Technology Report Cite This: J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Multipurpose Use of Explain Everything iPad App for Teaching Chemistry Courses Jayashree S. Ranga* Department of Chemistry and Physics, Salem State University, 352 Lafayette Street, Salem, Massachusetts 01970, United States S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: Explain Everything is an interactive, user-friendly, and easily accessible app for mobile devices. The interactive app-based teaching methods discussed here can be adopted in any STEM or non-STEM course. This app allows instructors to take advantage of both the chalkboard and PowerPoint slides on a single platform, create videos for lecture captures and flipped/online classrooms, and virtually assist upper-level students with the development of soft skills through personalized videos/PDFs. Feedback data from students highlight multiple benefits from the use of this app. This app aids better visualization of concepts, promotes ubiquitous learning opportunities for students, and provides personalized feedback on documents in seminar courses. KEYWORDS: General Public, First-Year Undergraduate/General, Upper-Division Undergraduate, Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary, Communication/Writing, Distance Learning/Self Instruction, Internet/Web-Based Learning, Multimedia-Based Learning, Student-Centered Learning
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INTRODUCTION Apps on mobile devices are of particular interest in chemistry courses.1,2 Apps and software tools are being explored as digital lab notebooks,3 video learning networks,4 video creation tools,5,6 visualization tools,7 and note-taking/feedback tools.8 Several interactive whiteboard apps such as Doceri, Educreations, Explain Everything (EE), and ShowMe are discussed elsewhere.9 Every app possess its own merits with respect to interactive teaching and video creations. YouTube is a popular site for hosting videos.10 All of the aforementioned apps allow instructors to download the video outputs and then export them to the YouTube site. In the case of Doceri and EE, videos can be directly exported to the YouTube site from the app. Multiple advantages of Doceri in classrooms are highlighted elsewhere.4,5 The Doceri app on an iPad communicates through Doceri on a desktop/computer and provides access to the desktop/computer.4 This enables instructors to access any file from the desktop/computer. The author had to teach classes in rooms with no desktop/ computer. The EE app’s ability to access file-sharing sites such as Dropbox directly (without an additional desktop/computer) was beneficial (Figure S.1). The Explain Everything Whiteboard app is available at the iTunes Store for $9.99.11 The EE app allows instructors to import a PDF file, PowerPoint presentation, Word document, or an image from any file-sharing site. The app contains a variety of built-in interactive teaching tools, as shown in Figure 1. After the slideshow using the app, the instructor can export the slides either as a PDF or video file. The use of the app is presented in three cases: (a) interactive chalkboards, (b) videos, and (c) feedback on documents. © XXXX American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
CASE STUDIES In each case, a brief description of the pedagogy using the EE app is presented. Student responses regarding these pedagogies are presented in the Supporting Information. Case 1: Interactive Chalkboards
Interactive chalkboards are lecture presentations with the advantages of both traditional chalkboards and PowerPoint slides on a single platform. All of the PowerPoint lectures were converted into PDFs and imported into the EE app from Dropbox. Tools from the EE app were used during class lectures (Figure 1). Some of the common tools used are illustrated in the Figures S.2 and S.3. In a classroom, the iPad was connected to a projector using an adapter (Apple Lightning to VGA adapter).12 The adapter communicated between the iPad and the projector and projected every action from the EE app onto the screen in real time. PowerPoint presentations are great tools to present pictures, schematics, and complex chemical/protein structures to students. However, they restrict on-the-fly changes required for effective learning in the middle of a lecture.13 Tablets/apps such as Doceri have provided flexibility to insert writings during lectures, which has aided student learning in the classroom.4,13 Similarly, the EE app allows on-the-fly insertion of empty slides and writing on them to address student concerns and misconceptions. A sample on-the-fly slide from a class lecture is presented in Figure 2. This is similar to what an instructor would do with a Received: September 1, 2017 Revised: February 11, 2018
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00676 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
Journal of Chemical Education
Technology Report
Figure 1. Screen shot showing various tools in the Explain Everything app.
