Abstract:

The objective of this paper is to relate our research group experience. The study is based on two applications: a web application (APP) (software designed to run inside a web browser) and a java archive application (JAR). These two APPs were introduced into the study programme of a group of third and fourth year students taking a Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering at Girona University (UdG).

New methods are currently being employed to understand and simulate industrial processes to help students understand them and clarify their use.

The JAR application was designed in collaboration with Pablo Olavide University in Sevilla. In this process, young teachers introduced a new simulation programmed with JAR. The advantage of this kind of programmed process (JAR) over commercial simulators is that a JAR simulator focuses on a specific chemical process, making understanding easier for students. Furthermore, all efforts are directed at understanding the industrial process being analysed. The proposed experiences described in this presentation are two: simple distillation mixing ethanol-water and an absorption process.

The APP ‘kahoot.it’ is a public website and a game-based learning platform for mobile devices. We devise a quiz with twenty questions based on the previous five weeks of class. It is an extraordinary experience because students like it and they are playing with their classmates. In the feedback they report that it is fun, they learn a lot, they feel comfortable using it and they recommend it.

Our experiences and the process and results of these innovative methods are described in this presentation. The JAR application allows us to increase considerably the number of experiments to be performed and to understand the influence of the operating variables on the result obtained and the behaviour of the equipment in the first case. Kahoot, helps to increase students’ concentration.

Keywords:

simulator, chemistry, Innovation, JAR, Kahoot.