I hope you all had a wonderful summer full of rest, relaxation, and other quality time away from good old VU! I know I’m well rested and absolutely ready to go! OK, maybe not, but I’d like to think I am…

I spent part of my summer thinking about how to integrate some of the better aspects of social networking and collaborative web tools into this course (CHM3311). I settled on this website and associated wiki, which will serve as the collective home for CHM3311 and other course related items. Most assignments will be available on the wiki, while announcements, general articles, and such will be posted here.

As a big part of being a chemist, or a scientist for that matter, involves writing for different audiences, we (well, you mostly) will be writing short science pieces ranging from the technical (i.e., intended for a practicing chemist) to the general (i.e., for your aunt Ginny), which will be posted here or on the wiki. These assignments will require you to use many different sources including the primary literature (journals), mass media (newspaper/magazines/radio/TV), and new media (blogs/wikis). Some of these will be collaborative, while others will be individual writing projects. There will be opportunities to try other different things as well; I am open to suggestions, and hope to learn a lot in the process. I’m genuinely excited to see what you create!

Again, welcome back! I hope you have a great semester!

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