New Media in Chemical Education

 

Projects Realised in Blended Learning at Saarland University (for details see below)

  1. -ChemCast Saar: Podcast in advanced inorganic chemistry

  2. -ChemExClips: Video portal of chemical experiments

  3. -Streaming of lectures

  4. -Personal Response System (clicker)




Overcoming time and location: Podcasting


Despite modern methodology for class room teaching, location and time are still limiting factors in academic teaching.

While Streaming overcomes the need to meat at one place at the same time, podcasting decouples also the need to meat at the same time. Learning can be adjusted to the possibilities of the learning person.

Podcasting is a technique of making audio and video material available over the internet. The user is subscribing to a podcast feed with a podcatcher (such as e.g. iTunes) and gets the latest episode automatically. He can then listen/watch the episode on his preferred device (desktop or portable computer, mp3 player, Smartphone, Tablet) when and where it fits best to his needs.

The technique seems perfectly adapted to support classical learning scenarios. In e.g. medicine, a science which for long is at the foremost in implementation of new media in teaching, the technique becomes currently very popular. However, in chemical education, it is still quite unknown, albeit it offers specific support in understanding e.g. chemical structures.

The main aim of podcasting in higher chemical education is not to replace the visit of lectures or learning from books, but to support the learning after the lecture, preparing e.g. for the exams.

The „enhanced podcast“ format is used in ChemCast Saar, the inorganic chemistry podcast at Saarland University, which offers, besides the exact audio from the lecture, which is „enhanced“ by chapter markers and pictographical representations of the chapter contents, but also the presentations as .pdf files and 3D structures of compounds.



Examples for ChemCast Saar episodes: chapter markers in iTunes (left) and video of a 3D structure in a web browser.




















Projects Realised in Blended Learning at Saarland University:

  1. -ChemCast Saar: Podcast in advanced inorganic chemistry of the transition elements (AC6/7) and main groups (AC12) (2007-10)
    http://www.truetzschler-ehses.de/ChemCastSaar/Willkommen.html


  1. -ChemExClips: Video portal of chemical experiments (2008-09):
    see report in http://www.podcampus.de/nodes/3447

  

            Poster eLearning Day 2010                   Project Presentation eLearning Day 2010



















  1. -Streaming of lectures with Int. Graduate Collage GRK532 (2006-09):
    http://www.uni-saarland.de/fak8/veith/HP-GRK/engl/framesetevents.html


  1. -Personal Response System (clicker) in advanced inorganic chemistry lectures (2009)