Spring 2008 CONFCHEM |
Chemistry at the National Science Digital LibraryAn on-line conference, April - June 2008 |
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| Abstracts | Papers | Instructions | Discussion Archive | |
Spring 2008 CONFCHEM |
Chemistry at the National Science Digital LibraryAn on-line conference, April - June 2008 |
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| Abstracts | Papers | Instructions | Discussion Archive | |
| Dates | Author | Paper |
|---|---|---|
| April 18-24, 2008 | Lee L. Zia; (lzia@nsf.gov) | P1: NSF’s NSDL Program: An Overview of its History, Progress, and Promise |
| In Fiscal Year 2000 the National Science Foundation (NSF) initiated support for the National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program. A series of workshops and accompanying reports and monographs developed a vision for the program that led to a characterization of the digital library as a learning environments and resources network for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. This paper provides an overview of the history of the development of the program and its primary goals and purposes. The paper also describes the design of the program, as well as how the program has evolved as major components of NSDL have come into being and as underlying technologies have emerged. In addition, examples are given of notable funded projects and the key services and capabilities they offer to teachers across the STEM disciplines. | ||
| John W. Moore* (jwmoore@chem.wisc.edu), Jon L. Holmes, Theresa Julia Zielinski | P2: The Chemical Education Digital Library: Online Resources, Services, and Communities | |
| The Chemical Education Digital Library (ChemEd DL, www.chemeddl.org) is a Pathway project of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL, nsdl.org) that provides stewardship to library materials in the area of chemistry and chemistry education. A partnership among the Journal of Chemical Education, the American Chemical Society, and The ChemCollective, ChemEd DL seeks to provide exemplary collections of resources, tools, and services to its patrons—chemistry teachers and students at all levels as well as life long learners of the chemical sciences. In this presentation we will provide a directed-learning tutorial that will demonstrate selected resources that are available in ChemEd DL Our aim is to provide participants a broad overview of ChemEd DL resources. Equipped with this knowledge we then will facilitate discussion on how to best use these resources in current and future chemistry curricula. We also aim to encourage participants to join in the ChemEd DL community to help develop additional resources to fill in the gaps in the current offerings. | ||
| April 25-May 1, 2008 | David Yaron* (yaron@cmu.edu), Michael Karabinos, Jodi Davenport, Gaea Leinhardt, James G. Greeno | P3: The ChemCollective Digital Library |
| The ChemCollective (www.chemcollective.org) is a digital library of activities for introductory college and high school chemistry. The collection includes virtual labs that allow students to design and carry out their own experiments, scenario based learning activities that invite students to apply their knowledge to real world situations, and interactive tutorials that support student problem solving. The digital library supports instructors by providing a portal to the activities, along with user guides and training materials regarding their use. A virtual lab authoring tool allows instructors to modify existing labs or create their own. Of our 85 virtual labs, over 40 were contributed by the community. We are currently working on technologies to allow users to more easily modify, create and contribute to the tutorial collection. Learning studies on materials in the collection are being carried out in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center (www.learnlab.org). Our attempts to integrate learning studies with digital libraries, including online collection of data relevant to learning, will be discussed. Community building and support is done both through the web portal and booths and workshops at chemical education conferences. Integration of the collection with the ChemDL and NSDL will also be discussed. | ||
| Ethan Benatan, Hilary Eppley, Margret Geselbracht, Adam Johnson, Barbara Reisner, Joanne Stewart* (stewart@hope.edu), Lori Watson, and B. Scott Williams | P4: IONiC: A Cyber-Enabled Community of Practice for Improving Inorganic Chemical Education | |
| The field of inorganic chemistry is heavily specialized into subdisciplines, which can make curricular innovation in undergraduate inorganic chemistry difficult for faculty with deep yet narrow training within a subdiscipline. These challenges can be particularly formidable when faculty choose to incorporate topics outside of their comfort zone into lecture and laboratory courses. Collaboration with colleagues from different subfields would be an obvious solution to this problem, but geographical and professional isolation inhibits such collaborations. We describe a collective venture to enhance the inorganic chemistry classroom and laboratory experience for students and faculty members through the development and growth of IONiC (Interactive Online Network of Inorganic Chemists), a vibrant virtual 'community of practice.' The community's foundation is a cyber-interface that facilitates collaborative development of learning materials and their dissemination to the wider inorganic community. This website, VIPEr (Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource), serves both as a repository for materials and as a user-friendly platform for social networking tools that facilitate virtual collaboration and community building. The site provides more than just access to information. It invites participants to join in a community of chemists interested in working collaboratively to improve inorganic chemistry teaching. | ||
