ChemCollective Virtual Lab vs Collisions Higher Education

ChemCollective Virtual Lab is an online chemistry simulation that connects calculations with laboratory-style experiments. Students and educators can use its web activities without licensing requirements, including experiments with hundreds of standard aqueous reagents across acid-base chemistry, thermochemistry, solubility, and redox topics. Teaching resources include prepared lab problems, tutorials, courses, real-world scenarios, visualizations, simulations, and concept tests. Autograded activities randomize unknowns and check answers, with hints and feedback. Teachers can make free classroom pages that collect activity links, instructions, and handouts, and track attempts on autograded problems. Instructors may modify activities or request custom ones. Downloadable versions for Windows and Mac are available, though Java may be needed. The project aims to help high school and college students approach chemistry like practicing scientists. Its current scope is aqueous reactions. The Virtual Lab is free for educators and students; the site and its contents are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 NonCommercial-NoDerivs.

Collisions Higher Education is a digital game system for teaching and reviewing chemistry in college courses. It aligns with over 55 core concepts in introductory and general chemistry, organized into eight content areas: Radii Trends, Ionization Energy, Acid Strength, Lewis Structures, Ionic Bonding, Energy in Phase Change, LeChâtelier, and IMFs. Each game includes leveled challenges and an exploratory sandbox. Instructors can view student progress and performance in a teacher dashboard, and can use content overviews, quick start guides, formative assessments, and extension assignments. Instructor access is listed at free for US-based college and university educators. Student subscriptions cost $15 a year for a 12-month term; accounts are linked to an instructor’s class, and students register through an invitation URL supplied by the instructor. The product is listed for Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows. Playmada has ceased operations, while its FAQ says Collisions HE remains available and free to educators and students as of July 1, 2022. The FAQ also says the company no longer provides email, phone, or training support and directs users to a support forum.