the computer bulletin board ergy diagram showing energy as a function of dihedral angle for rotation about a single bond in a substituted alkane. I would prefer that the student work this out during the exam and not come in with it stored in memory in a pocket calculator. One of the students in my general chemistry class had one of these calculators, so I inspected all of the pocket calculators, exchanging my Casio Scientific Calculators, model fx-300A for any objectionable calculator. I was impressed by the capabilities of the Sharp Electronic Organizer. I peered through the memo section, findingnotes1ike"Doyou want to have sex? No not now." and the like. I felt r e d y guilty, as though I were reading someone else's mail, and was about to return it to the student when I noticed the word "secret" in blue, the second function key color code. When I pressed second functionlsecret the Electronic Organizer responded with "Allow Access of Secret Data," and a space for a seven character user authorization code. I tried "A," "1,"and "Cheml," with the same result each time: "Inwrrect Password!' I don't know if the student was trying to cheat on the exam, or not; I never got into the secret memory. I hope he had more information in the "secret" memory than he had in his brain; he failed the exam miserably. There were a few possibilities for user wdes that I thought of after the exam, like CHEM101, or the student's name, but they occurred to me too late. I know one thing for sure: 34 kilobytes is enough to store the entire text, all of its problems and answers, and class notes, as well. This would be fine on an open-book, open note exam with objective questions, but is clearly inappropriate on a multiple choice exam - unless each student has the same computational power. This is especially true at a school where a test bank or study guide is available (or potentially available) to the students. For example, I once graded physical chemistry homework at the University of Pittsburgh, and found answers plagiarized from Atkins'study guide. It was unavailable to the students at PIl"l,' but perhaps available a t the Carnegie-Mellon University bookstore, across the street! Clearly the Sharp Electronic Organizer is a powerful tool - a must for the professional!
A182
Journal of Chemical Education
Management of First-Year chemistry ~ ~Using Spreadsheets Frank E. Collins and Charles W. Williams
Department of Chemistly and Physics, Louisiana State University in Shreveport One University Place. Shreveport, LA 71115-2399 The Problem
In the manaeement of our firstyear chemistry laboratory we are forced to use undergraduate lab assistants who, though diligent workers, lack experience and knowledge in evaluating lab reports submitted by students. In the past the Department has dealt with this problem by allowing the students to enter their names and experimental data into very old IBM 3278-2 computer terminals wired to an IBM ES9000 mainframe; from it we later retrieved a spreadsheet showing the computational results, sorted according to increasing percentage error of each result or the alphabetical order of student names. Assistants then used the information as an aid in grading lab reports. We found the process to be cumbersome, slow, and unreliable; in a word-unacceptable. The Solution
We borrowed two Zenith notebook computers that were old but capable of loading Microsoft Excel 2.1. Spreadsheets were developed as needed for each experiment. Students entered their data directly into the computers and on a hard copy for backup. The spreadsheets were protected to prevent deletions and other changes. The information was saved to disks, then later combined to make one spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel 5.0 on a PC from which computational results were made, analyzed, and given to the lab assistants. Some of the information available to assistants were mll call data computational results statistical evaluation of results "fishy"data (plagiarism) grade assignment sorting selections of one's choice The Outcome
Interest of the students was raised to a higher level, probably due in part to the introduction of more so-
b
~
~
phisticated technology. They also seemed to be more concerned with outcomes than previous classes, and uroblems between students and assistants regarding grade assignments d i s a m e a r e d . Thorough evaluation of &e data was welcomed by the assistants, who also benefited f;om the students'satisfaction with their assigned grades. We instructors wereereatfv relieved bv all of the above l s weli as finally &owing which students make the most accur a t e a n d precise measurements. (Other factors, such a s lab report presentations and exams, were used in determining final grades.) Other advantages include the following. Experiments could be added or modified in minutes. Studentsneeding help could be identified early in the semester. .Permanent records were maintained on disk. Reliability of experiments could be evaluated. For example, we found the heat of neutralization to be 2 kcaVmol less than the literature value under the conditions of our experiment. .Up to nine different unknowns could be assigned if needed for each exneriment usine " the "IF" statement on Excel. Grades and morale improved in the follow-UDsemester.
.
.
Afterthoughts
The use of spreadsheets for the management of our freshman chemistry laboratory proved to be so successful that we turned to the literat u r e t o s e e w h a t others were reporting about similar applications. To our surprise, we found only one article (1)that reported the use of Microsoft Excel for classroom management, and this particular application was limited to grade manaeement in a lecture course. We belie; the versatility and availabilitv of soreadsheets such as Microsoft ~ k e make l it a very attractive tool for the manaeement of laboratom courses like fi;tyear chemistry la6. F u r t h e r information about t h e spreadsheet organization may be obtained from the author. LlteratureCited 1.Billo, E. J. J. Chem. Educ. 1993,
70(2),148.
Volume 72 Number 9 September 1995
A183