| May 2-8, 2008 | Ji-Young Chong, Maren Pink* (mpink@indiana.edu) | P5: Bridging the Common Molecules Collection and the Science Classroom: Attractive and Inquiry-Stimulating Reciprocal Net Learning Modules |
| The Reciprocal Net Common Molecules provide teachers and learners with access to a digital collection of molecular structures that has been developed as a part of the National Science Digital Library project by the National Science Foundation. Our educational modules utilize the collection and emphasize student-centered learning that aims to motivate students with tangible and visible objects familiar to them in exploratory environments. The modules can be used by all age groups and experience levels. They are scalable to different levels of knowledge and experience. However, the investigative and student-centered, inquiry-based discovery does not limit the learner to a certain experience level. It rather allows the student to go beyond prior expertise and acquire new knowledge. This paper summarizes the history of the educational part of the Reciprocal Net project and the rational for the development of educational modules as visually enticing and quest-inspiring entries to the database. We will also discuss future extension of the project. | ||
| B. A. Mason* (bmason@ou.edu), W. Christian, M. Belloni | P6: Open Source and Open Access Resources for Quantum Physics Education | |
| Quantum mechanics is both a topic of great importance to modern science, engineering, and technology, and a topic with many inherent barriers to learning. Computational resources are vital tools for developing deep conceptual understanding of quantum systems for students new to the subject. This article outlines two projects that are taking an open source/open access approach to create and share teaching and learning resources for quantum physics. The Open Source Physics project provides program libraries, programming tools, example simulations, and pedagogical resources for instructors to give a rich experience to their students. These simulations and student activities are, in turn, being integrated into a world-wide collection of teaching and learning resources available through the Quantum Exchange, a part of the ComPADRE Portal to the National Science Digital Library. Both of these projects use technologies that encourage community development and collaboration. Using these tools, faculty can create learning experiences, share and discuss their content with others, and combine resources in new ways. Examples of the available content and connections are given, along with an introduction on how to participate in these projects. | ||
| May 9-15, 2008 | Shawn C. Sendlinger, Clyde R. Metz* (metzc@cofc.edu) | P7: CSERD–Another Important NSDL Pathway for Computational Chemistry Education |
The high school and undergraduate chemistry curriculum has traditionally focused on teaching the experimental and theoretical foundations of modern chemical knowledge. Faculty members are comfortable with this approach because this is how they were taught. In recent years internet availability, the rapid increase in desktop computer power, and the decreasing cost of hardware have made it possible to use computational chemistry an additional educational tool. Computational Chemistry Education may be considered in two different ways. The simplest approach–Computational (Chemistry Education)–is the use of technology to teach chemical concepts. Typically, readily available software is used for interactive sessions, simulation of instruments or data, modeling concepts, or for demonstrations. The second approach–(Computational Chemistry) Education–involves teaching computational tools such as spreadsheet or other mathematical software, molecular and mathematical modeling software, and programming to learn chemistry. One purpose of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is to help the educator to locate and evaluate materials quickly and effectively. The Computational Science Education Reference Desk (CSERD) serves as the Pathway to NSDL for computational science–including resources for chemistry education. The catalogued items may be searched and often contain peer reviews. The use of CSERD and the reviewing process is discussed. |
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| Mary Kirchhoff (m_kirchhoff@acs.org) | P8: Online Resources for Teachers and Students from the American Chemical Society | |
The American Chemical Society (ACS) launched its new Web site in September 2007. The improved site is designed to provide easier access to the wealth of resources available from ACS. The Education page, www.acs.org/education, serves as the gateway to resources relevant to students and educators, from pre-K through continuing education. Curriculum materials, for example, present content in context, with an emphasis on hands-on learning. This paper will highlight the education resources available from ACS, ranging from textbooks to the ACS approval process to communities of learners, such as the Student Affiliates program and High School Chemistry Clubs. These resources will be fully integrated into the Chemical Education Digital Library (ChemEdDL) in an effort to provide “one-stop-shopping” for chemistry learners and educators. |
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