Have you ever wanted to have a better grasp of chemistry but seemed to struggle? Misunderstood a concept in science? Misplaced a chemical formula? Need specific details for a specific element? Overall, do you just want a simple way to double check your work and help you be more efficient in the department of chemistry. If you answered yes to any of those questions, you might want to consider downloading this app.

 

App Explanation and Pros

The answer for this problem was an app called “Complete Chemistry App”. As I experimented with this app, the pros ridiculously outnumbered the cons. The app is split into 4 sections; Periodic Table, Chemical Formula, Concepts, and Quick Reference. In the “Periodic Table” section, it would display all the elements ordered from the least to greatest atomic number. If you pressed on the element, it would give you the symbol, atomic radius, atomic weight, melting point, boiling point, and electron configuration. What I liked most about this section was that there would be a search bar at the top so we can search any element up and it would show up instead of scrolling down until you found it. Moving on to the next section, there was “Chemical Formula”. Here, it would list every chemical formula top to bottom. If you were unsure of a formula, you could simply check it by going to this section and searching it up on the search bar. This would be extremely helpful when studying for an upcoming chemistry test. Next section, there was “Concept”. This was where, like the setting name suggests, you search up a concept you may not understand. By searching it up, it would give you a brief but informative paragraph about the concept (such as what iconic and covalent bonds are and how they work ). Personally, this would help me a lot because I easily forgot concepts. Last but not least, the next section we got here for this app is “Quick Reference”. This section contains formulas, laws, principles, and etc. Like every other section on this app, this would be useful for quick look-ups of references you are unsure of. Overall, I have learnt that there are great apps out there than can quickly and efficiently help you greatly academically and I hope to use this app effectively in science class.

 

Cons

There were many things I liked about this app but there were also a few things I would have personally changed. For the Periodic Table section, I noticed there were no listings of amounts of electrons, protons, and neutrons for each element. I believed that caused a bit of a negative impact on the use of this app. Another thing I would have changed in the app to improve it was how there were no settings to search formulas separately on the Chemical Formula section. An example is, when I searched H2O, many other formulas appeared which makes it hard to find out what formula makes a specific substance rather than having results that showed one specific formula. Other th
an that, this app was pretty solid and did a great job serving its purpose.

 

Other Possible Solution to the Problem

-Get a tutor

-Stay afterschool for extra assignments to get better marks

-Watch YouTube videos so you understand something

-Read an article

-Get a friend or family member to review with you

-Get a group of friends and quiz each other and if someone gets something wrong, they all suffer a punishment until everyone does well

-You give your friend something valuable and you tell them to break it if you get something wrong while reviewing

-Tell yourself your going to bath in ice cold water if you get lower than 90% on the chemistry test so that you study hard

 

How does the app help users build skills or learn content?

 

This app helps students like me reflect on their knowledge and add more content to it and expand our minds so we are more successful in the chemistry section of science. The style of the app is more of a review app for upcoming tests (like a dictionary) but can still be used for others things; such as finishing off a homework sheet. With trial and error, we look for knowledge that is correct so we know the difference between right and wrong. The app helps us learn the differences and is easily accessible and so using this app as a study guide should be no problem.

(also refer to app explanation)

 

How intuitive is the app? Is it self-explanatory or does it take a long time to figure out?

Sometimes, being basic is much more effective; such as this case. The app is very basic and self explanatory. But what is more important is if the app contains the correct information, which it does. Everything is straight-forward and is very easy to navigate through the app. To me, it feels like a neat and tidy room.

(refer to app for explanation of app)

 

What innovative elements does the app utilize?

The app utilizes the use of “downloaded info”. Another big pro was that no Wi-Fi or data was needed to access the information on this app. Usually, information either needs to be googled (which requires Wi-Fi) or read from books (lots of time spent). Both suggestions have their major cons, but this app was able to cross out the cons and so I thought the way the app works was pretty innovative.

 

Debrief

Overall, everything went very smoothly but there was definitely room for improvement, such as comparing my app to others similar to make the message behind this presentation much more effective. Another thing I thought I could have improved on was using the app for a long period of time and then reporting on the long term effects. In conclusion, I believe this app has a lot of potential in it that can grow if nourished.

 

 

 

Presented by : Peter Ra