Open Notebook Science using Blogs and Wikis: Implications for Chemical Education Jean-Claude Bradley E-Learning Coordinator College of Arts and Sciences Drexel University April 17, 2007 The 7th Annual Leadership Initiative in Science Education (LISE 7) Chemical Heritage Foundation
What is the role of a chemistry teacher? Produce chemists!
What is a chemist? An individual who is –Chemically literate (undergrad) –Competent to create new useful chemical knowledge (graduate)
How do chemistry teachers produce chemists? Select and deliver content Assess and validate skills and knowledge Catalyze the learning process
New ways to deliver content: Screencasts on iTunes or on a video iPod
New Opportunities for Learning Catalysis Use class time for workshops and assign recorded lectures Be present while students do problems, watch lectures, play games Discuss extra credit assignment Address technical implementation on their laptops Small groups or one-on-one
Open and Closed Science Traditional Lab Notebook (unpublished) Traditional Journal Article Open Access Journal Article Open Notebook Science (full transparency) CLOSED OPEN Traditional Paper Textbook F2F lectures Lectures Notes public Assigned problems public Archived Lectures Public and free online textbooks RESEARCH TEACHING
Where is Science headed? WE ARE HERE
The Robot Scientist
How will this happen? Self-organizing redundant processes Fully Open Access (Read and Write) Publication of all aspects of the scientific process: Open Source Science / Open Notebook Science Using semantically rich formats and automation at zero publication cost – is this the way to the technological singularity?
How can machines know what is important? Ask the humans
UsefulChem Blog
What chemists think is important in 2005
Find-A-Drug
Diketopiperazine Library Evolves to: on pot Ugi reaction/cyclization First iteration: Solid Support Synthesis
The Molecules Blog
The Experiments Blog
Experiments moved to wiki
Telling the story of the failures
Experiment History
Experiment Edits
Third Party Time-Stamp on Experiment Versions
Monitoring experimental progress
usefulchem.blogspot.com The blog as an integrative tool
How are people finding our experiments?
Open science connectivity More info on open source science here
Automation in UsefulChem
NMR spectra of monitoring samples calculated
Reaction profile plotted automatically
Student assignments on a wiki
Student assignment on NMR using live research data and JSpecView
Example with Introductory Organic Chemistry
UsefulChem in Second Life
Display blog post as poster
Click on Images for Descriptions
EduFrag Maze (without weapons)
EduFrag Unreal Tournament (with weapons)
Merging Research and Teaching in Second Life
Summary We are moving towards a more open and automated world Teaching and Research can merge in new useful ways See UsefulChem.blogspot.com for more info