Submitted by Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 14:26
My Notes
Description

My technique for constructing MO diagrams is based on (and significantly simplified from) that of Verkade.  While I find it works well in my classroom for my students, they benefit from careful step-by-step instruction of the method through several weeks of in-class exercises.  This LO has links to pencasts where I go through three easy examples that demonstrate the technique, as well has how I handle lone pairs by this method.  As transition metal complexes don’t have stereochemically active lone pairs, they are often easier to deal with than even something seemingly as simple as water!

Learning Goals

by watching these pencasts, instructors or students should be able to use my generator orbital method for constructing LGOs and MO diagrams.

Equipment needs

to watch the pencasts, you need an internet connection, but the software is hosted at the website. 

update, Summer 2015: The Livescribe website has changed. Now, you create a PDF with your livescribe pen, and that PDF can be played at the livescribe website (www.livescribe.com/player). I have converted my old pencasts to playable PDFs and attached them to this LO.

Creative Commons License
Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike CC BY-NC-SA
Sibrina Collins / Marburger STEM Center (MSC) at Lawrence Technological University

I like the pencast for BH3! Nice.

Thu, 07/25/2013 - 19:30 Permalink
Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College

The article describing this technique has appeared, linked above. J. Chem. Educ., 2013, 90, 56-62. I am in the process of preparing more pencasts for some of the examples in the paper and in the SI and I will provide links to those when they are available.

Thu, 08/01/2013 - 12:41 Permalink
Nancy Williams / Scripps College, Pitzer College, Claremont McKenna College

Congrats! This one has been a long time coming...

Mon, 08/26/2013 - 15:58 Permalink
Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College

I recently recorded two more pencasts, one for water, and one for methane. I do requests, so email me if you would like me to do one.

water

methane

Tue, 08/27/2013 - 13:44 Permalink
Sibrina Collins / Marburger STEM Center (MSC) at Lawrence Technological University

Thanks Adam!

Thu, 10/03/2013 - 20:50 Permalink
Anthony L. Fernandez / Merrimack College

I have been passing the article on to everyone I know! 

Tue, 10/08/2013 - 08:12 Permalink
Gerard Rowe / University of South Carolina Aiken

I really like these pencasts!  I was planning on assigning them to my class this Fall after introducing the generator orbital approach.  However, when I go to the Livescribe site, it gives me this warning that all the old pencasts will be phased out in favor of the new Livescribe PDF format.  I tried using the PDF converter tool to save your pencasts as PDFs and open them locally, but the files wouldn't play as movies in Adobe Reader (I managed to open them through a special PDF player on the Livescribe site, but that's going to lose my less tech savvy students).  Newer files that I downloaded from the site worked fine, though.

Is there any way these can be preserved in a different format?  They should still exist by the time my class needs them this semester, but I'm worried they'll be gone by this time next year.

Fri, 08/08/2014 - 16:13 Permalink