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Valence: An Interactive Chemical Bonding Teaching App

Valence is a native iOS app designed for teaching chemical bonding with interactive lessons and engaging features. The app offers tactile, visual, and audio elements to enhance learning, making it fun and effective. With five levels covering various topics, students can study individually or in a classroom setting. The app focuses on providing immediate access, a sense of accomplishment, social interaction, and playfulness to boost curiosity and learning. Exciting future developments include additional lessons, built-in analytics, and a game center. Assessments show improved learning outcomes and student engagement. Valence challenges users with interactive tasks like identifying molecular structures and understanding bond formation.

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Valence: An Interactive Chemical Bonding Teaching App

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  1. Valence: An App for Teaching Chemical Bonding Lisa B. Lewis and Alex M. Clark July 16, 2014

  2. Students and mobile devices in CHEM 121

  3. Mobile devices to change education? *A different vision of the way people will access information, learn, amuse themselves and create material with others is emerging.*(Apps are) ubiquitous, powerful, and strongly structured, and Gardner and Davis argue that they’re changing the way we think. “Young people growing up in our time are not only immersed in apps,” they write, “they’ve come to think of the world as an ensemble of apps, to see their lives as a string of ordered apps,…” - Howard Gardner The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet, http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/ & The Future of Apps and Web, http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Future-of-Apps-and-Web.aspx & Is There an App for That? By K. Xue, Harvard Magazine Nov.-Dec. 2013.

  4. Mobile devices to change education? --Just-in-time information--62% of the entire adult population have used their cell/smartphone within the last 30 days to: *find information to settle an argument, *solve an unexpected problem, *get up-to-the-minute traffic information, *decide on a restaurant, etc. Pew Internet & American Life Project, http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Just-in-time.aspxt

  5. Mobile devices to change education? http://www.cellphonebeat.com/5-reasons-sleep-cellphone.html

  6. This, not this... How smartphones make people feel http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/great-lecture-what-was-it-about-again/2004222.article# KPCB Internet Trends Report, Meeker and Wu, May 2013.

  7. Our vision for mobile apps... * Provide immediate access * Fun (exciting) * Sense of accomplishment (productive) * Social (connected) * Playful (to encourage curiosity) http://www.tecca.com/columns/how-to-deal-with-your-partners-gadget-obsession/

  8. Our design principles... * Learning goal centric * Provide some background * Test understanding * Games, play & sharing

  9. Native iOS app - Valence • * Tactile - move electrons to make bonds • * Visual - color coding provides contextual clues • *Audio – music plays with success • *Fun

  10. Native iOS app - Valence • *Limited narrative • * Individual lessons • *Increasing complexity • * Reflection questions

  11. Native iOS app - Valence Native iOS app - Valence *Five lessons (levels): main group hydrides multiple bonds small molecules polyatomic ions exceptions to octet rule * Can make mistakes * Individual study or in class

  12. Native iOS app - Valence • * Future: • Additional lessons • Chemical intelligence • Built-in analytics • Game Center

  13. Assessment of webapps • * AcidBase: Understand concept of acid/base strength; Be able to recognize strong acids • and bases • * Shakespeare Sonnets: To understand the poems meanings and how rhyme and meter impact meaning.

  14. Assessment results for AcidBase * Students with access to AcidBase mastered recognition of strong acids sooner than those who were not given ready access to the app.

  15. Time on task, as reported by the students

  16. Using AcidBase in the classroom... *Pre-test. *Brief lecture on acid/base definitions. *Students use AcidBase app in class. *Post-test. Avg. pre-test score = 6.7/12; Avg. post-test score = 9.6/12

  17. Initial Assessment for Valence • * My 10 year old daughter, no chemistry experience, plays with Valence for fun! • * Completed reflection questions for first two levels. • * Successfully pointed to where the lone pair is located on the 3-D model of NH3& wrote the correct 2-D representations for SiH4and H2Se.

  18. Challenges & future efforts * Device diversity Valence only for iPad, iPhone and iTouch Browsers read and render webapp code in different ways. * Assessment* Refine, update design

  19. Why consider using these devices in the classroom? 4th Grade Science Fair Project To begin their experiment, they needed magnets, nails, paperclips, a compass, a hammer .... ...and TWO iPods (stopwatch, camera, Google)!

  20. These devices coming soon... KPCB Internet Trends Report, Meeker and Wu, May 2013.

  21. * Ian MacInnes, Professor & Chair of English, Rachel B. and Emma Stapley, ‘16 *Guy Cox, Director, Ferguson Center for Technology-Aided Teaching & Learning *Albion College Institutional Review Board & Chemistry and English students and faculty *Albion College Hewlett-Mellon Faculty Development Fund *Great Lakes Colleges Association as part of its New Directions Initiative, made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Acknowledgements

  22. 11 Chemistry Apps Mobile Molecular DataSheet (MMDS) MolPrime MolSync SAR Table MolPrime+ Green Solvents Yield101 Lab Solvents Approved Drugs Reaction101 Open Drug Discovery Teams Living Molecules SPRESImobile TB Mobile ChemSpider

  23. Contact information Lisa B. LewisDepartment of ChemistryAlbion CollegeAlbion, MI 49224email: lblewis@albion.eduphone: (517) 629-0252 Alex ClarkPresidentMolecular Materials InformaticsMontreal, Canadaemail: aclark.xyz@gmail.com

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