Educational Media Reviews Online

This interactive learning tool on CD-ROM is included with the Houghton Mifflin text book, Physical Chemistry 4th Edition (2003) by Laidler, Meiser, and Sanctuary. The textbook is designed for the typical junior-level college course in physical chemistry. The CD-ROM provides interactive lessons for each of the 16 chapters in the textbook. Most students, even as juniors, find physical chemistry a significant challenge. Having this interactive CD-ROM helps enliven and clarify the textbook material.

Effective use is made of visuals, audio, and in particular, animations. Principles are demonstrated clearly by use of visuals of lab apparatuses where the student can adjust certain variables via slide bars and visually see the results. Navigation is generally clear, which is especially helpful since the content is very rich.

The major criticism is that the screen design overly crowded and segmented, with two main navigation tool bars, two text areas, and an options area to manipulate the animations. Only 6-9 short lines of text are displayed at one time in each text area, requiring much scrolling which hinders smooth reading. Doing the next action in sequence such as advancing to the next page or activating an animation is done by one of four mouse clicks at any given point, so careful attention is required to make certain no part of the lesson is missed. A single, universal way of advancing linearly through the lesson should be used.

The MCH Multimedia web site at http://www.mchmultimedia.com/home.mv provides excellent information on their product line and allows downloading of the full-featured version of any MCH product for a time-limited evaluation.

Awards: ComputEd Gazette’s 2002 Eddie Award for Best Science Software