We report a molecular modeling study for undergraduate students aimed at carrying out an analysis of small molecules using a systematic conformational search with VEGA ZZ, a freely available software program. Conformational analyses were performed using a systematic search based on variations of torsion angles. First, the conformations of n-butane…

Location Based Games (LBGs) can support various learning activities in both formal and informal settings. Furthermore, the fact that they can utilize players' physical movement for players' advancement in the game world makes them an appealing alternative for promoting physical activity in students. However, LBGs are not sufficiently used in…

Scientific computing and computer literacy are increasingly important skills for chemistry students to learn, but despite this need, there is an absence of chemistry-specific texts available for teaching the subject. This article introduces a freely available textbook released under a Creative Commons license for use in an undergraduate scientific…

A popular idea in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is to use multimodal annotated texts, with annotations typically including embedded audio and translations, to support L2 learning through reading. An important question is how to create the audio, which can be done either through human recording or by a Text-To-Speech (TTS) synthesis…

UC Merced's upper-division analytical chemistry course has been modified to include a series of Jupyter notebooks intended to introduce chemistry students to the Python computer language. These Jupyter notebooks were designed to cover a wide variety of topics common to quantitative and instrumental analysis. Assuming no prior programming…

As an emergent technology augmented reality (AR) demonstrated a plethora of advantages in foreign language education, promoting motivation, memorization of contents as well as contextualized learning. However, the majority of teachers are unfamiliar with AR, and their role as designers and facilitators requires further investigation. Moreover,…

Data science and informatics tools are developing at a blistering rate, but their users often lack the educational background or resources to efficiently apply the methods to their research. Training resources and vignettes that accompany these tools often deprecate because their maintenance is not prioritized by funding, giving teams little time…

Understanding macromolecular structures is essential for biology education. Augmented reality (AR) applications have shown promise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, but are not widely used for protein visualization. While there are some tools for AR protein visualization, none of them are accessible to the…

We describe how the open-source Learning and Reading Assistant (LARA) platform was used to convert a classic Old Norse text, the "Völuspá," into an interactive online form. The LARA version includes high-quality recorded audio, translations, notes on key words and phrases, an automatically generated concordance, and links to other online…

"An Corpas Cliste" ('Clever Corpus') is an Irish language learner corpus. The corpus data comes from a purpose-built intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning (iCALL) platform called "An Scéalaí" ('the Storyteller') and comprises both audio and text, produced by second and third level learners of Irish. Metadata (e.g. L1,…

Teaching some concepts in statistics greatly benefits from individual practice with immediate feedback. In order to provide such practice to a large number of students we have written a simulator based on an historical event: the loss in May 22, 1968, and subsequent search for the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion. Students work on a simplified…

Classroom response systems are an important tool in many active learning pedagogies. They support real-time feedback on student learning and promote student engagement, even in large classrooms, by allowing instructors to solicit an answer to a question from all students and show the results. Existing classroom response systems are general purpose…

Principal component analysis (PCA) is one of the most important and powerful methods in chemometrics as well as in a wealth of other areas. Running a PCA results in two main elements, the score plot and the loading plot; the score plot provides the location of the samples, and the loading plot indicates correlations among variables, the trends in…

Understanding reflection and refraction are an integral part of school and college learning. In nature even birds and fish (Archer fish) very skillfully use refraction to strike down prey present above or below the water surface. Fermat's principle allows one to look beyond the reasons behind the laws governing the reflection and refraction. A…

In order to increase students' participation in learning activities, a significant role is played by the use of the computer in Geography lessons. The efficiency of computer-assisted learning involves correlation between several essential factors: the quality of online platforms and educational software, the use of appropriate teaching strategies…