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ACS DIVISION OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION

COMMITTEE ON COMPUTERS IN CHEMICAL EDUCATION (CCCE)

Report to the ACS Division of Chemical Education, July 30, 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 January 2006 through July 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.

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 2007:

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

•  Future Conferences:

•  September – October, 2007 Meeting the Challenges of Teaching Chemistry for General Education Students” organized by Gary Trammell*

•  April – June, 2008 “Chemistry at the National Science Digital Library”, organized by Theresa Zielinski, Jon Holmes, and John Moore.

•  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

•  Computational and Theoretical Chemistry Applications in Chemical Education

•  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. We have transferred the on Newsletter web pages to the committee's server. The Newsletter is available online at: http://ched-ccce.org/newsletter/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.

•  “Computers in Chemical Education, Past, Present & Future: Symposium In Honor of Donald RosenthalA symposium honoring Donald Rosenthal”, Organized by Theresa J. Zielinski* and George R. Long*

•  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.

•  The CCCE committee will meet at the 2007 ACS meeting in Boston.

•  CCCE WEBSITE. This website is used to provide information about past, present and future CCCE activities. John Penn* is the website manager and Brian Pankuch* provides backup. 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.

•  The committee is discussing the possibility of a connection between the online conference presented in CONFCHEM and the Journal of Chemical Education.

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

•  With the retirement of Hank Derr from Laramie County Community College, the e-mail subscription list for the newsletter was transferred 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, University of Central Missouri, 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