Teaching Chemistry Using Student-Created Videos and Photo Blogs

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Teaching Chemistry Using Student-Created Videos and Photo Blogs Accessed with Smartphones and Two-Dimensional Barcodes Lucille Benedict†,* and Harry E. Pence‡ †

Department of Chemistry, University of Southern Maine, Portland, Maine 04104-9300, United States Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, SUNY at Oneonta, West Oneonta, New York 13861, United States

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S Supporting Information *

ABSTRACT: Increasing numbers of college students own cell phones, and many of these phones are smartphones, which include features such as still and video cameras, global positioning systems, Internet access, and computers as powerful as the desktop models of only a few years ago. A number of chemical educators are already using these devices for education. By the time they reach college, many students have created video content and shared it on Web sites, such as YouTube. It has become easy to create two-dimensional barcodes that include a universal resource locator Web address that can connect the Web browser on a smartphone to a Web site. This article discusses how these new capabilities can be used to teach chemistry. KEYWORDS: First-Year Undergraduate/General, Chemoinformatics, Laboratory Instruction, Computer-Based Learning, Internet/Web-Based Learning, Multimedia-Based Learning, Student-Centered Learning “Students have difficulty visualizing how to perform such procedures from the instructions in the laboratory manual alone.” Thus far, librarians seem to have been somewhat more aggressive than chemists about combining smartphones with barcodes to reach students.9 These trends illustrate a move toward transmedia narratives in many aspects of modern society, including education. Transmedia storytelling is the enhancement of a central story idea with a variety of media components that provide additional information to the main narrative as well as inviting the intended audience to participate in media creation.10 Like Purcell, the authors of this article agree that young people seem to be choosing to do more and more work on smartphones that would previously have been done on a laptop or desktop computer. The authors also agree with Weizman that students have an easier time visualizing a complicated problem or using an instrument if they view a video that demonstrates the process. Using videos created by chemistry students and accessed by barcodes with smartphones seems to be a reasonable next step for teaching. This project is different from the work referenced previously in that it uses a twodimensional (2D) barcode to connect a physical object, such as a scientific instrument or a hardcopy assignment, with studentcreated content that can be viewed on the screen of a smartphone.

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ociety is rapidly moving from desktop and laptop computing to mobile devices, such as smartphones. According to The Pew Internet and American Life Project, the percentage of teens in the United States who own cell phones is over 75%.1 The survey results show that this level of access is similar regardless of sex, income level, or ethnic status of the young people. The only exception is teens from families with less than $30,000 annual income, for whom the figure decreases to 59%; however, this group is the most likely to use their phone to access the Internet. A recent article reports 40% of college students use the Internet on mobile devices every day, and students increasingly expect all their college services will be available using their phone.2 Another Pew study states “Fully half of all teens and 57% of teens who use the Internet could be considered content creators.”3 This survey reports that 33% of teens (12−17 years old) who go online share content they have created, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos. Some chemists are already using cell phones for teaching.4 High school teacher Laura McDonald uses cell phones in place of personal response systems (i.e., “clickers”).5 University educators Cynthia Powell and Autumn Sutherlin use cell phones to access podcasts for preservice teachers in biochemistry and general chemistry courses.6 David Purcell reports that his students are using cell phone flashcards to learn organic chemistry nomenclature, structures, and reactions.7 Purcell comments that cell phones are already widely used by his students: “Younger generations of students are trending away from computer use because desktops, and even laptops, are too unwieldy, location-centric, and thus inconvenient.” Haim Weizman teaches organic chemistry using videos produced by visual arts students to help science students visualize experiments in the organic laboratory.8 He reports © 2012 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

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PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND RESULTS The goals of this project were to (i) develop student-created videos and photo blogs that could be accessed either directly on the World Wide Web or with a smartphone that would read a Published: February 16, 2012 492

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students from the USM Chemistry Club. Students in the various chemistry laboratories created instructional videos and photo blogs for laboratory instruments and procedures and videos to accompany homework sheets. The students received very little formal training; most students already knew how to edit videos or learned from fellow students. Similarly, there was little training needed on creating and using barcodes. The instructor spent about 5 min explaining what barcodes were and how to access the software for creating and reading the barcodes. The instructor also talked briefly with the students about obeying copyrights and properly referencing the content they used. During in-class work, the instructor was present to assist students with filming and editing. The actual filming was usually done with smartphones, although a flip cam digital video camera was used by some groups of students. To create the photo blogs, the students collaborated using documents in Google Docs, which has a similar layout to Microsoft Word, a word processing program at which the students were adept.

