TsoiChem: MOBILE APPLICATION FOR LEARNING
FUNCTIONAL GROUPS
ABSTRACT
Mobile devices such as iPhone are omnipresent today. With their touch screen capabilities these devices are highly
interactive and engaging and hence can be used as an effective learning tool. This paper describes a mobile application
created as a learning tool for organic chemistry students. The learning needs of organic chemistry students studying
functional groups were first identified, the existing learning applications were surveyed and then a functional prototype of
the application was created using iOS SDK. Unlike existing chemistry applications, this application leverages the multitouch feature of iPhone to teach organic chemistry fundamentals to students.
KEYWORDS
Mobile learning, mobile application development, iPhone application, chemistry education
1. INTRODUCTION
Over recent years, mobile communications technology has advanced leaps and bounds. Lee (2006) and
Leung and Chan (2003) specify that there are over 10 billion users worldwide and this number continues to
grow every year. Features like integrated still and video cameras, web browsers, video conferencing, widgets,
Bluetooth and accelerator provide a rich experience to the user. Tucker and Winchester (2009) explain that as
modes of communication changed, consumers’ expectations of their mobile information, education and
entertainment have also changed. People expect information to be available and accessible anytime
anywhere. Podcasts and videos are just two examples of media available on mobile devices that supports
self-instruction. Sharples and Westmancott (2002) mention that over the past 30 years both technology and
learning have become more collaborative, individualized, user centered and continuing.
The popularity of mobile devices among students and the availability of touch screen devices make
mobile devices a perfect avenue for delivering content that can be accessed anywhere and everywhere, on the
go. In this paper we discuss how the multi-touch features of devices like iPhone can be leveraged to create
interactive and engaging application to teach fundamentals of organic chemistry to science students, thereby
transferring the effectiveness of paper and pencil practice technique into a digital and mobile format. The
application discussed here focuses on functional groups, but these ideas can be applied to other areas in
chemistry and to other disciplines.
This paper is organized as follows: section 2 discusses the background work, section 3 describes the
application and its development in detail and section 4 concludes the paper by discussing the future directions
of this project.
2. BACKGROUND
2.1 Mobile Learning
Mobile learning has become an important form of learning and has received a lot of attention in recent years.
Winters (2006) describes it as any form of learning that is mediated through the use of a mobile device, with
an emphasis on “mediated”. Use of laptops and smart phones are very common on college campuses and
some universities have conducted studies on the use of mobile technology for academic purposes. Studies
conducted by Belanger (2005), Patten (2006), Sauder (2009) and Pennington (2010) all discuss the various
uses of mobile devices for academic purposes. Although the student response in these studies is favorable to
the use of mobile devices, the uses of mobile devices themselves are not innovative. Faculty and students
mainly use these devices for information storage and retrieval or for administrative purposes like calendaring
and polling. Holdsworth and Lui (2009) discuss a GPS application that engages the students by requiring the
students to move so as to move the cursor in the application to a certain position.
In all these studies the authors emphasize that mobile learning should be used in addition to an existing
learning environment. The ever-evolving technology provides numerous possibilities for innovations in
pedagogy, but the pedagogical use of this technology is not as innovative yet. There is a need to take better
advantage of the existing and evolving technology to provide better mobile learning environments than what
exist today. Mere delivery and retrieval of information is not sufficient. Our goal for this application was to
leverage the haptic recognition skill in learners to teach organic chemistry fundamentals.
2.2 Mobile Applications for Chemistry
Organic chemistry students usually struggle with the content due to its visual nature and its requirement for
various learning skills (visual, logical and mechanical). We reviewed existing Chemistry educational
applications
for
iPhone/iTouch
devices
available
in
the
iTunes
store
at
website
<http://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/mobile-software-applications/id6017?mt=8&letter=C&page=4#page>. A
large majority of these applications provide useful information about various Chemistry topics, have colorcoded periodic tables, flash cards, quizzes and links to more information on various websites. Most of the
quiz applications have features like detailed feedback and performance statistics. The reference applications
provide a lot of information; the periodic tables are color-coded and allow comparison of various elements
based on different selectable properties. The app store is also full of chemical solvers, calculators and unit
converters. There are only few applications that go beyond mere retrieval of information and use features of
the iOS platform to their advantage. One such example is an application called ChemJuice, which allows the
users to draw their own molecules along with other features like solver, periodic table, etc. Chem Lab uses
the touch and drag feature of iPhone to allow the user to drag various elements in a flask to form a chemical
compound. None of these applications address our goals of enabling users to recognize functional groups in
their various forms.
Tsoi (unpublished) conducted a study with an iPhone application for learning Chinese characters. The
study involved 2 groups of students, one that practiced Chinese characters using the traditional pen and paper
practice technique, while the other group of students used an iPhone application that required them to
practice writing these Chinese characters by highlighting the strokes in the correct order. Strokes touched and
dragged in an incorrect order are not highlighted. This study showed no difference in the performance of both
groups of students in writing Chinese characters after their training. It shows that the effectiveness of the pen
and paper practice technique can be transferred to a digital medium.