The EE app aids visual learning and can be used in any course where an instructor prefers to use a PowerPoint presentation and/or the chalkboard. The EE app can also be used in a class to highlight notes/text from a textbook or an article. Once the class lecture file was imported into the EE app, there was no need to have an Internet connection in the classroom. Hence, the interactive chalkboards can be utilized in remote schools/institutions for teaching where there is no Internet. One of the challenges associated with the EE app is the use of various tools during a lecture. The right proportion of tool usage is key for engaging students, as too much usage could be overwhelming for students as well as instructors. Real estate on a slide using the EE app screen is limited. To overcome this limitation, the instructor can create a new slide to add information on-the-fly. The other option is to use the undo tool from the EE app to clear all the writings on the slide. This is equivalent to the “erase all strokes” option using Doceri.4 The author explored interactive chalkboards in Introduction to Environmental Chemistry (for nonmajors) and upper-level Inorganic Chemistry (for majors) courses during Spring 2017. About 93% of nonmajors (28 responses) and 100% of upperlevel majors (9 responses) rated this style of teaching to be helpful or very helpful.
chalkboard discussion. In a General Chemistry II course, students wanted more explanation on the topic of dissociation of weak acids and bases. A new slide was created, and the pen tool from Figure 1 was used for writing. Red and blue pen options were selected to indicate acids and bases, respectively. The red highlighter tool was used to highlight the hydrogen lost from the acid (Figure 2). This was helpful in visualizing the removal of H from −COOH (not the H from the −CH3 group) in CH3COOH. Important points on the slide were emphasized using the laser pointer tool. In Figure 2, the laser pointer was used to explain the formation CH3NH3+ (the conjugate acid) from CH3NH2. All of these actions (use of pen, highlighter, and laser pointer) on the app were projected to students in real time as the author was writing on the app.
Case 2: Lecture Capture and YouTube Videos
Adding voice to an interactive chalkboard presentation (see the Supporting Information) enables creation of lecture capture and YouTube videos. Lecture captures were interactive chalkboard lectures from Case 1 with recorded voice. YouTube videos were short interactive chalkboard presentations recorded outside the class and uploaded to a YouTube channel. Lecture captures and links to YouTube videos were provided to students on a learning management system (LMS). Videos allowed students to review content beyond the classroom at their own pace anywhere. As discussed elsewhere, lecture captures (a) promote learning beyond the classroom, (b) enable extensive use of content (especially by struggling students), and (c) create an environment with more attentive
Figure 2. Slide showing the dissociation of weak acids and weak bases in water. This on-the-fly slide was created to clarify misconceptions about weak acid/base dissociation. The aqueous nature of NH4+ was mentioned verbally in class. Along with relevant colors for acids and bases, there is a laser pointer (red dot) indicating a conjugate acid, and rules for identifying acids and bases (by removing and adding H+, respectively) are indicated on the slide. B
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00676 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
Journal of Chemical Education
Technology Report
students experiencing minimal stress related to taking notes.14,15 The lecture capture option was explored during a summer semester in a short six-week General Chemistry II course where the length of each class session was double that of a regular semester session. This was an evening lecture class scheduled from 4:30 PM to 7:15 PM. Videos are popular learning materials for online and flipped classrooms.16−19 Because of scheduling conflicts, customized YouTube videos were explored in General Chemistry courses in place of face-to-face discussion sessions.20 All of the YouTube videos were linked to learning outcomes from the course. Reference 21 provides URLs for sample YouTube videos used in General Chemistry II courses. About 83% of General Chemistry II students from Summer 2017 (12 responses) rated the lecture capture videos to be helpful or very helpful. About 76% of General Chemistry II students from Spring 2017 (21 responses) rated the customized YouTube videos to be helpful or very helpful. About 76% of the students reported that if needed, they would use the YouTube videos to review content beyond the course. Lecture captures and YouTube videos can be great teaching tools to make up for missed class content during events such as snow days (especially in the greater Boston area). These are great catch-up tools for students who have missed classes for emergency reasons such as health related absences. Also, students can revisit this content in the future if the need arises. For example, students can review content on Lewis structures from General Chemistry I during Organic Chemistry courses. One of the major challenges reported by students regarding remotely reviewing content using videos is the inability to ask questions and getting them addressed immediately (as in the face-to-face classroom). Starting discussion boards on the LMS might address this concern.
by students improved significantly with every round of corrections. Most importantly, students had a better idea of why the corrections were recommended. An example slide is presented in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Example slide with feedback information. The feedback recommends using the same color font for all the three bullet points (mint green), moving the figure (after centering) below the bullet points with a border (purple), adding text as bullets related to points 1, 2, and 3 instead of using a paragraph (sky blue), and using the same font type (preferably Arial or Times) throughout the slide (red).
