Plant identification apps make learning about plants more convenient. This study explored the participants' perceptions of using three plant identification apps, PlantNet, PictureThis, and LeafSnap, as potential educational tools. Problems experienced, differences in perceptions, and the participants' most preferred apps were also determined.…

The understanding of the basic principles of chromatography is of high importance for chemistry, pharmacy, and biology students. In this paper, we present a free web application which can be used as a teaching tool to introduce chromatography to undergraduate students, using one of the simplest chromatography models: the plate theory.

The high cost of establishing a cell and tissue culture facility has denied students an opportunity to practice proper aseptic techniques during their studies. An in-house application named AsepticTech Virtual Reality (VR) was developed to simulate a cell and tissue culture facility for students to train their aseptic techniques virtually.…

Today's students are increasingly immersed in a landscape of screens and handheld digital devices through which a good deal of their interactions with the world around them are mediated. Physics educators, meanwhile, continue to rely on traditional human interactions with the physical world, such as sliding down a ramp or throwing a baseball, in…

This article describes the development and deployment of Physics Toolbox Play, a gamified component of the "Android Physics Toolbox Sensor Suite" app, that can introduce young children through adults to fundamental physics principles. The app was used successfully in a variety of contexts, including STEM fairs with primary and secondary…

An android application named SmartChem was developed to explain multiple representations of acid-base chemistry. This paper is a description of an android-based media (SmartChem) through the stages of design, development, validation and revision, and finally, limited trials with pre-service science teachers. SmartChem is intended to aid students…

"Is this solution pink enough?" is a persistent question when it comes to phenolphthalein-based titration experiments, one that budding, novice scientists often ask their instructors. Lab instructors usually answer the inquiry with remarks like, "Looks like you have overshot the end point", "Perhaps you should check the…

In general chemistry laboratories, students learn practical laboratory skills through hands-on activities and are exposed to new scientific instruments. However, these instruments are often viewed as black boxes for various reasons, where students do not know how to use them or what the instruments are capable of. This tendency is likely to induce…

This article integrated inquiry behaviors and a guided learning map (gMap) into a mobile app called Ubiquitous-Physics (U-Physics), which helps students to explore inclined plane phenomena in authentic contexts. The article investigated inquiry behaviors such as interpreting graphs, applying formulas, drawing conclusions, and peer collaboration,…

In order to stimulate learning interest among university students towards biochemistry and to improve learning outcomes, we performed a 10-week biochemistry Rain Classroom teaching experiment among students majoring in clinical medicine. Rain Classroom is a plug-in for WeChat, a smartphone instant messaging application. Teachers can post teaching…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using a mobile app-based sky map to teach college students about constellations, stars, nebulae, and star clusters. The name of the app was Star Chart. The setting for the study was a community college in West Tennessee. Twenty out of 60 participants were males, with 83% of all being less…

Over the past 25 years, the Davidson College Physics Department has developed small computer programs called Physlets. These programs were written in Java and distributed as Java applets embedded in HTML pages. Physics teachers from around the world used Physlets to author interactive computer-based curricular materials for the teaching of…

The study of embryonic development of multiple organisms, including model organisms such as frogs and chicks, is included in many undergraduate biology programs, as well as in a variety of graduate programs. As our knowledge of biological systems increases and the amount of material to be taught expands, the time spent instructing students about…

Probing university students' understanding of direct-current (DC) resistive circuits is still a field of active physics education research. We report here on a study we conducted of this understanding, where the cohort consisted of students in a large-enrollment first-year physics module. This is a non-calculus based physics module for students in…

It has been suggested that few students graduate with the skills required for many ecological careers, as field-based learning is said to be in decline in academic institutions. Here, we asked if mobile technology could improve field-based learning, using ability to identify birds as the study metric. We divided a class of ninety-one undergraduate…