3. TsoiChem
3.1 Why iPhone?
The goal in creating this mobile application was to transfer the effectiveness of pen and paper practice
method to a portable digital device. Instead of just creating flash cards and showing the functional
groups, we wanted the students to touch and highlight the bonds and atoms to learn the structure of
various functional groups and identify them in different forms. Consider the following example. Fig. 1
shows the structural formula of a ketone. If a student sees this representation of a ketone, they will be
able to identify ketone in other similar examples, such as in Fig.2, but may not be able to identify the
same functional group from CH3COCH3, which is the same example as Fig.2, but in a different format.
This problem arises due to the fact that looking at the image the user may not necessarily realize or
remember that the corner where the double bond begins represents a carbon atom and hence may not
recognize the CO in CH3COCH3 as a ketone. The acetone is a very simple example used here for ease of
understanding, but the students may see more complex examples in their exams, many of which are
made up by the professors to increase their complexity. Hence, if the student were to practice by
identifying and highlighting all three components of the ketone; the corner representing the carbon
atom, the double bond and the O, that would help emphasize such subtle concepts to the student and
thus make the concept clearer.
Figure 1.
Structural
formula of Ketone
Figure 2. Presence
of Ketone in
Acetone molecule
The iPhone/iTouch devices with their multi-touch capabilities were hence the best choice to host our
application. Other features of iPhone like accelerometer and high quality graphics were also factors that
helped us choose iPhone.
3.2 Process Flow
This application has three modes. After launching the application, the user can select from “Practice It”,
“Name It” or “Find It” mode. The purpose of the “Practice It” mode is to help the user identify all the
components of a functional group and identify the functional groups in their various forms. Hence, in the
“Practice It” mode, the user is provided with an example, randomly chosen by the application and then has to
touch and highlight the atoms and bonds that form a specific functional group in a molecule. When all the
components of a functional group are indentified, the name of that functional group is displayed. A single
Molecule may contain multiple functional groups. In such cases the user has to identify all the functional
groups before proceeding to the next example. The figures below depict this workflow.
Figure 3. Main screen when the
application is launched allows the
user to pick a mode
Figure 4. A partially
highlighted Ketone.
Figure 5. When functional
group is fully highlighted, its
identity is revealed
Figure 6. Multiple functional
groups in the same molecule have
all to be highlighted
Figure 7. Functional group in
a condensed formula
Figure 8. Correctly highlighted
functional group and its name
It is important to note in Figure 4. that unless the carbon atom is highlighted, the identity of the functional
group is not revealed. In Figure 6. every time the user identifies a functional group its identity is revealed, but
the user cannot proceed to the next example until all the functional groups are identified. In Figure 7. Once
again, the “C”, “H” and “O” are independent components that have to be highlighted before the identity of
that functional group is revealed.
The “Name It” mode is designed to help the user self-assess and review the concepts practiced in the
“Practice It” mode. Hence, in the “Name It” mode the user is once again provided with a randomly chosen
example and once again has to highlight atoms and bonds that form the functional group. When all the
components are highlighted, the user is provided with 4 different options and has to select the correct name
of the functional group from those options. The user gets 3 chances to correctly specify the name of the
identified functional groups. In this mode, the user cannot continue to the next example until all the
functional groups in the current molecule have been identified. This mode requires the user to identify each
functional group correctly and identify the name of that functional group.
Figure 10. Options to select the
correct name of the functional
group from
Figure 11. Incorrect name selected
is hidden
Figure 12. Three attempts
exhausted
Figure 13. Correct name of
functional group identified
Figure 14. Examples that have
Amine functional group should
be identified
Figure 15. One example in the
bin, one more to go
The “Find It” mode is for the advanced user and provides multiple examples in various forms to the user.
The user has to identify the correct examples that include the required functional group, drag those examples
on-by-one and drop them in the bin. The bin displays a counter that updates as the examples are dropped in it.
Once all the examples have been correctly identified the user can move to the next example. As in the other
modes, the examples in this mode are also randomly chosen. If incorrect examples are dropped in the bin,
they snap back to their original position. If any of the examples are placed anywhere else on the screen they
snap back to their original position.
The application provides audio feedback for all the examples in all the modes along with visual feedback.
The application also provides tutorials for different modes to assist the users in navigating through the
application, if required and a Hint button that provides content specific hint.
Figure 16. Tutorial for Practice
It mode
Figure 17. Tutorial for Name It
Mode
Figure 18. Tutorial for Find It
mode
3.3 Implementation
The students registered in Software Development II course developed this application. The initial details of
this project are discussed in Dekhane and Tsoi (2010). The iOS SDK was used to create this application. The
user interface was designed using Interface Builder. Interface Builder is a visual tool, used to create graphical
user interfaces. Xcode was used as the development environment. This environment allows the user to test
the application on an iPhone simulator. The application was also later tested on iTouch devices. Xcode also
supports software configuration management. A central Subversion repository was created on
www.assembla.com and configured in Xcode for controlling the source code.
The iOS platform consists of 4 technology layers:
1. Core OS and Core Services are used for low level data types, file access, network sockets, etc.
and are C-based interfaces.