During Fall 2015 and Fall 2017 (28 responses), at least 80% of the students from the Chemistry Seminar courses reported this teaching style to be helpful. These strategies can also be used by Career Services to provide feedback on job search documents such as resumes and cover letters and by instructors to provide feedback in writing classes. These strategies can provide personalized feedback as opposed to general suggestions. Some students still preferred one-on-one in-person feedback on documents during office hours. Students reported downloading rates of the feedback videos to be a challenge. Good Internet speeds are required to download and open large feedback video files.
Case 3: Feedback on Documents
A key goal in upper-level seminar courses is to train students in soft skills such as presentation (communication) skills. Personalized feedback using videos on PowerPoint presentations offers a virtual tool to train students in these courses. These skills are extremely important for the success of students pursuing an undergraduate degree, as discussed in the Committee of Professional Training guidelines from the American Chemical Society.22 Apps such as Notability and Doceri can be used to provide feedback on documents using annotations.4,8 In the seminar course discussed here, students were presented with a journal article and asked to give a professional-quality PowerPoint presentation based on the article. The student presentations were imported into the EE app, and corrections were indicated using the red (or any color) pen tool, very similar to traditional corrections. The presentations with the corrections were exported as a PDF file. The reasoning behind the corrections was recorded and exported as a video. All of the students received personalized feedback on their PowerPoint presentations as a PDF file as well as a video file. After receiving feedback, students resubmitted multiple versions of their documents until a satisfactory version of the document resulted. The advantage of this style of feedback is that a digital mode of going back and forth with the documents avoids common issues such as students losing paper versions of the corrected documents. The video feedback was ideal for providing the reasoning behind each of the suggested corrections. Typically, the quality of resubmitted documents
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CONCLUSIONS This paper describes the advantages of using the Explain Everything app in various chemistry courses. The userfriendliness of the app, along with a variety of built-in teaching tools, makes the EE app an attractive option for instructors in any STEM or non-STEM course. Every action on the EE app can be projected to students in real time. The flexibility of adding content on-the-fly is a major advantage when the EE app is used as an interactive chalkboard. The app provides an opportunity to create videos, which led to the exploration of lecture capture and YouTube videos. This further led to student learning beyond the classroom. In seminar courses, personalized feedback helped students understand the reasoning behind feedback provided on their documents. This teaching method offered virtual assistance to students. Some of the limitations based on the author’s experience are listed here. The author initially experienced a “short learning curve” and “getting used to” phase with the EE app.5 After this phase, the app was quite easy to navigate. Video outputs were large files. This resulted in long export times when these video files were uploaded to the YouTube/Dropbox site. Creation of videos is a time-consuming endeavor for instructors, both in the C
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00676 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
Journal of Chemical Education
Technology Report
Visualization and Representational Competence Skills. J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91 (11), 1810−1817. (8) Amick, A. W.; Cross, N. An Almost Paperless Organic Chemistry Course with the Use of iPads. J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91 (5), 753−756. (9) Popular interactive whiteboard apps: (a) The Best 4 Whiteboard Apps for Teachers. http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2015/02/ best-whiteboard-apps-for-teachers.html (accessed February 2018). (b) Doceri website. https://doceri.com/ (accessed February 2018). (c) Educreations website. https://www.educreations.com/ (accessed February 2018). (d) Explain Everything website. https:// explaineverything.com/ (accessed February 2018). (e) ShowMe website. http://www.showme.com/ (accessed February 2018). (10) YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/ (accessed February 2018). (11) Explain Everything Whiteboard (at iTunes Apple Store). https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/explain-everythingclassic%20features/id431493086?mt=8 (accessed February 2018). (12) Apple Lightning to VGA Adapter. https://www.apple.com/ shop/product/MD825AM/A/lightning-to-vga-adapter (accessed February 