by Eric Beidel, Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech

September 12, 2003

Three sections of freshman chemistry students are not lugging around expensive, heavy textbooks this semester. Instead, they take home a DVD and pop it into their computer.

Chemistry instructor Ketan Trivedi has put a semester’s worth of freshman chemistry onto an interactive DVD, first used this summer in distance learning courses in several places including Abingdon and Roanoke.

“It’s like carrying your instructor home with you,” Trivedi said.

The DVD has 10 chapters and several sections under each chapter, just as a traditional textbook would.

The difference, Trivedi said, is in the amount of interactive learning the DVD allows.

The DVD contains 88 different voices as well as videos, animations, practice problems and timed multiple choice questions.

It also includes an interactive periodic table, which speaks the names of the elements in a male voice for metals, a female voice for non-metals and yet another female voice for metalloids.

“Chemistry is like a language,” Trivedi said. “It’s like someone talking to you and this DVD is talking to you.”

Trivedi and his company, Trivedi Technology Innovations International (T2I2), developed the DVD over the course of three years, looking at over 27 chemistry textbooks for guidance.

It took Trivedi three-and-a-half months to develop the first periodic table for the project. Even then, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue with the project given the amount of time it required.

“Then I just went to work and students started helping with their feedback and that’s what pushed it on,” he said.

Within a year, Trivedi and his company hope to have a whole year’s worth of chemistry on the DVD.

Chemistry professor Herve Marand uses the DVD for his freshman chemistry class for engineers and said his students have adapted to it rather easily.

“I think it was more of a challenge for teachers to make the transition, because students are much more computer-oriented nowadays,” Marand said. “Some students are more auditory and this way they can hear the lecture as many times as they want.”

Students can interactively learn about elements, formulas and compounds through trial and error, something that wouldn’t happen with a traditional textbook, Marand said.

“Students don’t mind playing with a computer for a while to learn these compounds,” he said.

Trivedi said using the DVD has made his lectures fresher and allowed the students to be more involved.

“I don’t want to sound like a textbook in the classroom,” he said. “With the DVD, students can hear a different voice for a while.”

Trivedi and Marand make the DVD a recommended text for their classes and say there have only been a couple cases where students didn’t have the computer access needed to use the DVD out of the classroom.

The DVD costs just under $70 compared to a traditional chemistry textbook, which costs around $125, Trivedi said.

Ten students have been very involved with Trivedi and the project, and the students’ input has made the project what it is, he said.

Thus far, Trivedi said their response has been overwhelmingly positive.

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