2D barcode, and (ii) create classroom handouts that used 2D barcodes to allow students working in small groups to easily access Web-based videos and articles. All of the components necessary to achieve these goals were readily available. Smartphones are a powerful and very portable computer; they include a Web browser and a video and still camera. Many students are already accustomed to taking photographs and making and viewing videos using their cell phone, so it is reasonable for them to apply their existing talents to create chemistry videos and photo blogs. As Williams and Pence have pointed out in this Journal, it is also simple to create 2D barcodes that can direct the phone to access a Web universal resource locator (URL) and display the site on the smartphone.4 There are free Web sites where a URL can be translated into a 2D barcode, and there are a variety of free smartphone applications (apps) that will convert these barcodes into a URL. Although many options exist both for the type of barcode and the app to read them, this project used Quick Response (QR) barcodes created on the Kaywa Web site11 and a smartphone app called Scanlife12 (available for free from the appropriate app store) to scan the barcodes. These programs were used because they are in general use and worked across multiple phone operating systems. One important concern for any project based on digital visualization is to ensure reasonably equal access for all the students; this translates into two problems. The first problem concerns students who did not have smartphones to access the videos. To overcome this issue, the University of Southern Maine (USM) provided funds to purchase six iPod Touch units, which were distributed to students who did not have smartphones so these students could make videos and scan barcodes. The instructor also provided traditional URLs that corresponded to barcodes used in assignments, allowing students to access the course content by means of a laptop or desktop computer. If nothing else, the 2D barcodes serve as unique stamps on presentations or handouts that remind the students to visit the course Web site and check out the referenced Web sites. The second and more profound problem relates to students who have limited vision, which is a difficulty in any course that uses images. During in-class assignments having fellow students describe the images is not completely satisfactory, but seems to be the best method available at this time. Outside of class students could take the images and videos to the university’s office for support of students with disabilities to have the videos and images described for them. Three distinct types of media content were created or used and linked to 2D barcodes: 1. Videos and photo blogs that provided directions for using laboratory instruments or procedures 2. Videos to accompany homework and classroom exercises emphasizing concepts discussed in the class 3. Outreach videos showing demonstrations typically performed by the Chemistry Club for local elementary and middle school students so the club could reach a worldwide audience while also providing a means for local school to review the demonstrations they had performed Student response to the elements of this project has been highly encouraging. The students really took command when they knew the content they were creating would be used by other students. Videos of the demonstrations were produced by

Videos and Photo Blogs Providing Directions for Using Laboratory Instruments and Procedures

The students in Analytical Chemistry and General Chemistry created a series of videos and photo blogs showing how to use a spectrophotometer, a gas chromatograph flame ionization detector (GC−FID), an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF), and a direct mercury analyzer, and how to perform a standardization titration. Relevant 2D barcodes were attached to each instrument and added to prelaboratory handouts so students could watch the video or read the photo blog if they needed instructions on how to use the instruments or perform a procedure. Figure 1 shows the 2D barcodes for these instructions and also includes the URLs. To create the videos, students were given a week to find time to go into a prepared laboratory, videotape using an instrument or performing a titration, edit the video, and then upload it to YouTube. For each assignment, four to eight groups submitted videos. Students and chemistry faculty were given access to the links for the videos and asked to vote for their favorite video. The video that was most accurate, followed the requirements of the assignment, and had the most votes was linked to a 2D barcode. All of the videos are posted on YouTube because YouTube is the most accessible media format on smartphone devices. Students also created instructional photo blogs on how to use three instruments in the lab. To create the photo blogs, students took pictures of each step for using an instrument, uploaded the images to a document in Google Docs, and then wrote detailed instructions to go with each picture. The instrument section of the analytical chemistry laboratory was divided into three weeks, and each week one of the three student groups worked on a different instrument: XRF, GC− FID, and a direct mercury analyzer. For the first week, the groups started the photo blog on the instrument they were assigned, uploading pictures and writing the major instructions for the instruments. The second week, when students in the groups used the next instrument, they were given access to the previous group’s photo blog, which the subsequent group edited as they worked on their current project. By the time the third group used that instrument, they had very minor edits. Each week the students and the groups were graded on their contributions to the photo blogs. Google Docs allows the instructor to see the content added and revisions made by each 493

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Figure 2. 2D barcode of a student-created pH video.

Outreach Videos for K−12 Students

As part of its activities, the USM Chemistry Club performs demonstration shows for local K−12 schools in Maine. These demonstrations expose students to chemistry and promote interest in science. The Chemistry Club is assembling a library of demonstration videos on its Web site (Figure 3) so that

Figure 1. Barcodes of instructional videos and photo blogs.