2018). (13) Jaña, G. A.; Cardona, W.; Jiménez, V. A. Innovative Use of a Tablet Device To Deliver Instruction in Undergraduate Chemistry Lectures. Quim. Nova 2015, 38 (4), 595−598. (14) Newton, G.; Tucker, T.; Dawson, J.; Currie, E. Use of Lecture Capture in Higher Education − Lessons from the Trenches. TechTrends 2014, 58 (2), 32−45. (15) (a) The Complete Guide to Lecture Capture. https://www. techsmith.com/blog/lecture-capture/ (accessed February 2018). (b) Study: College students prefer classes with online learning. https://news.wisc.edu/study-college-students-prefer-classes-withonline-learning/ (accessed February 2018). (16) Richards-Babb, M.; Curtis, R.; Smith, V. J.; Xu, M. M. Problem Solving Videos for General Chemistry Review: Students’ Perceptions and Use Patterns. J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91 (11), 1796−1803. (17) Weaver, G. C.; Sturtevant, H. G. Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Flipped Format General Chemistry Course. J. Chem. Educ. 2015, 92 (9), 1437−1448. (18) Ryan, M. D.; Reid, S. A. Impact of the Flipped Classroom on Student Performance and Retention: A Parallel Controlled Study in General Chemistry. J. Chem. Educ. 2016, 93 (1), 13−23. (19) Seery, M. K. ConfChem Conference on Flipped Classroom: Student Engagement with Flipped Chemistry Lectures. J. Chem. Educ. 2015, 92 (9), 1566−1567. (20) Ranga, J. S. Customized Videos on a YouTube Channel: A Beyond the Classroom Teaching and Learning Platform for General Chemistry Courses. J. Chem. Educ. 2017, 94 (7), 867−872. (21) Sample videos: (a) Gas Laws. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=O2cH1SlgKtg (accessed February 2018). (b) Strong Weak Acid Base. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCPR_UnFw7Q (accessed February 2018). (22) Development of Student Skills in a Chemistry Curriculum. https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/about/governance/ committees/training/acsapproved/degreeprogram/development-ofstudent-skills.pdf (accessed February 2018).
context of customized YouTube videos and with personalized feedback. In this study, an iPad was connected to the projector, and this limited the author’s ability to move around, whereas using Doceri would allow the instructor to walk around the classroom.4 However, the instructor could still face the students while lecturing, as opposed to facing the chalkboard. This article mainly discusses use of the EE app by an instructor. If a student has an iPad, the student can use this app for note-taking/recording class discussions (with permission) on the slides.
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT
S Supporting Information *
The Supporting Information is available on the ACS Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00676. Illustrations of helpful tools from the app, further details regarding the three cases, and student responses to each of these interventions (PDF, DOCX)
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. ORCID
Jayashree S. Ranga: 0000-0002-7352-330X Notes
The author declares no competing financial interest.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author offers special thanks to the undergraduates enrolled in her chemistry courses. The author is grateful for financial support towards her scholarship from NSF-sponsored cCWCS, Department of Chemistry and Physics, and Center for Research and Creative Activities, Salem State University. Thanks to Joan Comar, Lorrie Comeford, William Coyle, Christine MacTaylor, Ronald MacTaylor, Rebecca Martini, Gail Rankin, Deanna Warner, and Todd Wimpfheimer for helpful discussions. Constructive feedback from the associate editor and reviewers is greatly appreciated.
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REFERENCES
(1) Libman, D.; Huang, L. Chemistry on the Go: Review of Chemistry Apps on Smartphones. J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90 (3), 320− 325. (2) Apps for Teachers. https://sites.google.com/a/ westmichiganaviation.org/resources-and-technology/ipads/apps-forteachers (accessed February 2018). (3) Van Dyke, A. R.; Smith-Carpenter, J. Bring Your Own Device: A Digital Notebook for Undergraduate Biochemistry Laboratory Using a Free, Cross-Platform Application. J. Chem. Educ. 2017, 94 (5), 656− 661. (4) Silverberg, L. J. Use of Doceri Software for iPad in Polycom and Resident Instruction Chemistry Classes. J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90 (8), 1087−1089. (5) Silverberg, L. J.; Tierney, J.; Bodek, M. J. Use of Doceri Software for iPad in Online Delivery of Chemistry Content. J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91 (11), 1999−2001. (6) He, Y.; Swenson, S.; Lents, N. Online Video Tutorials Increase Learning of Difficult Concepts in an Undergraduate Analytical Chemistry Course. J. Chem. Educ. 2012, 89 (9), 1128−1132. (7) McCollum, B. M.; Regier, L.; Leong, J.; Simpson, S.; Sterner, S. The Effects of Using Touch-Screen Devices on Students’ Molecular D
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00676 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
