In the above article, Hamilton Holt, president of a small college in 1931, is quoted  describing the customary academic lecture as “that mysterious process by means of which the contents of the professor’s notebooks are transferred by means of the fountain pen to the pages of the student’s notebook without passing through the mind of either.” Click here to read the whole article.

E. M. Landesman, in Syllabus, May 1999: “In large lecture-style mathematics courses, only about 20 percent of  the students truly gain much benefit. And those who do are often the very best students. The other 80 percent often behave as stenographers, furiously taking notes in an almost rote fashion.”

E. K. Wilson, in “Thinking Instead of Cookbooking”, Chem. Eng. News, May 26, 1997: “When computers take over the dirty work in college chemistry labs, students can focus on the bigger picture.”

P. M. Zurer, in “An Educational Experience”, Chem. Eng. News, August 26, 2002, quotes John D. Simon, chairman of the Chemistry Department at Duke University, about honors freshman chemistry students at the University of California in San Diego, where he was a professor before moving to Duke: “When asked what chemists do for a living, the students answered: ‘Chemists measure pK_as. They do titrations.’ Why should we expect they’d think anything else, given the cookbook labs they’d taken?” Click here to read the whole article.

K. Hafner, in “Study Finds That Teachers Fail to Grasp the Web’s Potential”, The New York Times, August 15, 2002, quotes a 17-year old high school senior: “Physics teachers use physicsclassroom.com and say, ‘Go there and look up such and such lesson and I'll quiz you tomorrow’. I don't consider that creative, or even educational.” In contrast, he said he admired the inventiveness of a science teacher who led an online study group that convened before quizzes to review material. “Teachers don't use those methods more because they have a lack of faith in the Internet,” he said. Click here to read the whole article.

The above five quotes illustrate my motivation for putting together this Web site about the possible uses of technology for improving undergraduate instruction in the classroom and in the laboratory. Today is probably a transition period for educational methods, but the two examples below should make us hesitant to make predictions.

This Web site will attempt to keep track of some technological developments that may or may not contribute to more effective teaching and learning at the undergraduate level. Although the emphasis is on undergraduate chemistry courses, most of the information presented here is pertinent to undergraduate education in general and also to K-12 and graduate education. Predictions will be kept to a minimum. I've tried to combine general information with specifics for those who would like to try implementation. When a chapter acquires more than a few sections, as the chapter on digital video already has, I may include an “In a Hurry?” section that gives brief versions of the detailed sections. The first “In a Hurry?” reading is actually What & Why? Read Me First, which describes what I cover in each chapter and why. Also, the “Step-By-Step Instructions” chapter will present even more detailed information. This is a large Web site. There may be better ways to arrange the material. Suggestions are very welcome: