CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR COMPUTER SUPPORTED SCHOOL CHEMICAL EXPERIMENTS

In the article we deal with the topic of Virtual Measuring Devices working in the computer supported measuring system in general chemistry education. We discuss the theoretical base for application of experiments in the chemistry education and its computer support. Attention is focussed to specific features of chemistry, alike to other natural sciences lay in observations of the course of chemical experiments and in forming conditions for their repetition and changes. Then, it is clear that the intellectual activities participate in every senso-motoric (or only sensory, and only motoric) activity. Dominant, or rather starting, activities in the theoretical procedure will be intellectual ones, while sensorimotor activities work in the empirical procedure. When implementing the computer support into experimental activities, the adequate combination of measuring systems, simulations and “data-processing” programmes may result in a new environment for using experiments. The computer thus may make the inductive, deductive or combined procedures easier and evidently. One of the challenges for school chemistry experiments is so-called “single-step mode” measurement method. Three types of this mode are discussed and examples provided: single-step mode on one experiment, single-step mode on comparison of samples and single-step mode on a set of experiments. Presented examples of class chemical experiment were carried out in the Vernier system, very simple applied in computer labs with science orientation.