The last race

The last UT race of the term was won by Nick, who automatically won the video ipod since it was the only prize left for him to win. This was probably the most difficult maze so far and took him 15 minutes to complete.

Exam Quiet Time Reservations

Sunday March 19th Room B-103 3:00-9:00 pm
Tuesday March 21st Room C-104 3:00-9:00 pm

Room B-103 has been reserved on Monday March 20th and Wednesday March 22nd from
4-9 pm

frustrated winner

Nick won this morning's race in 10 minutes. This is his third win and he drew the molecular model set. The only prize left for him to win is the video ipod, since I don't give out the same prize twice to the same person. We'll do the final race of the term on Friday March 17, 2006.

This maze is all about IR and NMR and is a good way to review the material for the test and exam.

iPod won today

Louie won the video ipod in this morning's race in an impressive 4 minutes.

I think all of the NMR concepts we covered in this class are in there so you may want to try this one to practice for the test.

Lets do another race on Friday, although I can't promise there will be another ipod available.

Test 2 Reserved Room

Room F-111 has been reserved on Saturday 3/11/06 from 8-5 pm.

Feb 27 race

Monday's edufrag race was won by Nick again. He drew the book prize.

The ipod video will be up for grabs at the next race - lets shoot for Monday March 6th for the next race.

I would like to include some NMR in the next race so if you were thinking of doing your extra credit on UT doors, this would be a good time to work on it.

Also note that I can help you with ANY class topic at the workshops.

next workshop

There will be no workshops this week until Monday Feb 27, 2006.
We'll also have another Unreal Tournament race on that day, covering the basics from CHEM241 and possibly anything in CHEM 242 up to and including NMR. The video ipod is still available as a prize.

Of course, I am also there to help with the class material, as usual. Generally students find NMR to be a little harder than the rest of the material so don't procrastinate coming to the workshops for help with that.

Feb 17 2006 race

This morning's Unreal Tournament race was won by Raymond in 8 minutes.
He won a book - the video ipod is still up for grabs.
Attend the next race Friday at 10:00 in Matheson 109 for a chance to win it.

Feb 13 2006 Race

Today's edufrag race is available for download here.

Nick was the winner in 6 minutes. He drew the consolation prize (cat keychain). The ipod video will be up for grabs at the next race - we'll try for Friday.

Race on Monday - try to win an ipod

There will be an Edufrag Race using the educational version of Unreal Tournament on Monday Feb 13, 2006 during our workshop time at 9:00 in CAT 061. There will be 20 rooms in the maze on any topic from CHEM 241 and up to test 1 in CHEM 242.

I may include contributions from students in this class so this might be a good time to work on your extra credit due by Feb 17th.

The first student to make to the catroom has an equal chance of winning one of the following:

1. 30Gig video ipod
2. molecular model kit
3. book
4. consolation mystery prize

no workshop Jan 27

There will be no workshop tomorrow Friday Jan 27, 2006. We'll resume on Monday.

Powerpoint and Problem set downloading

There seems to be a problem with downloading files from WebCT Vista.

You may now download the Powerpoints and the problem set pdf off of the class wiki (Items 4 and 12)

Class Vodcast available

Subscribe to the class screencasts on your video ipod by dragging the vodcast icon (from the class blog) into iTunes. Even without an ipod, you can view the screencasts from iTunes on your computer.

The quality is not as good as the Flash screencasts but it should be usable for the most part. Let me know how you find it.

The first 2 weeks are up now - more to follow.

second week update

Just a reminder that you should now be at the end of Chapter 10 problems and quiz and have had any confusion resolved at the workshops or by emailing me. You should have all technical issues addressed by now.

The first test is coming up in 2.5 weeks.
Remember that the Friday workshops are in Matheson 109.

First week update

1) Students who came to the workshops got all of their technical issues squared away and we worked on alkyne problems. A few students also worked on their extra credit assignments.

2) You should all have completed lecture 3 by this point (alkynes). If you are having any technical problems it is imperative that you deal with this at the next workshop on Wednesday.

3) We ran into a few glitches this week with accessing the Real Player lecture recordings but I posted a workaround on the wiki so that you would still have access through the guest account. Right now the Real Player lecture archive in WebCT is working fine. The PDFs associated with some of the lectures have been moved to Item 11 on the wiki. Not all the lectures are there yet but the ones for the first week are and the rest will be there shortly.

Welcome Winter 2006 class

Your starting point for this class is the wiki. I will use the blog this term only for announcements and this is where your extra credit blogging assignments get posted. See the assignments from previous terms in prior posts here and look at the comments to see my feedback and grading system.

Last Blog Assignment Deadline Over

All grades for the last blog assignment have been posted. It is now too late to add or change your posts.

I have been impressed with many of the posts. Most of you found relevant articles and extracted the information you needed. Several of the posts were about very practical things like environmentally friendly synthetic approaches, alternative fuels, breathalizer chemistry and the use of enzymes and biological agents to clean up pollutants.

