All active options are on the screen, and are operated by mouse clicks. You don't have to squint at the keyboard, and there are no functions hidden in pull-down menus. A consistent convention is that any option or number on the menu in white is mouse-active.
Two options, which are always present and active, are HELP and QUIT. HELP provides on-screen context-sensitive help. (A mouse click removes the help window.) The F1 key duplicates the HELP button. QUIT takes one out of the SIR and back to a menu. In case of mouse trouble, the F10 key will take you back out of a SIR or a menu.
Since a SIR is completely under the instructor's control, it may be adapted to an unlimited number of instructional strategies. So it's wise to try out a SIR before using it in class, to find out what it contains, to make its operation second nature, and to plan a presentation well suited to the needs of the class. The on-screen help is sufficiently comprehensive that one should be able to learn the operation of each SIR from the help alone. In many cases the help facility shows sample calculations based on the current data.
In most cases one controls numerical data with the mouse thus: click on a number with the left button and its value is incremented, usually cyclically; click with the right button and it's decremented. In other situations a mouse-driven keypad is provided which you may use to enter exact numbers.
A SIR resembles a textbook in that it provides much more information than can be used in a course of reasonable length. It differs from a textbook in that the instructor may choose the material to be presented, so the class will never see (and thus needn't worry about) what isn't used. And you don't have to use the ones you don't like!
SIRS should not replace classroom demonstrations or laboratories. Instead, they should supplement them.
For example, one might measure a heat of neutralization of a strong acid with a strong base, then use SIR Caloric to demonstrate that the heats of neutralization of all strong acids with all strong bases are equal, while those of weak acids and weak bases vary.
Or one could use SIR Torr to make it clear how a manometer works, then demonstrate Boyle's law, and finally use SIR Ideal to quickly add Charles' and Avogadro's laws.
Another reason that SIRs should not replace experimental work is that the simulated responses of SIRs are idealized. Rate laws are obeyed exactly; gases and solutes are ideal; calorimeters have zero heat capacity and are perfectly insulated. On the other hand a SIR would be a useful preparation for a laboratory, since it is a model of what the experiment is designed to do.
The presentation in these SIRS parallels that in interactive computer lessons by the author, designed for individual instruction. Optimum use of these materials would be to key the SIR-assisted lectures to the corresponding computer lessons.
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Updated July 17, 2000