The Advantages of the Conceptual Chemistry Curriculum for:

•Online college courses
•Large enrollment college courses
•Small enrollment college courses
•High School College-Prep
•Home Schooling

Online college courses

The Conceptual Chemistry textbook was originally designed to accompany a distance learning course taught at the University of Hawaii. The "Hands-On Chemistry" features that appear in each chapter, for example, were adapted from the take-home laboratories developed for this course. Furthermore, the Hands-On Chemistry Insights that appear at the back of each chapter were also originally written for distance learning students. Distance learning students, in general, are more apt to be learning on their own. The author’s desire to produce a textbook that could "teach itself", therefore, arose from trying to meet the needs of his distance learning students.

While textbooks are a good medium for learning chemistry concepts, the majority of students also need to see and hear a human describing these concepts in plain English. Graphics, animations, and demonstrations of the concepts are also very important, as is seeing students like themselves exploring chemistry in the kitchen as well as in the community. Conceptual Chemistry Alive! was thus created as a "talking textbook" so as to meet these special student needs.

Initially, Conceptual Chemistry Alive! was presented over cable television networks reaching students in both Hawaii and California. Ultimately, it was found that the television was inferior to the personal computer in delivering curriculum to the student. Conceptual Chemistry Alive! was thus developed into an interactive 12 disc CD-ROM package, which for the third edition was developed further into a single DVD-ROM.

What CCAlive! does not offer is the personal guidance students need to help them articulate what they think they have learned. It lacks the social interactions found when students and the instructor get together to discuss the concepts and issues. It lacks the ability to assess whether or not learning has taken place. It lacks to the ability to advise each student what he or she might do beyond learning chemistry in the classroom. This and the many other vital tasks involved in teaching are still clearly in the hands of the instructor.