Cell Biol Educ 1(1): 9- 2002
DOI: 10.1187/cbe.02-04-0013
© 2002 American Society for Cell Biology
WWW.Cell Biology Education
Bob Blystone
Department of Biology, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas 78212
The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) Education Committee calls
attention each quarter to several websites of educational interest to the cell
biology community. The Committee does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of
the information at any of the listed sites. If you want to comment on the
selections or suggest future inclusions, please send a message to
rblyston{at}trinity.edu.
The sites listed below were accessed on April 13, 2002.
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BIOTECH ADVENTURES
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http://biotech-adventure.okstate.edu/
Six Oklahoma State University (OSU) faculty members from various science
and medicine departments coupled with OSU undergraduate journalism students to
bring us this interesting and useful site. While searching for information on
ovulation and spermatogenesis movies produced by the late Richard Blandau of
the Washington University Medical School, this uniform resource locator (URL)
emerged. The site has Quicktime clips of Blandau's exceptional films produced
in the mid-1960s. Access to these extraordinary films of cat and rabbit
ovulation events would make this a worthwhile site on its own. However, the
site has numerous other illustrations and animations of other types of
biological events. Teaching segments on polymerase chain reaction (PCR),
sequencing, karyotyping, and black bear genetics are but a few of the
resources located at this site. The URL is aggressive in its use of Flash,
Shockwave, Quicktime, and Real Player media. A T-1 connection is recommended.
Learning resource material found here is extensive and could be used in a
variety of undergraduate courses. The navigation screens are a bit juvenile
but lend an air of humor as one explores the site.
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HARVEY PROJECT
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http://harveyproject.org/
Robert Stephenson of Wayne State University has started a physiology
project that is reminiscent of the Tree of Life project. He states, "The
principal goal of the project is to build dynamic, interactive materials (such
as simulations, animations and 3-D models) that will help students understand
the material and find excitement in it in ways that conventional textbooks or
lecture materials cannot." He continues by saying, "This is a
large-scale project to build world-class, interactive, dynamic Web materials
for teaching physiology. This project follows the `open course' model and the
peer-reviewed materials that are developed will be free for all nonprofit
institutions to use." Materials that are posted to the site deal
primarily with the nervous system and muscle. Development activity for the
site peaked in 2000, with fewer additions since then. The most important part
of this ambitious project is its organization. It provides a template for how
a shared theme site might be organized. If you are interested in what should
be included in a large-scale teaching and learning web site, this is a good
place to visit. The site also provides an extensive list of links to anatomy
and physiology sites, another plus.
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NEUROMUSCULAR DISEASE CENTER
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http://www.neuro.wustl.edu/neuromuscular/index.html
Washington University School of Medicine's Department of Neurology provides
this very interesting website. Clearly, this is a medical site that, in part,
is advertising its diagnostic abilities to the medical public. However, in a
skilled undergraduate lecturer's hands, the site can provide boundless
resources for students who want to go beyond the usual sliding filament
information found in undergraduate textbooks. For example, if one follows the
path to Index: Molecular and Cellular: Dystrophin and Associated Proteins,
there appears an incredible diagram of the organization of the extrajunctional
muscle membrane describing the organization of 40 proteins. On the same
screen, a superb diagram of the neuromuscular junction with the position of
more than 20 proteins is shown. By following the path titled "structural
and contractile," one may access one of the finest reviews of myosin
available. If you want to update your knowledge of muscle and perhaps develop
some case study material for a class, this is a site worth investigating.
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DIRECTORY OF ORGANIZATIONS
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http://ericdb.uoregon.edu/directory/
The College of Education at the University of Oregon maintains a web-based
Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) resource. Newly added is a
Directory of Organizations in Educational Management. The site states as its
purpose the following: "The online Directory of Organizations in
Educational Management is designed to guide users to sources of information on
management of elementary and secondary schools." If you are trying to
discover what is being done to improve K–12 education, this database can
help discover those professional groups involved in that effort. You may want
to back out of the directory and explore the main ERIC site—there is a
world of information about various education efforts collected by this
organization.
Corresponding author. E-mail:
rblyston{at}trinity.edu.
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BIOTECH ADVENTURES
HARVEY PROJECT