Figure 3. Outreach videos created by students in the USM Chemistry Club.

student. The groups were also given overall grades on the completeness and accuracy of the overall blogs. These photo blogs are now published on the Web and linked to a 2D barcode that is posted on the instruments.

students who are interested can view their favorite demonstrations and learn more about the underlying science. These videos have been posted on YouTube, making them available to children and teachers worldwide to serve as interesting, readily accessible resources for educating children. Some of the videos were scripted and acted out as skits; in other videos, the students recorded live demonstration shows.

Videos To Accompany Homework and Classroom Exercises

When a barcode is added to a piece of paper, the paper becomes a smart object, which is clickable as a Web page when viewed with a smartphone. Adding this information can be especially valuable for multistep problems where some students have difficulty visualizing what the words are describing. Classroom handouts were created for two units in the secondsemester general chemistry course. An in-class assignment used in the general chemistry course is available in the online Supporting Information. Each handout had at least two 2D barcodes linking students to Web-based content (videos, articles, and wikis). The students worked in groups of three to four to answer questions that focused on the material that was barcoded. More students in the class had smartphones (52%) that they regularly used in class than had laptops (15%), so using 2D barcodes in this way made it possible for each group to review the videos multiple times, or to rewind to specific spots. Questions on the worksheets also had students find information within articles and wikis, teaching students how to find pertinent data in different types of resources. Students also created videos that will be used in the future on these classroom worksheets. For this course, students created videos on how to make and use cabbage juice as a pH indicator. An example of one of the videos submitted can be accessed through the 2D barcode in Figure 2.

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ASSESSMENT Student response was evaluated with a questionnaire that used a Likert-type scale ranging from one (strongly agree) to five (strongly disagree) (Table 1). The raw data and analysis from this survey is available in the online Supporting Information. Table 1. Results from Student Evaluations Statements for Student Response Interacting with 2D barcodes in this course made the material more accessible for group work. Having a video that could be accessed on a worksheet makes it easier to visualize problems in class. I enjoyed using 2D barcodes to access online material for this class. I would like to use my mobile phone more often for my course work.

Average Scorea,b (SD) 2.48(1.1) 2.06(1.0) 2.79(1.2) 2.59(1.1)

a

Scores based on this scale: 1, Strongly agree; 2, Agree; 3, Neutral; 4, Disagree; 5, Strongly disagree. bN = 86.

To summarize these results, before this project began 79% of the students had no knowledge of what a 2D barcode was. 494

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Journal of Chemical Education Results combining the responses “strongly agree” and “agree” averaged over 50% for the following questions: • Interacting with 2D barcodes in this course made the material more accessible for group work (59%). • Having a video that could be accessed on a worksheet makes it easier to visualize problems in class (77%). Results combining the responses “strongly agree” and “agree” averaged somewhat less that 50% for the following questions: • I would like to use my mobile phone more often for my course work (38%). • I enjoyed using 2D barcodes to access online material for this class (48%). One of the common concerns about using smartphones in class is the fear that only a few students will have such sophisticated equipment. As noted earlier, national surveys have shown that well over 50% of students have smartphones, and the survey taken at USM indicates more than half the students have some type of smartphone. As might be expected, the responses from students who already owned the devices reported were more positive than those who did not, but the results for the above questions were either neutral or only slightly negative even for those who did not own a smartphone (Table 2). The situation seems to be much like the

Statements and Questions for Student Response Interacting with 2D barcodes in this course made the material more accessible for group work. Having a video that could be accessed on a worksheet makes it easier to visualize problems in class. I would like to use my mobile phone more often for my course work. I enjoyed using 2D barcodes to access online material for this class. When working on a group worksheet with a video associated with it approximately how many times did you video the video, or pieces of the video?

Students without Smartphones (SD)a,b

1.98(0.91)

3.05(1.00)

1.63(0.61)

2.54(1.10)

2.15(0.94)

3.51(1.10)

2.04(0.82)

3.22(1.00)

2.01(0.79)

2.01(0.80)

