By videotaping a demonstration before the class, however, Sattsangi was able to edit and compress the demonstration into a 5- to 10-minute interval that could be easily viewed by students.
Then Sattsangi received a grant from Project Empower—a Commonwealth College initiative to help faculty develop more collaborative and active learning through the use of technology and multimedia.
"That was when it started taking shape," Sattsangi said, adding that the Jack P. Royer Center for Learning and Academic Technologies provided staff and instruments to help him design his multimedia endeavor.
"I thought it had great potential when I saw it," said Brett Bixler, senior instructional designer for the Royer Center, adding that at first, Sattsangi was not thinking of a full-blown interactive CD-ROM for his chemistry students.
Bixler showed Sattsangi the potential for an interactive CD-ROM in his classroom. "That helped him to reconceptualize how that all would work," Bixler said.
When Sattsangi had raised enough money for his venture, "The script was written and the video shot, and then we sent it to the Royer Center," Sattsangi said.
At the Royer Center, video and worksheets were mixed into an interactive computer program that included music composed and played by Sattsangi on an Indian bamboo flute. "On each page, a student has to read and do something before going onto the next--so it is interactive" Sattsangi said.
There are several segments to the program. "The first segment deals with theory and demonstration of the experiment," Sattsangi said. "Then there is a pre-lab coaching section. There are questions the student must answer before he or she can proceed with the lab."
He added the questions are designed to teach the students the important concepts needed to understand the experiment. "By the time you get done with it, you understand not only that the answer to question one is 'B', but you understand why the answer is 'B,'" he said, emphasizing the word "why."
The next section uses video to show the step-by-step experiment procedure. It also has space for students to type in their data. The final post-lab segment of the program helps students make calculations with their data and graph their results using Microsoft Excel.
Joe Keiser, director of the general chemistry laboratories at University Park, saw a brief demonstration the CD-ROM at an annual university-wide chemistry faculty meeting last fall.
"The thing I remember that I liked was that he had a little simulation that was running on the same page as the video clips and the instruction," Keiser said, adding that the computer animation could help students understand the chemistry of a reaction better. "It gave a visualization that paper and pencil really cannot give you."
Right now, Sattsangi has made a program for only one of the Chemistry 14 experiments, which deals with reaction kinetics. "Four more are in progress at various stages," Sattsangi said. "Probably in about a year, all five experiments should be there in the CD-ROM."
Sattsangi hopes that eventually students will be able to buy the CD-ROM for about $1.50 and view the video demonstration and pre-lab segments before coming to class, thus giving them a better grasp of the concepts of the experiment before actually doing the experiment. Then, after gathering data from the experiment, the students can return to their computer and use the post-lab help to analyze their data.
A pilot CD-ROM was used last semester at the Fayette Campus for Chemistry 14, receiving favorable reviews from students, Sattsangi said.
Sattsangi has also sent the pilot CD-ROM to interested teachers in Seattle and Lima, Peru.
The CD-ROM will probably go on sale by Fall Semester 2002 at Fayette Campus and some other bookstores at other Commonwealth Campuses, but it will probably not be seen at University Park, since the University Park students perform different experiments than many of the other Penn State campuses. Keiser said while integration of the CD-ROM might be easier at a small campus like Fayette Campus, it would more difficult at University Park.
"I'm very interested in the development in technology, although one of the challenges at a large school is that the cost benefit analysis is often different," he said. "The benefits for that have really got to be enormous in order for you to justify not only the initial outlay but the outgoing outlay."
Still, Sattsangi was pleased with the potential that the CD-ROM held. "It is very new and there's a lot of interest because is interactive and it allows the student to do independent learning," he said.
"It's a tool, and they can grow with it."
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