One of the reasons I started this blog assignment is to help you understand how the reactions you are learning are used by chemists in the real world of research and industry. A side benefit is that I have learned some chemistry on each and every post. As a chemist you will never stop learning. What I am hoping is that in this class you have learned the skills to find the information you need to use chemistry productively in your career.

Another bonus is that other people from around the world are benefiting from your posts. Click on the SiteMeter button at the bottom of the blog then click on referrals to see how people are finding your posts.

I will be cleaning up the blog at the end of the term, removing unreadable or substantially incorrect posts. If you wish to keep your posts make sure to copy them before then. In Blogger you can copy a post from one blog to another easily. Just make sure you copy and paste in the "Edit HTML" view, not "Compose". Note that you can also convert the posts into Word. You may wish to do this also if you want to build an e-portfolio.

Play for points

The final deadline for the 4th blog assignment is August 19th. Since you have had the benefit of my feedback for the first 3 assignments you should now be able to do this one without feedback or problems. It is worth 2% of your grade.

As an alternative to this final blog assignment you may volunteer to evaluate the Unreal Tournament maps we have available on the class material. The deadline for this is also August 19th. Don't wait too long to sign up for this because it will require scheduling. If you don't have UT I'll give you access to a computer.

Contact me if you are interested.

ChemSketch Demo

Here is a 3 minute Flash screencast that Yana made to help with the use of ChemSketch in your blog assignment. If you know how to do something well please consider doing a brief screencast like this. You can download Camtasia here.

Even if something seems simple to you, it may not be for everyone. A good way to know if a screencast it useful is to notice recurring errors made by student in their blog assignment.

Examples:
-how to find a reaction in the literature
-how to use CiteULike
-how to post to Blogger
-how to resize pictures
-how to link to a reference without pasting the entire url in the post text
-how to tell if a reference is suitable
etc.

Second deadline over

All of the grades for the second blog assignment deadline are now posted and cannot be changed. A few comments:
1) Most of you are now using CiteULike properly so there are now plenty of examples other students can look at to see how it should be done.
2) It would be nice if you could tag all your articles with "orgo" so that all the articles of the class could be tracked with an RSS feed.
3) Many of you are giving a lot more than what I am asking for an running into some trouble in the process. All I want is one single reaction with nice readable molecules drawn from ChemSketch (or by hand as a last resort) with an arrow and reagent on the arrow. It will be easiest for you to pick a reaction that we covered in class because you won't have to explain it in as much detail.
4) If you want to give me more information that is fine but make sure that you support your statements with a link to a document with primary data (like experimental results) or to a document where the information trail continues on to primary data. For example, "progesterone reduces the risk of cancer" should be clickable to an article where the actual study has this as a conclusion OR to an article that has a similar statement with a link to primary data. References lumped at the end of your post are not good enough. Articles that you link to with general references at the bottom are also not usable. Unfortunately this means that a lot of government public health sites or company websites are not suitable for references. Your opinions and your speculations don't have to be supported by a reference. Try to post well before the next deadline so I can help you get this right.

Chap 9 UT map ready for testing

We have quiz 9 in Unreal Tournament 2004 map format available for testing. If you have UT2004 just download the map and textures here.

I'll make these maps available on the network shortly but for now you have to download and play on your computer.

You can play with or without bots (or other players). So if you just want to calmly explore select no bots and don't play on the network.

If you don't have UT2004 but still want to play let me know and we can make arrangements.

Please report any errors or problems as comments on the Edufrag blog on the post of the map you are playing.

This is an example of a student assignment done as a map instead of a blog post.

First deadline grades

The first deadline for the blog assignment has now past. Everyone who posted has been graded. There is nothing you can now do to improve your grade on the first assignment. Learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of other students by reading my comments on all the posts to make the next deadline in 2 weeks.

One general comment: use a specific reaction of a specific compound that you find in the article. Avoid drawing general structure with R groups.

repeating mistakes

Before you post take a look at the comments I made on all of the other students' posts. I see the same errors coming up in the last few posts. In order to get full marks you must:
1) make sure your molecules and reagents are big enough to view easily from http://chem242.blogspot.com. See the first few examples that I graded "full marks" to see how big is big enough
2) you must use CiteULike
3) ALL of the reference info needs to be present in CiteULike (authors, journal name, year, page, volume, title, abstract)
4) the single step reaction that you have in your scheme MUST be in the article you are citing

I will shortly stop giving this feedback repeatedly and just grade it accordingly at each deadline.

If any student has tips (especially for making molecules the proper size in Chemsketch) it would be great if you could record a 1-2 minute screencast of it. Just download the trial version of Camtasia, save as an avi and I'll give you instructions to upload.

Tutoring

The Drexel Learning Center is offering tutoring for organic chemistry students this term. If you find this to be useful share your experience here.

More blog assignment info

1) For a reminder of how to use Chemsketch, Flickr and Blogger to do your assignment review this tutorial. There seems to be a problem with the ChemSketch version on the Drexel server so use the link to the free version of ChemSketch in that post.

