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ACS DIVISION OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION

COMMITTEE ON COMPUTERS IN CHEMICAL EDUCATION (CCCE)

Report to the ACS Division of Chemical Education, March 15, 2007

Scott Van Bramer Chair

The CCCE seeks to encourage, publicize and support the development, assessment and use of computing technologies in chemical education. This report summarizes some CCCE activities in pursuit of these objectives from July 2006 through March 2007. Committee members are identified with an asterisk (*) after their names.

•  CONFCHEM - ON-LINE COMPUTER CONFERENCES. The conferences provide an opportunity for authors to present papers on the CONFCHEM website and for discussion of the papers using the CONFCHEM Discussion List. Discussion of the papers generally includes: a day devoted to short questions, responses from the author, and then several days for discussion of each paper. The CONFCHEM Discussion List currently has over 600 registrants. The CONFCHEM website is managed by John Penn*, Leon Combs organizes the conferences, and Robert Belford manages the CONFCHEM Majordomo Discussion List. This fall we successfully migrated the discussion list from Clarkson University to University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

CONFCHEM Conferences have been co-sponsored with other Divisions of the American Chemical Society and other Committees of the Division of Chemical Education. We hope to promote such joint endeavors in the future. For more information about future conferences and archives of past conferences see: <http://www.ched-ccce.org/confchem/> .

•  Conferences held during 2006 and 2007:

•  May - June, 2006 "Web-Based Applications for Chemical Education: Experiences and Visions" Organized by Robert M. Hanson* and Robert E. Belford.  

•  October 13-30, 2006, “THE DIVISION OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION: ENSURING THE FUTURE THROUGH EDUCATION” Organized by Loretta L. Jones

•  January - February, 2007 "International Conference on First-Year College Chemistry" organized by Paul Kelter*

•  Future Conferences:

JCE Digital Library – Organized by Theresa Zielinski and Jon Holmes

•  Tentative Conferences

•  Assessment – organized by Renee Cole*

•  Chemical education research – organized by Mike Sanger*

•  Green Chemistry – organized by Julie Haack

•  Computation and visualization – organized by Elizabeth Bell-Loncella

•  POGIL – organized by Rick Moog

•  General Education and the chemistry lab – organized by Gary Trammell*

•  COMPUTERS IN CHEMICAL EDUCATION NEWSLETTER. The committee publishes a newsletter on that provides educators an opportunity to share innovations in the use of technology for teaching chemistry. The newsletter is published electronically. Following publication, each article is discussed online using the CONFCHEM Discussion List. This provides readers an opportunity to ask the author questions about their article. Brian Pankuch* is editor of the Newsletter and Scott Van Bramer* chairs the on-line discussion of papers. The Newsletter is available online at: http://www.eclipse.net/~pankuch/Newsletter/NewsHP/HPNewsCCE.html . The Fall 2006 newsletter was discussed online using the confchem listserv in November 2006. The next edition of the newsletter is scheduled for publication in November 2007.

•  SYMPOSIA AND OTHER SESSIONS AT NATIONAL MEETINGS. Three CCCE members are currently members of the Division of Chemical Education's Program Committee (Renee Cole*, Paul Kelter* and Harry Pence*). The CCCE and its members organize symposia and present papers at National ACS Meetings and at the BCCCE. A symposium honoring Donald Rosenthal is in the planning stages for the 2007 ACS meeting in Boston.

•  "Research in Chemical Education Using Computers", Organized by Michael J. Sanger*. West Lafayette IN, 19 th BCCE (August 2006)

•  “Web-Based Applications for Chemical Education” organized by Robert Belford and Robert Hanson*. West Lafayette IN, 19 th BCCE (August 2006)

•  ON-LINE INTERCOLLEGIATE COURSES. The CCCE offered five previous on-line intercollegiate courses. <http://www.ched-ccce.org/olcc/>. A new OLCC on Safety for High School Teachers is currently in the planning stages. Gary Trammell* and Robert Belford are organizing this course.

•  COMMITTEE MEETINGS. Open and closed meetings of the CCCE are held at BCCE Meetings. Meetings were held at the 2006 BCCE Meeting at Purdue University.

•  CCCE WEBSITE. This website is used to provide information about past, present and future CCCE activities. After many years Brian Tissue* has transferred maintenance of the web site to John Penn*. http://www.ched-ccce.org

•  OTHER ACTIVITIES

•  A subcommittee has been formed to investigate organizing an online poster session for high school students to present the results of their research. This will be used as a pilot for several new ideas on organizing online poster sessions. The subcommittee includes: Gwen Sibert, George Long*, Robert Belford, and James Beard.

•  The committee discussed trying to set up a connection between the online conferences presented in CONFCHEM and the committee's newsletter and “The Chemical Educator” as a mechanism for authors to submit papers for peer review. George Long* will look into the possibility of this.

•  Robert Hanson* and Robert Belford will draft a white paper for online conference organizers

•  The e-mail distribution list for online conferences will be transferred from Clarkson University to UALR. Robert Belford will be the new list manager.

•  CCCE MEMBERS 2005. The CCCE Committee consists of 20 members.

Names, affiliations and e-mail addresses are provided below. Additional information about Committee member may be found at: <http://www.ched-ccce.org/ccce/members/current.html>.

•  Bob Belford, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, rebelford@ualr.edu

•  Renee Cole, Central Missouri State University, rcole@socket.net

•  Elizabeth Dorland, Washington University, dorland@wustl.edu

•  Jack G. Goldsmith, University of South Carolina – Aiken, jackg@usca.edu

•  Robert Hanson, St. Olaf College, hansonr@stolaf.edu

•  Paul B. Kelter, University of Illinois, paulkelter@yahoo.com

•  Thomas D. Kim, Youngstown State University, tdkim@cc.ysu.edu

•  Leon L. Combs, Kennesaw, lcombs@kennesaw.edu

•  George R. Long, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, grlong@iup.edu

•  Brian Pankuch, Union County College, pankuch@hawk.ucc.edu

•  Harry E. Pence, SUNY, College at Oneonta, pencehe@oneonta.edu

•  John H. Penn, West Virginia University, jpenn2@wvu.edu

•  Michael J. Sanger, Middle Tennessee State University, mjsanger@mtsu.edu

•  Gwen Sibert, RGVS, gsibert@rvgs.k12.va.us

•  Brian Tissue, VPI & State University, tissue@vt.edu

•  Gary Trammell, University of Illinois at Springfield, trammell.gary@uis.edu

•  Scott E. Van Bramer, Widener University, svanbram@science.widener.edu