CONCLUSIONS

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ASSOCIATED CONTENT

Two-dimensional barcodes provide a unique tool to give students direct and instant access to Web content. In a large lecture classroom, where it was previously difficult to have small groups each review a video separately, this is now possible without the need to acquire expensive equipment. These videos help students visualize problems that are discussed in class, and create a community among the students as they discuss what they are seeing. The use of multiple modes of representation gives the students more variety in the way they can access information. In a laboratory, students can now instantly access procedures and instructions using their smartphones, viewing these before having to ask the instructor for help. Students are so adept at using this technology they can easily create videos of procedures, or take pictures and post them with dialogue. Having current students create multimedia content that can be used by future students makes that work more meaningful, and these current students become more interested in developing projects that are factual and also creative. During the course of this project, it was apparent that the students producing the videos were thoroughly engaged in creating a video that could be used by future students. One disadvantage of accessing Web content with smartphones is that certain formats are not supported, such as Web simulations and certain video formats. As 2D barcodes and smartphones evolve, it is likely these formats will eventually be supported. When many small groups were watching videos in large lectures, another problem was the noise level. Students were advised that they could use the headphones provided to listen to the video, but most opted not to use them. It appears that the number of students who now own smartphones is sufficient that, with reasonable foresight, the problem of accommodating those who do not have smartphones is not a serious problem and will be less so in the near future. The need to accommodate students who have visual handicaps is a problem here, as it is with many types of visualization. Recently, David Parry wrote:13 What makes this moment ever more complicated is that just as we have introduced computers into the classroomjust as we have started to come to terms with the idea of wired learning spaces, mediated laptops, and occasionally the nowdinosaur-like desktopsthe mobile Web is about to make all this technological adaptation rather outdated. Every year more and more college students arrive on campus owning smartphones and having experience using these devices to make and distribute videos. Creating and editing videos is becoming a mainstream technical skill. Now that most scientific journals are online, there is an increasing tendency to incorporate videos into journal articles and there is even an online journal that features videos of scientific procedures.14 Augmented reality creates new opportunities for accessing Web material by means of a smartphone. This project has successfully demonstrated one possible way these developments can contribute to student learning.

Table 2. Results from Student Evaluations by Smartphone Ownership Students with Smartphones (SD)a,b

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a

Scores based on this scale: 1, Strongly agree; 2, Agree; 3, Neutral; 4, Disagree; 5, Strongly disagree. bN = 86.

introduction of electronic calculators several decades ago; the original fears about students who could afford a calculator turned out to be overstated. Another measure of the success of this project concerns the number of times that the various videos have been viewed on YouTube. The spectrophotometer video has been viewed 169 times since it was posted in October of 2010. The outreach videos posted since 2008 (one on slime, and one about hydrogen) have received 2737 and 4583 views, respectively. The instructor noted that the interaction of students in groups was greater when working with 2D barcoded worksheets with videos then when working on standard group worksheets. The students preferred to view a video rather than read an article if they had a choice on a worksheet. One student commented that the use of 2D barcodes was “useful and interactive, makes class more interesting with tactical and visual learning aids.”

S Supporting Information *

Class assignment using 2D barcodes to access Web content; raw data from the student assessment. This material is available via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org. 495

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AUTHOR INFORMATION

Corresponding Author

*E-mail: [email protected]. Notes

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported by the USM Center for Technology Enhanced Learning through a technology-enhanced learning grant. Instrumentation used for the instruction photo blogs was funded by the National Science Foundation (0922991). Music for the videos was written by the Music Department at USM.

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REFERENCES

(1) Purcell, K. My Digital Library: Leveraging Today’s Mobile and Participatory Information Ecosystem; Pew Internet and American Life Project Presentation. http://www.slideshare.net/PewInternet/digitallibraries-la-carte-2010 (accessed Feb 2012). (2) Keller, J. Chron. Higher Educ. 2011, 57 (21), A1. (3) Lenhart, A.; Madden, M. Teen Content Creators and Consumers; Pew Internet and American Life Project Report, 2005. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/Teen-Content-Creatorsand-Consumers/1-Summary-of-Findings.aspx (accessed Feb 2012). (4) Williams, A.; Pence, H. E. Smart Phones, a Powerful Tool in the Chemistry Classroom. J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88 (6), 683−686. (5) McDonald, L. M. CCCE Newsletter 2010, Fall; http://www.ccce. divched.org/content/fall-2010-ccce-newsletter (accessed Feb 2012). (6) Powell, C., personal communication, Dec. 7, 2010. (7) Pursell, D. P. Adapting to Student Learning Styles: Engaging Students with Cell Phone Technology in Organic Chemistry Instruction. J. Chem. Educ. 2009, 86 (10), 1219−1222. (8) Seethaler, S. Organic Chemistry for the YouTube Generation. University of California: San Diego News Center, December 5, 2007; http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/12-07sorgovideoSS-.asp (accessed Feb 2012). (9) Pence, H. E. Ref. Libr. 2010, 52 (1−2), 136−145. (10) Pence, H. E. J. Educ. Tech. Syst. 2012, 40 (2), 131−140. (11) Kaywa QR-Code Generator Homepage. http://qrcode.kaywa. com/ (accessed Feb 2012). (12) Scanlife Homepage. http://www.scanlife.com/new/ (accessed Feb 2012). (13) Parry, D. Mobile Perspectives: On Teaching Mobile Literacy. Educause Rev., 2011, 46 (2); http://www.educause.edu/ EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume46/ iMobilePerspectivesOnteachingi/226160 (accessed Feb 2012). (14) The Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) Homepage. http://www.jove.com/ (accessed Feb 2012).

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