Chemical Education Today

JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 77 No. 3 March 2000 • Journal of Chemical Education 299

Reports from Other Journals

News from Online: The Power of the Voice

by Carolyn Sweeney Judd

World Wide Web AddressesBetha Chemistry Tutorial Sitehttp://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/

1. Gas Lawshttp://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/nealGasLaw/What’s behind the Ideal Gas Law?http://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/nealGasLaw/fr2.2.html

2. Balancing Chemical Equationshttp://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/nealChemBal/

3. Introduction to Quantum Mechanicshttp://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/qm/

Both a particle and a wave??!http://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/qm/3bfr.html

A CHEMISTRY 200 RESOURCEhttp://mccoy.lib.siu.edu/projects/chem200/audiolinks.html

WebElementshttp://www.webelements.com/

Time Magazine’s Person of the Centuryhttp://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/poc/home.html

A Brief History of Relativity by Stephen Hawkinghttp://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/poc/magazine/a_brief_history_of_rela6a.html

The Age of Einstein by Roger Rosenblatthttp://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/poc/magazine/the_age_of_einstein8a.html

Einstein’s Own Wordshttp://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/poc/einstein_audio. html

Free Plug-InsRealAudio or RealPlayerhttp://www.real.com/help/index.html

Shockwavehttp://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/

access date for all sites: January 2000

Powerful tutorials are to be found at the Betha Chemis-try Tutorial Site at Ohio State University. Their special poweris the human voice: http://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/. Thethree tutorials using Javaapplets can be accessed in anaudio version (Shockwave) orno-audio version (text). Hereyou can hear the difference.Try one of the sections on thegas laws—What’s behind theideal gas law?—at http://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/nealGasLaw/fr2.2.html. Thevoice-over explains the mean-ing of the gas law, and an in-teractive graphic also allowsthe student to change thegas-law variables and see the result. Compare this with theno-audio version; the power of the voice is evident. By theway, go to http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/to get a free copy of Shockwave.

George McBane, D. Neal McDonald, Zil Lilas, MidoriKitagawa-DeLeon, and Sherwin J. Singer are the team mem-bers for two of the tutorials: Gas Laws at http://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/nealGasLaw/ and Balancing Chemical Equa-tions at http://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/nealChemBal/. Theteam members for the third tutorial, Introduction to Quan-tum Mechanics at http://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/qm/, areNeal McDonald, Midori Kitagawa-DeLeon, Anna Timasheva,

Heath Hanlin, Zil Lilas, and Sherwin J. Singer. This Intro-duction will be just right for those lucky students who askthe all-important question: Why? Go to Section #3B, titledBoth a particle and a wave??! (http://chemistry.ohio-state.edu/betha/qm/3bfr.html ). Here the student can tune the mass andenergy of a quantum particle and see the difference betweenclassical and quantum-mechanical motion. All this is accom-panied by a voice-over which encourages the student to ex-plore the subject.

Another site with excellent pedagogical use of the voiceis A CHEMISTRY 200 RESOURCE from Mark Bausch atSouthern Illinois University at Carbondale (http://mccoy.lib.siu.edu/projects/chem200/audiolinks.html ). This site is keyedto Martin Silberberg’s textbook, CHEMISTRY—The Molecu-lar Nature of Matter and Change, but the idea could beadapted to any textbook. A voice-over explains selectedsample problems throughout the text. For all those studentswho did not know how to approach a word problem, missedthe lecture, or whose notes did not help them remember howto work the problem—this is a great idea. Go to http://mccoy.lib.siu.edu/projects/chem200/7.4.ram to hear a calm voice ex-plain how to solve one of the textbook sample problems con-cerning the Uncertainty Principle. Again, a plug-in is needed:a free copy of RealAudio or RealPlayer is at http://www.real.com/help/index.html.

Part of our responsibility as teachers is to instruct ourstudents in proper pronunciation of the subject matter. Inchemistry, this starts with the periodic chart. Did you everhear your students stumble over the element Y (yttrium)?

Figure 1. Ideal Gas from OhioState University.

Chemical Education Today

300 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 77 No. 3 March 2000 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu

News from Online: The Power of the Voice

Go to the Periodic Chart mega-site, WebElements at http://www.webelements.com/ by Mark Winter from the Universityof Sheffield, England. Select the element Y from the Peri-odic Chart and you will be taken to http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/media/snds-description/Y.rm. Clicking on one of the sound icons produces a maleor female voice pronouncing the word yttrium. Near the bot-tom of the screen, another sound icon will also reward youwith a vocal description of the properties of the element Y.

Now let’s go to one last site for another use of the voiceon the Web. “He was the pre-eminent scientist in a centurydominated by science. The touchstones of the era—theBomb, the Big Bang, quantum physics, and electronics—allbear his imprint.” With these words, Time Magazine intro-duces its selection of Albert Einstein (1879–1955) as the Per-son of the Century (http://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/poc/home.html ). The Time site is a starting place for a wealthof information about Einstein, science, and our world to-day. Send your students here to find essays about Einsteinranging from Stephen Hawking’s essay, A Brief History ofRelativity (http://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/poc/magazine/a_brief_history_of_rela6a.html ), to RogerRosenblatt’s essay, The Age of Einstein (http://www.pathfinder.

com/time/time100/poc/magazine/the_age_of_einstein8a.html ).Engage your students in discussions about the Runners-Up:Franklin Roosevelt, the Statesman; and Mohandas Ghandi,the Soldier of Peace; as well as many other nominees broughtto us on the Time Web site. And how can you make Einsteinreal to your students? Have them listen to his own words inhis voice at http://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/poc/einstein_audio.html.

Carolyn Sweeney Judd teaches at Houston Community Col-lege System, 1300 Holman, Houston, TX 77004; phone: 713/817-6315; email: judd_c@hccs.cc.tx.us.

yttrium French: yttrium - German: Yttrium

Italian: ittrio - Spanish: ytrioFigure 2. WebElements from the University of Sheffield.