2. The Media layer is used for drawing, animation, audio and video and is a mixture of C and
Objective-C technologies.
3. The topmost layer is the Cocoa Touch layer, which mainly consists of Objective-C frameworks
that provide the fundamental infrastructure needed for the applications. Examples include file
management, collections, user interface controls and controllers, access to accelerometer, etc.
Cocoa environment makes effective use of many design patterns including model-view-controller. The
user interface can be created independently using Interface Builder, while the logic to handle the behavior of
the objects on the interface can be implemented in the view controller files using Xcode. A special instance
variable called outlet allows the controller class to refer to objects in the view. Objects in the view can trigger
special methods in controller classes called action methods.
For the development of this application the Cocoa Touch and Media layers were used. This is a multiview application that uses buttons, images, and tabs to provide a rich and engaging user experience. These
interface objects are provided by classes in the UIKit framework, part of Cocoa Touch layer. This application
also supports scrolling and zooming in and out by pinching. The UIResponder class supports the multi-touch
detection and handling and the AudioToolbox framework supports the audio feedback in various modes.
More technical details about the platform can be found on Apple’s website at
<https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action>. The website also provides guidelines on creating a
user
interface
at
<http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/Introductio
n/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40006556>, preparing your app for submission to app store and
the approval process.
The images for this application were created using Gimp and the audio feedback clips were created using
Audacity.
3.4 Testing
Testing the product on actual devices was important in this case, to get an authentic touch screen experience.
To be able to test the application on devices, we took advantage of Apple’s University Program. This
program allows up to 200 devices to be used for testing. This process required creating a provisioning profile
that was installed on the testing devices and the testing devices were registered on the portal.
Upon completion, the application has to be approved by Apple and can then be made available on
AppStore for free download or purchase. This kind of distribution is not available for University Program
memberships. It requires a Standard Program membership.
We conducted usability testing of this application with a class of organic chemistry students. The students
were given the device and left to explore the application individually, while the developers noted down the
observations. These participants were also given pre and post surveys to complete. The average age of our
participants was 21, 80% of the participants were female and 20% male, 80% of our participants expressed
that they preferred interactive games as a way of learning, 60% had regular access to smart phones and 50%
had access to either an iPhone or iTouch device. The main feedback that we received from our first round of
usability testing indicated that the application was lacking proper instructions on its usage and could use
either a tutorial or a help section. Many of our users did not know what to do with the examples. They did not
realize that as the examples got bigger, they could zoom in and as the examples got more complex, they had
to identify all the functional groups before moving on to the next example. All the participants expressed
that the application was a great tool for studying functional groups and would be more useful with an
introductory tutorial.
We also gathered feedback about the effectiveness of this application as a learning tool at our annual
research expo. The faculty, students and staff that participated at this expo possessed a wide range of organic
chemistry background. These participants were given the devices and encouraged to play with the
application. They were then given a survey to complete. The results of this survey are similar to the usability
testing surveys. The participants found smart phones in general very useful, they thought that the touch
screen feature of the TsoiChem application was extremely useful for practicing functional groups and they
suggested adding a tutorial, adding more examples and sound and including other Chemistry areas to this
application. As a result of this feedback, Help and Hint buttons were added, a tutorial for each mode was
added and audio feedback was added to the application.
4. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTION
The TsoiChem application is currently installed on iTouch devices and distributed to organic chemistry
students for the entire semester. We are collecting student feedback about the effectiveness of this application
as a learning tool using pre and post surveys and quizzes.
The popularity, portability, easy of use and the advanced multi-touch features of mobile devices can be
leveraged to create engaging applications. The development of a mobile application for organic chemistry
students demonstrated that the touch screen features of an iPhone could be used to our advantage to create an
engaging and interactive educational application. The effectiveness of pen and paper practice technique can
be transferred to a digital format. The implementation of the application using iOS SDK was a success and
the constantly improving features of the OS and the SDK make iPhone development a very attractive option
for both the developer and the end user.
At the same time it is important to discuss that the constantly changing features of the iOS platform can
be a huge challenge. During the course of 2 semesters the Mac OS, which was used for development was
updated once, the iPhone OS and the SDK were updated multiple times, the University Program license
agreement was updated multiple times and had to be signed by the legal office of the college. These updates
can cause some delays and compatibility issues, like having to update all the testing devices with the latest
OS. Also some changes can have an effect on the design and development level. For example, the animation
methods were changed during the course of the development of this application, making the older code out of
date in a matter of one semester.
At the time this project was conceived, iPhone and iTouch were the only touch screen devices. The
availability of Android phones has expanded the market and hence opportunities for the development and
dissemination of such applications are plenty. The entry of iPad in the mobile devices market is also a good
development. With its bigger screen the iPad provides an excellent platform to create innovative games that
make use of its larger landscape.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported in part by an internal seed grant from XXX. The authors also thank the students
enrolled in Software Development II course, namely, Brian Wetzel, Alan Davis, Teresa Lee, Billy Moua and
Daniel Chopson for their development efforts.
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