Reflection Week 6

Today (30 Mac 2013) is the sixth lesson of Technology and Innovation in Teaching and Learning Chemistry. I have learnt two free software applications which are Microsoft Office Publisher and Chemsketch today.

       I can use Microsoft Office Publisher to produce flyer, greeting card, calender, brochure and etc. Below is a flyer which created by using Microsoft Office Publisher.

The advantages of Microsoft Office Publisher are :

• Easy and simple to use
• Graphic is easily imported and formatted
• Numerous Templated
• Professional printing and publishing options

The disavantages of Microsoft Office Publisher are : 

• Not particular formats
• Not very suitable for creating teaching and learning material

       To overcome the weaknesses of Microsoft Office Publisher, we could use alternative software to create teaching and learning material such as Chemsketch.

      

       Besides that, I have also learnt to draw structure of molecule, draw set-up apparatus and write chemical equation by using Chemsketch. There are several advantages of Chemsketch application, which are:

• Draw and view structures in 2D, or render in 3D to view from any angle

• Draw reactions and reaction schemes, and calculate reactant quantities

• Generate structures from InChI and SMILES strings

• Generate IUPAC systematic names for molecules of up to 50 atoms and 3 ring structures

• Predict logP for individual structures

• Search for structures in the built-in dictionary of over 165,000 systematic, trivial, and trade names

• Visualize chemical structures in 2D or 3D to gain more insight into spatial configurations, and relationships to molecular properties

• Create professional reports, working with structures, text, and graphics simultaneously

       In short, Chemsketch is a very good tools to create teaching and learning materials and tools. Below is the example of complexes drawn by using Chemsketch.