One of my research students is working on a project in which we are doing halide abstraction from a metal center. In theory, she is generating KCl which will precipitate out of the reaction mixture. Sure enough, she gets a precipitate. The solution was filtered and the remaining solid was dried in vacuo. The solid had some slight color to it as well as a heterogenous appearance. When she adds some water most (but certainly not all) of the solid dissolved. I wanted her to add some silver nitrate to test for the presence of chloride, but I was concerned that we might not be able to tell if she got any silver chloride to form since she was dealing with pretty small quantities. And that's when I got the brilliant idea of having her take a picture of the solution before adding the silver nitrate.
I know, I know, Chip haven't you previously told us that you think cell phones are evil? You bet (https://www.ionicviper.org/comment/1468#comment-1468)! And you cannot deny that students and many faculty have major issues with cell phone use. I am still amazed at how many people 'forget' to turn their phones off when it is appropriate to do so and how oblivious people can become when checking their phones. But I have to face facts, they aren't going away. I do fully realize there are many safety concerns including being a distraction and contamination of the phone. Perhaps it would be worth having some kind of lab dedicated device just for this purpose. I am not entirely sold on this idea, but I am interested in hearing what other people think or have experience doing. Please go to the forum and comment (https://www.ionicviper.org/forum-topic/picture-worth-thousand-words).
We just published a demo in J.Chem Ed where it was very useful to use a camera phone.
1. ( Nguyen, V. D.; Birdwhistell, K. R., Microwave Mapping Demonstration Using the Thermochromic Cobalt Chloride Equilibrium. Journal of Chemical Education 2014, 91 (6), 880-882.)
Filter paper saturated with aqueous CoCl2 (pink) was heated in microwave under low power (600 Watts) for 20 seconds resulting in formation of CoCl4]-. We found it useful to take a picture of the filter paper immediately after irradiation because the filter paper kept changing as it was cooling.
2.) In Our inorganic lab last fall we used electronic notebooks and the students in many cases characterized their products by taking a picture of their solid products and posting that picture to their electronic notebook.
Just a couple of examples where camera phones can be useful.
Kurt
One of my thesis students took photos of all the reagent labels he used, then composed his experimental details at home. This was about four years ago. I thought it was brilliant.
Over the years my students have taken pictures of their crystals from Inorganic Lab and they love it (I do too); I often bring my camera to lab (and we have a departmental camera as well that I can borrow). We have used camera phones as well. The students occasionally will take photos during their projects lab and embed them in slides for their final presentations. We find that we don’t get a raft of photos, however as the presentations are limited to five slides (not counting the title slide)
A research student of mine also took a picture of a small pear flask containing a solution of a vanadium complex that we made. The color was indescribably beautiful (a blue-purple); the picture was worth a thousand words.
I have just come up with a totally different application.
I use team work at least once a week in most of my classes. During the first team activity I am going to ask each student to take a cell phone photo of his/her team. I feel that this simple activity will make them feel more connected to their teams.