2) You may not copy reactions or text from articles.

3) Pick one simple reaction that we covered and only draw that.

4) You may use ChemSketch or drawing on a tablet PC or drawing on paper and scanning the reaction if you have to but in the long run ChemSketch will come in very handy so might as well learn it now.

5) After uploading make sure that the pic is not too wide, as it will distort the right hand frame of the blog.

EduFrag blog

As I mentioned previously, you may submit your blog assignment as an Unreal Tournament map. A blog for information about this has been created. Subscribe to the feed if you want to keep on top of this project, either as a map developer or a player.

first deadline coming up

The first deadline for the blog assignment is a week away. It is worth 1% of your final grade. If you fail to submit in time you will get zero. No extensions will be given. You don't have to create a blog. Just reply to the Blogger invitation I sent you and post here.

summer webct course active

It looks like the problems with access to the WebCT course for summer 05 have been solved. If you are registered for this course you should be able to access it in the summer term now. This is where you will take the tests and exam, which are now set.

If you are auditing the course, nothing has changed. Still use the guest account.

class update

1) Everyone who has contacted me should have been sent a request to post to this blog. Let me know if you have not.

2) If I have made arrangements with you to be registered for this class, make sure you contact Amber to have you registered for CHEM242-900. You should be able to see the class listed in the summer term soon in WebCT. There is currently a problem with the WebCT listing in the summer term but everyone should have access to the Default Term listing either through your account or the guest account. Email me if you need the password to that. You can do everything as a guest except take the 2 tests and exam. Students auditing the class should use the guest account to log in at http://webct.drexel.edu

3) If you have a question, make sure to check the recorded lectures first, especially the review sessions. The quickest and easiest way to do that is to check the pdf or Powerpoint to get an idea or roughly where in the recording the explanation is likely to be. I spent a lot of time last term finding the location of student questions in the review sessions to answer email queries. My time is better spent answering new questions.

4) If you still don't see your question answered, then post it to this blog. Your questions have to be of the format "I am having trouble with converting x to y. Based on the notes, I was expecting the product to be p but that answer is not correct." Questions that don't indicate how you tried to solve the problem (e.g. "What is the answer for question 1 of quiz 1?" will be deleted. I would encourage other students in the class to attempt to answer the question as a comment to the post. This will only help you learn the material better.

5) The test dates will be scheduled shortly.

6) You may submit your 5% blog assignment as an Unreal Tournament Map (here is an example). This is definitely a more difficult project but could also be more rewarding to create [and to grade :)]. Contact me for details if interested in this option.

Problem Set

Chapter 9: 27,33,36,37.
Chapter 10: 33-39.
Chapter 11: 41,42,44,48.
Chapter 12: 15-19.
Chapter 13: 33-41, except 37.
Chap 14: 30,31,33
Chap 15: 24,25,27,30
Chap 16: 27,28,32,34

summer of 2005 introduction

This is the first post for the special online only organic chemistry (CHEM 242) class for the summer of 2005. Everything prior to this post concerns a previous term.

All of you who are taking this class have just finished CHEM 241 with me. It will be similar but there are a few changes:

1) The class material is mainly on WebCT. A partial podcast of the audio files is available here. But the screencast, Powerpoint and pdf notes are in WebCT. Only Real Media files are available for the screencast at this time. You should have access to the class in your default term in WebCT. Make sure to click on "View all my WebCT classes" link if you don't see the class listed.

2) The FAQ for the class is the same as last term. Make sure you subscribe to it in case there is the odd post.

3) The syllabus is a bit different from last term - read carefully (next post).

4) This section is online only. There are no set meetings but if you get stuck send me an email or post to the blog (see 6 below). The first test will be around week5 and the second around week 10. Pace yourself so that you cover the material you need to for the tests.

5) I will be out until June 26, with no access to email. If you have any questions, save them for when I return and keep going through the material. In the meantime practice with the quizzes and problem sets. I have noticed that almost all questions I get from students are covered in one of the review sessions already recorded. Use the pdf to give you an idea of where in the screencast you should find the problem explained.

6) I will add you to the class blog to post your blog assignment (see syllabus in next post). If you wish to be anonymous just email me the username you chose. You may also post questions and comments to the blog. If I am not around another student might have the answer for you.

test 2 make-up average

77%

test 2 chapters

The test starting Friday will cover Chapters 12-15.
Send me your questions for the review session on Friday morning.

podcasting of mp3's now available

You can now receive the lecture audio mp3's for this class automatically through the RSS feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Chem242wi05lecture-podcast-mp3

You must first download an aggregator like ipodder. Copy the above link in the field to add links then click on "check selected feed". Ipodder will automatically download mp3's as they become available. On your PC these files will show up in a folder called "My Received Podcasts" under "My Documents". I believe that if you have an ipod it will copy the files directly onto the device.

The nice thing is that the downloads happen in the background, as long as you are connected to the internet. Let me know how it works out.