David and his coauthors have an
interesting perspective on developing web-based courses, with insights
for developing any material for learning on the Internet.
A
System for Delivering Web-based Courses Emphasizing Automatic Assessment
David
W. Brooks
Professor of Chemistry Education in the Center for
Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
"David W. Brooks" <dbrooks@unlserve.unl.edu>
Helen B. Brooks is sole proprietor of Synaps Chem Tools, a software
development company in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Amjad Abuloum is Assistant Professor of Education, Hashemite University,
Zarqa, Jordan.
Kent J. Crippen is Assistant Professor of Science Education and Technology,University
of Nevada-Las Vegas.
John Markwell is Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry
at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
This software system was used to deliver 15 courses to
inservice high school chemistry teachers. Over 500 graduate credits
were earned during the period of project support, and delivery of the
courses on a tuition-basis continues today.
Most of the course management was administered on-line, including student
registration, course enrollment, delivery of all materials, and online
testing. The principal feature of the course was automatic testing,
with assessment items delivered in eight formats. Of these, seven were
delivered for automatic assessment. The short answer item format included
powerful worked out problem strategies such that, upon responding to
a problem question, the student would see a worked solution to the problem
developed using his/her problem-specific information.
-
Chemistry Department
Union County College
Cranford, NJ 07016
Utilizing three or more different machines makes for
a lot of work updating each machine's software, bookmarks, new programs,
etc. Additionally keeping and having all the different projects
I work on available wherever and whenever I have some spare time
is difficult, as is keeping it all backed up.
-
Daniel is giving us a look at
a potentially useful set of tools for setting up learning and testing
environments on the Web. We have the opportunity to input our thoughts
to make this a useful tool for all of us to use.
-
- XML
for Chemical Education
by Daniel
C. Tofan
-
Chemistry Department
State University of New York, Stony Brook.
The IMS specifications provide standards for question
and test item interoperability. These standards define XML encoding
of items and offer support for basic response types, such as numbers,
text, multiple choice etc. As part of the LUCID Project, which is developing
an innovative web-based learning and assessment system along with materials
for introductory college chemistry, we have developed XML formats for
encoding a variety of chemical entities. Examples include isotopic symbols,
molecular formulas, Lewis structures, chemical reactions, and equations
with units. Student responses to assessment questions are converted
to these formats for storage, and standard XML parsing utilities are
used to convert from XML to Java objects for analysis. Tag sets for
formatting styled text and for extending current IMS markup are also
under development. The ensemble of these XML formats is intended to
provided a framework for course management systems that are chemistry-aware
and is called Chemical Education Markup Language, or ChEdML.
This course looks like a good
way to learn more about lab safety for us and our students.
.
AN
ONLINE INTERCOLLEGIATE CHEMISTRY COURSE (OLCC):
CHEMICAL SAFETY: PROTECTING OURSELVES AND OUR ENVIRONMENT
by
Donald Rosenthal, Chair, CCCE, Department of Chemistry, Clarkson University,
Potsdam, NY 13699-5810, rosen@clarkson.edu;
Gary Trammell, Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Springfield,
Springfield, IL 62703, trammell.gary@uis.edu;
Scott Van Bramer, Department of Chemistry, Widener University,
Chester, PA 19013, svanbram@science.widener.edu
# ABSTRACT
This paper describes a collaborative intercollegiate undergraduate course
on chemical safety to be offered during the Fall of 2004. The course
will be sponsored by the ACS Division of Chemical Education and the
ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety. One of the purposes of this
paper is to inform chemical educators about the course in the hope they
will serve as course instructors at their schools. Each school is responsible
for recruiting students and assigning grades. The course is expected
to be a learning experience for the students and the instructors. No
fee is assessed by the sponsors. Local instructors are facilitators
for the course and do not have to be experts in chemical health and
safety.
It sounds like Scott has experienced some frustration
using the usual browsers. You'll find Scotts' review of the reasons
he uses Opera worthwhile to check against your browser. In particular
look at using tabs, cookies and security. He also takes care of organizing
and monitoring our Internet discussions of Newsletter articles.
Opera:
A Web Browser for Teaching?
Scott Van Bramer
Department of Chemistry
Widener University
Chester, PA 19013
svanbram@science.widener.edu
If your current web browser meets all of your needs. If you like reading
pop-up advertismenents. If you like having lots of personal information
stored in a cookie file that any web server can view. If you think
a web browser should consume all the memory in your computer, even
after you think you have closed it. If you like using complex menus
for routine tasks. Well, then this article will not be of interest.
Harry has some information
for us about the ownership of different search engine changing hands,
and I'm wondering if I can apply this information to Google becoming
a publicly traded stock?
SUNY Oneonta, Oneonta, NY
pencehe@oneonta.edu
"...This discussion has focused mainly on five
web search engines: Altavista, Hotbot (partially powered by Inktomi),
FAST, Google, and MSNetwork. A number of major acquisitions in the
past few months suggest that this roster may be in the process of
changing. If so, the results would be important to anyone who uses
one of these engines. ." .read on
