Chemistry Cassettes
The ETGT began making multimedia resources, e.g. “Chemistry Cassettes”, long before the word multimedia entered common usage. These “Chemistry Cassettes”, comprising audio tapes, workbooks and questions were produced in the 1980s and covered a wide variety of topics and were distributed all over the world. With time the number sold decreased such that in 2001 it was decided to discontinue them in the original form but to explore how they might be distributed in other formats. A www version, entitled “Chemistry Topics” has now been published (ETGT/RSC) can now be accessed on-line (see www.rsc/org/chemistrytopics ) and can be used for private study.
Videos
The ETGT and the Royal Society of Chemistry combined to explore the possibilities for presenting chemical reactions and processes on video in 1989.The result was the first laser video disc for Chemistry on “Hydrogen : Generation, Properties and Reactions” in 1990. This pilot project paved the way for a successful bid (£500,000) to the Universities Funding Council (now the Four UK Higher Education Funding Councils) in order to make high quality generic videos for learning and teaching Chemistry.
The ETGT acted in an advisory capacity for some products and in collaboration with the CVC in one case:
“Basic Laboratory Chemistry” (19 laser video discs with bar code access; 1995/96;university/school level; CVC/Films for the Humanities and Sciences)
“Practical Laboratory Chemistry” (19 interactive CDROMs; 1999; university/school level;CVC; http://www.chem..soton.ac.uk/cvc/ and http://www.viewtech.co.uk )
“Practical Chemistry for Schools and Colleges” (2 interactive CDROMs; 2000; CVC/RSC; http://www.chemsoc.org/networks/learnnet/pract-cd.htm and http://www.viewtech.co.uk )
“Physical Chemistry Experiments” (4 interactive CDROMs with data from real experiments; 2001; ETGT/CVC; http://www.viewtech.co.uk ))
“Le bon geste pratique en Chimie/Practical Laboratory Chemistry” (20 dual language interactive CDROMs; 2002; university level; CVC/Centre de Developpement Informatique Enseignment Chimie (CDIEC; Universite de Nice, France; http://www.unice.fr/cdiec/cdroms/le_bon_geste/le_bon_geste_uk.htm )
“Special Collection pour Lycees” (8 dual language interactive CDROMs tailored towards the needs of students in Lycees; 2003; CVC/CDIEC; http://www.unice.fr/cdiec/cdroms/le_bon_geste/le_bon_geste_uk.htm )
Chemistry Images Database
It was quickly recognised that the CVC project could not do justice to both practical work and lecture demonstrations. It was decided, therefore, to create a database for lecture demonstrations, entitled “Chemistry Images”, and allow teachers and lecturer to search for their own materials in their own time according to their own need. The database was set up on the RSC www site (http://www.rsc.org/is/cvc/chem_img.htm ; 1997). Such was the success that the original post-16 database was expanded and a pre-16 database was created. More than 1,000 films, videos, CDROMs and DVDs with abstracts are described with (see Education in Chemistry, 2003, pp LINK ). The database is regularly updated (last update in May 2003).
European Centre for Chemistry Education
ETGT -Products