Judson College has been selected to test a chemistry program founded by Carnegie Mellon.
Ruth Kastenmayer, teacher of Web design courses at Judson College, says Virtual Laboratory is now available for the college’s chemistry students and is accessed through Ucompass Educator, a new course management (CMS) program initiated at Judson in the fall of 2002.
Professors at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh designed the Virtual Laboratory Project after receiving a $1 million grant. Their goal was to make chemistry more exciting and understandable through online interactive assignments. The inventors say the Virtual Laboratory will allow students to select from hundreds of chemical substances and work with them in a manner resembling a real lab.
User studies have shown that it takes high school and college students about five minutes to learn the program.
Kastenmayer, herself a chemistry major, said that the Virtual Laboratory project isn’t intended to replace labs but to be used as classroom enhancement. The program was offered to Judson with the only requirement that a survey be given to determine what difference the program made in student learning. The survey will be administered later in the spring. If the responses are positive, Judson will continue the program. Judson also received CDs allowed any student to download and use this program on his or her own computer. Virtual Laboratory is also expected to give distance-learning students opportunity to gain laboratory knowledge while studying off campus.
Kastenmayer is excited about the Virtual Laboratory project, “I think it’s a wonderful project. Students sometimes hate solving a long list of homework problems. It will be much more fun to sit at a screen and actually carry out chemical procedures and experiments.”
(JC)
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