ChemThink – Two New HTML5 Tutorials and Guest Mode
Covalent Bonding and Molecular Shapes For HTML5 Now Available!
The first piece of news may not be news to you at all! If you have particularly sharp eyes, you might have noticed that both “Molecular Shapes” and “Covalent Bonding” are now available in the HTML5 ChemThink web app. Although they should be fully functional at this point, we are still doing some tweaking and testing to make sure they are ready for students before the start of the coming school year. Please let us know if you see any problems!
A Tetrahedral Molecule in 3D – From the new Molecular Shapes Tutorial
The Molecular Shapes tutorial has undergone a major overhaul since it was original created 15 years ago. The new version of the tutorial starts by visualizing the 3D location of each electron pair in a Lewis Dot diagram, then uses those locations to show “areas of electron concentration” in 3D (shown in dark yellow on the image above), and finally shows students the 3D space-filing model of each molecule. With new 3D visualization and physics-based animations, students should be able to much more easily understand how and why molecules assume certain shapes.
With the inclusion of “Covalent Bonding” and “Molecular Shapes”, five of the original eleven ChemThink tutorials are now available on the ChemThink web app:
| ChemThink server and database | ✓ Done |
| Atomic Structure tutorial and questions HTML5 port | ✓ Done |
| The Particulate Nature of Matter tutorial and questions HTML5 port | ✓ Done |
| Ions tutorial and questions HTML5 port | ✗ Flash Only, No Server or Database Connectivity |
| Ionic Formulas tutorial and questions HTML5 port | ✗ Flash Only, No Server or Database Connectivity |
| Ionic Bonding tutorial and questions HTML5 port | ✓ Done |
| Covalent Bonding tutorial and questions HTML5 port | ✓ Done |
| Molecular Shapes tutorial and questions HTML5 port | ✓ Done |
| Gas Laws tutorial and questions HTML5 port | ✗ Flash Only, No Server or Database Connectivity |
| Isotopes tutorial and questions HTML5 port | ✗ Flash Only, No Server or Database Connectivity |
| Chemical Reactions tutorial and questions HTML5 port | ✗ Flash Only, No Server or Database Connectivity |
| Precipitates Lab Simulation HTML5 port | ✗ Flash Only, No Server or Database Connectivity |
“Guest Mode” Coming Soon – No Student Login Required!
The second piece of news is that this summer we will create “guest mode” for ChemThink. I’m sure many of you have been frustrated when students forget their password and can’t log into ChemThink. In many cases, students lose a good chunk of the period trying to login and navigate the system. This is valuable time they could otherwise spend thinking about how atoms bond to each other or why molecules are formed in different shapes. In order to reduce the amount of mental friction in the classroom, we are creating “guest mode”. Guest mode should get students into the appropriate tutorial or question set immediately — no student login required!
Guest mode is still evolving as a concept, but we should have a basic version of it up and running in the next week or two, and it should be completely ready to go by the beginning of August. We will put out an announcement when it is ready.
Please Consider Supporting ChemThink with a Donation
ChemThink still needs your support! Please consider donating to help defray server costs. To donate, click on the paypal button below, or send an email to developers@nerdislandstudios.com:
