FLASH MOVIES, CAN THEY HELP US UNDERSTAND CHROMATOGRAPHY?

Chromatography is a widely used separation technique applied in different fields such as environmental, food, clinical, pharmaceutical, industrial or bioscience analysis. Therefore, chemistry or biochemistry students need to learn basic or even advanced concepts on chromatography. However, it is not always easy for chromatography teachers to explain some concepts or processes taking place in the chromatographic column or how any part or the chromatographic system works. Besides, classical chromatographic books are sometimes hard to "swallow" for students who have grown in a technological era and are used to visualise everything. In this sense, on-line learning tools such as Chromedia (http://www.chromedia.org) or Chromacademy (http://www.chromaacademy.com) are innovative information sources that offer interactive tutorial for learning and reviewing chromatography. These on-line tools provide high quality educational material, texts, illustrations, videos, and interactive quizzes, experiments or multiple-choice exams that help the student to learn, review and stay up to date on chromatography. In the particular case of the flash movies available on the cited URLs, as teachers of chromatography in different topics of the grade on Chemistry, we find them really useful because they give the chance to visualise concepts that are often difficult to give expression. With a simple click on a flash movie, it is easier to explain peak broadening in chromatography, the difference between a split and splitless injection in gas chromatography or the influence of the mobile phase strength in reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography. The use of these kinds of tools makes, in our opinion, the lectures more understandable and attractive to students and we feel confident that they help the teaching-learning process.