luck.

Dr. Harry Gray, California Institute of Technology

Dr. Gray loved colors as a child. He would ask questions like, what makes up a color? or why is a rubie red? His questions led him to think about chemistry in a different way from his colleagues. Now, at the age of 73, Dr. Gray is considered a pioneer of inorganic chemistry.

His work also relates biological processes such as photosynthesis and respiration. At one point in his career, Dr. Gray even thought replication of photosynthesis would solve our world’s energy problems. While this didn’t completely work out – we now know more about the processes leaves undergo.

Imagine yourself taking ahold of your own questions – and using them to help the world. Questions are an important foundation to being a great scientist.

Lecturer, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo

Chemistry is more than a boring course, memorizing odd facts, or worrying about your math skills. Chemistry ties into everything – including life. In fact, life’s many processes require metals. This is because metals combine with organic molecules and influence their structure and function.

Fifteen years ago, metals combining with organics was not a hot topic. Masanobu Uchiyama changed this fact.

Imagine Masanobu Uchiyama being told his grandmother had only a week to live because “pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to create new drugs for which there are few patients because it is not profitable.” Did he sit and complain? No. Masanobu Uchiyama changed the world through his studies of metals.

Read more about Masanobu Uchiyama. Imagine your own world – and figure out how to improve it. Imagine if you could turn your pain into saving lives.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), confirmed the discovery of 112 by the team led by Sigurd Hofmann at the Helmholtz Center. The team originally announced six elements, in which the other five have already been accepted by IUPAC. The team announced the discovery in 1996 but it has taken the past 13 years to confirm the discovery because the element only last for a fleeting moment. IUPAC is now requesting names for the superheavy element.

Element 112 is one of 22 man-made elements. The element is a fusion of the nuclei of lead and zinc created in a particle accelerator. The element has an atomic mass of 277, containing 112 electrons and 165 neutrons.

Links
ABC News

Reuters