The Electronic Classroom Becomes A Reality At UB

The Electronic Classroom is becoming a reality at the University at Buffalo. Here are three examples of how technology is changing the way that professors teach, test and communicate with students.

Robert Allendoerfer, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry at the University at Buffalo, believes students who have learned about molecules by using computers in labs and for homework cannot be tested effectively using traditional methods. He and a colleague at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have developed "VizQuiz," a software program that tests students taking the general introductory chemistry course. The questions include movies, pictures and animation, plus text. Students are pleased to find a "Buy a Hint" option in the program, with hints costing several points. Click on a computer mouse and a helpful hint pops up. "In the new world of multimedia education, students have been educated by computers, and by movies and video games," Allendoerfer said. "If they've learned to move molecules around using a mouse, I don't know that it's fair to give them a paper-and-pencil test." The program, being published by the Journal of Chemical Education, will be distributed nationwide in the fall.

Allendoerfer and colleagues at other State University of New York university centers have a grant from the state Office of Educational Technology to write an electronic introductory chemistry course that will be available statewide on the Internet. "The idea is to incorporate movies and animation and make a talking, living textbook for the course," said Allendoerfer. The text could then be used in conjunction with chemistry courses taught at community colleges or other educational institutions. Ambitious high-school students (or anyone else, for that matter) with access to the Internet also could use the textbook to explore the world of chemistry.

A new computer program developed by Marcus Bursik, Ph.D., assistant professor of geology at the University at Buffalo, for an introductory geology course adds zip to geology lectures. The program, which is projected onto a movie-sized screen in new high-tech lecture halls, demonstrates geological phenomena like volcanoes and landslides. Unlike other programs that have mostly point-and-click features, this one shows how changing a specific variable, such as the viscosity of a lava flow, can alter the speed or outcome of a geological event. "Other people call their programs 'interactive,' when they are really just fancy 'point-and-click' programs that make things move," said Bursik. "But our program is truly interactive because it changes calculations, and shows what will happen based on those changes. Since the program really makes the material come alive, the students find the material easier to understand."