Information • Textbooks • Media • Resources edited by
Journal of Chemical Education Software
Jon L. Holmes Nancy S. Gettys University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, WI 53706
Prospectus 2002 Jon. L. Holmes and Nancy S. Gettys Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706
A new year with new resolutions! Check out the new and improved materials and services for you and your classroom that JCE Software has recently put in place. Then read on to learn about what is in store for 2002. Reaching Out—Helping You Providing high quality instructional materials and helping chemistry instructors at all levels to use them effectively has always been our goal. To make it easier for you to know about the breadth and excellence of our materials, we are reaching out in new and more accessible ways. JCE can help!
Attend a JCE Video Workshop Would you like to learn more about JCE digitized video materials? Would you like to use them in your classroom? Are you organizing a meeting or conference where the participants might like to learn too? If so, read on… JCE staff conducts workshops on incorporating JCE Video into classroom presentations. During 2001 we did this at the ACS national meeting in Chicago, ChemEd 2001 in Toronto, the University of Wisconsin System Chemistry Faculties Meeting, and the ACS Southwest Regional Meeting in San Antonio. The workshops focused on using video from our Chemistry Comes Alive! CD-ROMs, and the format ranged from a three-hour hands-on session to an hour-long demonstration. These were so well received by participants that plans are underway for more workshops in 2002. We will consider presenting a similar workshop for any meeting or group of interested chemistry instructors as time and finances permit: just invite us. If you are unable to attend a workshop, the materials we use in the workshops are available online at http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/Workshops/JCEVideo/. JCE Online: New Look, New Additions Stop by JCE Software online and take a look at our recently revised WWW pages (http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/ JCESoft/). First try our improved technical support area (http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/Support/ ). It includes descriptions of all problems that have been reported to JCE Software and their solutions. We also provide demonstration versions of all Web-ready publications and a simplified order form. The Chemistry Comes Alive! (CCA!) area of the site (http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/) also received a major update—finding video on any topic from any CD in the collection now is quick and easy. There is a list of the full content of all five published volumes of CCA!, without the video, and a comprehensive table of contents and search capability that help you find which CD contains the videos you want. Please help us to continue to improve our online presence by using it and telling us what is helpful and what should be improved further.
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Take Part in a Discussion Forum Take advantage of a new feature at JCE Online, discussion forums (http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/webx). These forums are special features of Only@JCE Online. You will find discussion areas for all current JCE Software publications, both software and video. Through these forums users can ask questions, answer questions, and share ideas and lessons using JCE Software publications. The discussions will be monitored by JCE Software staff who will answer technical questions and gather new ideas for improving JCE Software. What’s in Store in 2002? More Chemistry Comes Alive! The CCA! series continues—at least one more Chemistry Comes Alive! CD will appear in 2002. Volume 6, tentatively titled “Techniques”, will include video from the videodisc Titration Techniques (1) and from the videotapes Quantitative Techniques in Analytical Chemistry and Techniques in Organic Chemistry Parts I and II (2, 3, 4). Also included will be many other videos and images that focus on laboratory techniques. Each CD in the popular CCA! series contains video and animations of chemical reactions and procedures that can be easily incorporated into your own computer-based presentations, and each works on both Mac OS and Windows computers.
New Editions A new and expanded 6th edition of General Chemistry Collection will ship in time for fall 2002 adoptions. It will include new programs for general chemistry in addition to the software included with the 5th edition (5). The Advanced Chemistry Collection will be updated in fall 2002 and this 3rd edition will be shipped in time for spring semester 2003. It will include new programs for advanced chemistry in addition to the software included in the 2nd edition (6).
The newly revised Chemistr y Comes Alive! home page includes links on the right side of the window to allow you to search the content of all published CDs, see the comprehensive table of contents, keywords, textbook cross reference, gallery of images, and much more!
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 79 No. 2 February 2002 • Journal of Chemical Education
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Information • Textbooks • Media • Resources
Periodic Table Live! 3rd edition will have a new, very useful feature: the ability to interactively plot and sort numerical data. It will include information about recently discovered elements as well. We expect to release this 3rd edition in the summer of 2002.
