Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews Chem TV: Choices I, v. 1.5.1 B. A. Luceigh, P. Ngo, and J. Chen. CHEM TV: Sunland, CA, 1998. $24.95, students; $59.95, faculty.
This CD-ROM presents a series of interactive overviews and drills for students of organic chemistry. The material covered is generally taught in the first semester. This suite is much more than a simple presentation of material and, for students sufficiently motivated to take the time and work with the problems, will provide valuable review. Five interactive spaces are provided: concentration drills that emphasize recall of related structures/names, reagents/reactions, and stereochemistry; a structural review based on epinephrine; interactive synthesis projects; arcade game reagent review; and a set of timed self-tests. The CD-ROM installed and ran without problem on a Power PC Mac and on a Pentium running Windows 95. The program did fail to run when a student reviewing it switched to a very new version of Windows Quick Time. Most of the drills ran without a problem, although at times it was unclear how to respond to queries. I turned off the music, which would be much less annoying if the loops were simply longer. Publishers are flooding the market with add-on computerbased materials for the various levels of chemistry. Many constitute little more than a stack of overheads. This is one that may be of sufficient value to warrant the extra cost. A large number of examples are provided for many of the areas covered. Most of the graphical interfaces are clear and easy to manipulate, with the exception of a couple of mechanistic screens that had hard-to-figure-out arrows. Two sections, or modules, are of special note. The first of these is the synthesis challenges, where students must choose reactants, reagents, and reaction conditions for a particular reaction. These synthesis problems are well thought out and can be challenging. It is unfortunate that there are only five of them. The SelfTests module is also of great practical value, forcing students to work through a variety of topics (200 problems) with limited time allotted per test. The structures are clear and easy to view and include a large number of three-dimensional molecular models that help make the connection between simple line drawings and actual molecules. More feedback
information on incorrect answers would be nice, although it is obvious that this can balloon into an unworkable situation if every possible “wrong” answer is considered. The structure summary, which uses a single complicated molecule to review a large range of structural topics, is a good integrated look at bonding, stereochemistry, and conformational analysis. The concentration game is informative, albeit a bit obtuse on a few of the answers! The selection drills, a shooting gallery game with various chemical targets, seems a bit silly, but then if one can learn to recognize all the major reducing agents by snagging butterflies with faux nets than this could be helpful! With its varying levels of difficulty, this set of modules should be accessible even to weaker students and yet will provide a challenge for the more advanced. A great future addition would be an interactive module builder that allows faculty to modify existing questions and add their own. How can one effectively use this program? The relatively low cost does make it accessible for individual students to purchase, perhaps as a “recommended” item for the class. Another very practical option is to purchase 5–10 copies (assuming a class size of around 30–40) and make them available through a common computer laboratory (or an appropriate network site-license arrangement) or for checkout to small groups of students. One drawback is that only about 1/3 of the major topics that fill the year in organic are covered. I have used some of the drills as in-class interactive examples with a projector and laptop. This type of interactive tutorial–quiz-based program is a welcome change from the simple textbook on a CD-ROM approach. Given easy access to computers and an environment that encourages individual and small-group interactions, I believe this program can be a worthwhile aid for students of organic chemistry. L. Kraig Steffen (with special thanks to Tara PigoCronin, FU ’99) Department of Chemistry Fairfield University Fairfield, CT 06430
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 76 No. 8 August 1999 • Journal of Chemical Education
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