I am forwarding a message received from James Dix in the States (with his permission). Its a delight to have our first USA member on chemweb!
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 95 20:57:27 MST From: dix@t10.Lanl.GOV (James Arthur Dix) To: h.rzepa@ic.ac.uk Subject: WWW site for Instructors of Chemistry Cc: Kathi_Prancan@hmco.com, Stacey_Pastor@hmco.com
Dr. Rzepa,
I am creating a WWW site devoted to instructors of chemistry and chemistry instruction. The site is sponsored by Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston and will be actively maintained. I've been pondering the form and content of the site for some time, and would like to ask your advice on what should be included and how it should be arranged.
Some items to include are straightforward, such as pointers to other sites of interest to chemistry educators and instructions on how to use the WWW for novice users. But as you have pointed out repeatedly, there is much more to the WWW than just serving as a repository of information. I particularly like your sites containing recent presentations in chemistry, and your efforts in developing interactive methods to present chemical information.
Some ideas I have including scanning print and electronic media for items of use to chemistry instructors and posting digests, posting a molecule of the week with commentary by a chemist closely associated with the molecule, soliciting electronic manuscripts from colleagues describing their experiences in teaching chemistry electronically, evaluation of new educational software, interviews with movers and shakers in the world of chemical education, and developing and posting chemistry-specific Internet tools and content (especially with Sun's Java programming language and Microsoft's Blackbird technology). I would appreciate any thoughts you might have on how to enhance this WWW site for chemistry educators.
I will be presenting a paper on our site at the Spring ACS meeting in New Orleans, at a symposium on the Internet in Chemical Education. Are you planning to attend the Spring meeting? If so, maybe we could meet over lunch with like-minded colleagues and talk about how to use the Internet to its fullest potential.
James A. Dix dix@chemiris.chem.binghamton.edu Associate Professor dix@binghamton.edu Chemistry Department, Box 6016 bg0681@bingvmb.cc.binghamton.edu
State University of New York voice: (607) 777-2480 Binghamton, NY 13902-6016 USA fax: (607) 777-4478
on sabbatical leave 1995-1996:
Los Alamos National Laboratory dix@t10.lanl.gov Theoretical Biology and Biophysics voice: (505) 665-3853 T10, MS 710, TA3-SM483, Rm 103A (505) 667-7510 Los Alamos, NM 87545 USA fax: (505) 665-3493
Dr Henry Rzepa, Department of Chemistry, Imperial College, LONDON SW7 2AY; rzepa@ic.ac.uk via Eudora Pro 2.1.3; Tel (44) 171 594 5774; Fax: (44) 171 594 5804. World-Wide Web URL: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/ ----- chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To unsubscribe, send to listserver@ic.ac.uk the following message; unsubscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (rzepa@ic.ac.uk)