New Releases In addition to the new programs above, we continue to work with authors and peer reviewers on several larger packages that will be published individually on CD-ROM. We expect to publish at least two such CDs in 2002. Watch the Journal and JCE Online for information about them. Connect with Your Students Outside Class Many students have their own personal computer, which allows them more flexibility than using a campus computer lab. Many instructors utilize the World Wide Web to create HTML pages for their students. Campus-wide networks are providing broadband access to such resources. JCE Software has options available to take advantage of these developments: course adoptions and Web-ready publications.
Software Adoption for Your Course You can adopt our CD-ROMs so that JCE Software programs are available to your students, just as you would adopt a textbook. The popular CDs listed below have already been adopted by general chemistry courses at several institutions: •
The General Chemistry Collection
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ChemPages Laboratory
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Periodic Table Live!
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Chemistry Comes Alive!
We can arrange to bundle CDs with a laboratory manual or to sell them separately through a campus bookstore. For orders of 1000 or more we offer customized CDs that include only the JCE Software publications you request. For large orders, the cost per CD can be quite low (as little as $3–5), making this a cost-effective method of allowing students access to the software they need—whenever and wherever they desire.
Web-Ready Publications Using HTML to present material has many advantages. Viewed with the ubiquitous Internet browser, HTML is compatible with both Mac OS and Windows (as well as most other current operating systems). It provides a flexible hypermedia interface that is familiar to both instructors and students, and publications can be used by individuals directly from the CDROM. With appropriate licensing, they are also ready for use on local intranets and can be readily incorporated into other HTML-based materials. Visit us online for a demonstration preview of each Web-ready publication. Contact JCE Software to learn about licensing these Web-ready publications: •
Chemistry Comes Alive!, Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5
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Flying over Atoms
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Periodic Table Live! 2nd edition
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Solid State Resources, 2nd edition
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ChemPages Laboratory
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Multimedia General Chemistry Problems
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An Invitation to Share Your Work Submit your technology-based instructional materials to JCE Software. Software is in our name, but many of our publications are not traditional software. We publish •
Video on videotape, videodisc, and CD-ROM
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Electronic documents such as Mathcad and Mathematica exercises, spreadsheet files, and macros
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HTML documents
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PowerPoint presentations
Most chemistry instructors use a computer in their teaching and many of you have created materials for your classes. If you have an original computer presentation, electronic document, animation, video, or other item that is not printed text, it is probably an appropriate submission for JCE Software. A guide for software and video submissions to JCE Software is online at http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/ Authors/. We especially invite presentations, lessons, tutorials, etc. that incorporate video and images from the Chemistry Comes Alive! series. If you are looking for video and images that are not included in the published CCA! volumes, contact JCE Software. We have additional video that can be made available to developers prior to its publication. If we do not have the video you need, we may even be able to help you develop it. If you publish your work in the Journal of Chemical Education, you will share your efforts with chemistry instructors and students all over the world and receive professional recognition for your achievements as well. Get in Touch with JCE Software For more information about publications, orders, adoptions, and network licenses, contact JCE Software, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1101 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706-1396; phone; 608/262-5153 or 800/9915534; fax: 608/265-8094; email:
[email protected]. Information about all of our publications (including abstracts, descriptions, updates, etc.) is available from our World Wide Web site at
http://jchemed/chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/ Literature Cited 1. Jacobsen, J. J.; Jetzer, K. H.; Patani, N.; Zimmerman, J.; Zweerink, G. Titration Techniques [Videodisc]; J. Chem. Educ. Software, 1995, SP9. 2. Zimmerman, J.; Jacobsen, J. J. Quantitative Techniques in Volumetric Analysis [Videotape]; J. Chem. Educ. Software, 1997, SP15. 3. Browne, L. M.; Auclair, K. Techniques in Organic Chemistry, Part 1 [Videotape]; J. Chem. Educ. Software, 1998, SP20. 4. Browne, L. M.; Auclair, K. Techniques in Organic Chemistry, Part 2 [Videotape]; J. Chem. Educ. Software, 1998, SP22. 5. General Chemistry Collection, 5th edition [CD-ROM]; J. Chem. Educ. Software, 2001, SP16. 6. Advanced Chemistry Collection, 2nd edition [CD-ROM]; J. Chem. Educ. Software, 2001, SP28.
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 79 No. 2 February 2002 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
