ARE YOU WITH ME Students use computers distributed during class to delve into abstract topics and to give professors feedback on comprehension.

The students are beneficiaries of Project Numina, an experimental UNCW program that is introducing wireless handheld computers into the lecture hall and laboratory. The computers help students to visualize chemical concepts and allow professors to poll students' understanding of these concepts while they are being taught.

Ward believes the key element in improving student performance is interactivity. Students can "interact with molecules, rotate them, and make measurements on them," he says. The devices also boost attentiveness. "When the students get these computers in their hands, they really focus on what they're doing with them," he adds.

The project is a joint effort of UNCW's chemistry, computer science, and mathematics departments. Pearson Education--a publishing company that wanted an opportunity to test students' reaction to its electronic version of the Brown, LeMay, and Bursten textbook "Chemistry: The Central Science"--provided seed funding to get the UNCW project off the ground. The university contributed an additional $90,000, which covered installation of a wireless network in the chemistry, computer science, and math buildings and acquisition of most of the computers.

The faculty purchased 100 of Hewlett Packard's Jornada 690 and 720 handheld computers, which ranged in price up to $1,100. The devices feature a Windows CE operating system, full graphics-based Web browsing capabilities, and Pocket versions of Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and a database tool. Hypercube produced a version of its HyperChem molecular modeling package to run on the handhelds. More programs are under development to extend the system's interactive modules to kinetics, electrochemistry, and colligative properties such as freezing-point depression and osmotic pressure. UNCW is offering free access to the software it develops in-house. Numina's website offers a test drive (http://turing.csc.uncwil.edu/numina/).

One popular feature is a student-response system that allows instructors to ask students questions in the classroom. The students respond anonymously via their handhelds, and a graph of the distribution of results is displayed instantly at the front of the classroom. "It's like 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' when the contestant asks the audience a question," Ward says.

"Normally in a classroom, when you ask students a question, you get three or four people at most who will raise their hands to answer it--and you don't have any idea what anybody else is thinking," he says. With the HPs, on the other hand, "I get an instant profile of what everyone in class believes the answer to be, so I can use that information right at that moment to decide whether I need to go back and review something or whether it's okay to move on." And students like seeing "that they weren't the only one who thought that the answer was 'B.' So this becomes a really valuable classroom tool that everybody who's used it so far goes nuts over," Ward says.

Questions can be framed as a simple text-based multiple choice or in a more sophisticated format, for example, by displaying pictures of laboratory apparatus and requiring the student to click on pieces that would be needed to assemble, say, a distillation apparatus.

UNCW is developing materials for playing videos and animations so multimedia questions can be included in exams this fall. For instance, a video clip could show formation of different precipitates, and the students could then be asked to identify the one that is lead iodide--which is bright yellow. "They have done these activities in the lab, we've talked about them in class, and now we can bring that into the testing environment," Ward says.

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