Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Websites of note

2004; Wiley; Volume: 32; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/bmb.2004.494032040369

1539-3429

Graham R. Parslow,

Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Research

North Harris College (Texas) was founded in 1973 and offers several general biology courses including pre-medical. The materials available on the website from the Natural Science school cover all molecular life sciences. The web page given above will lead you to a tabulation of animations and tutorials on a wide range of topics. Some are primary resources and some are links to external sites. Most of the animations are faulty in some aspect of science due to simplification, but seem to have been made by teachers who wanted to add some dynamic interest to conventional topics. I was entranced to see a molecule of palmitate systematically undergoing β-oxidation to produce acetyl-CoA, FADH2, and NADH with each round of oxidation (this is a choice under the general topic of Biochemistry Animations). All of the major metabolic and macromolecular synthetic pathways have animations. There is also an additional extensive compilation of links to third party animations at science.nhmccd.edu/biol/animatio.htm. Some of these animations are useful as they are, and others may inspire you to create your own simple animations (perhaps in Microsoft PowerPoint) to illustrate your personal special topics. A higher level of professional animation is described in the next website review. The holding of the International Genetics Congress in the city of Melbourne on the 50th anniversary of deducing the DNA structure (1953–2003) provided a conjunction of opportunity and motivation that has produced a major new teaching resource relating to DNA. Individual animations can be seen and downloaded from the website of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute located in Melbourne, Australia. These animations are spectacular in both their quality and faithfulness to established events in the molecular management of DNA. The first animation you are likely to look at is simply titled DNA. You will be progressively awed by the spectacular effects achieved in the segments that follow titled “DNA Chromosome Wrapping,” “DNA Replication,” “Central Dogma: Transcription” and “Recombinant DNA.” The route that led me to peruse the animations was the accolade of a prestigious British Academy of Film and Television Arts award given to Drew Berry, who is the primary animator. Berry has developed techniques from the sophisticated digital tools used for special effects in Hollywood feature films. The animator invented a suite of new techniques to solve the particular challenges of molecular subjects. The level of technical sophistication of the DNA animations has not been achieved before, and it has been speculated that they may remain as the best available for years to come. These animations and a total of 4 h of related commentary and tutorial material have been packaged on a DVD that can be commercially purchased at the reasonable price of US$30 by logging on to www.dnai.org. DNA Interactive (DNAi) is a multimedia resource for teaching about DNA and derivative biotechnologies. The DVD combines contributions from scientists, educators, and filmmakers with more than 200 video clips and animations (notably from Berry), plus video interviews with 11 Nobel Laureates. A simple display of the nine covers of the current journals from Cell Press constitutes the home page. The parent journal is Cell itself, with other specialist offerings in structural biology, neurology, immunology, cancer, and developmental biology. The general user of this site will have restrictions on the extent of access, but I was fortunate to have my university as a registered user. I was easily able to get all listed content, search by topics, and obtain full text and diagrams. The Cell issue of 16th April 2004 offered an article that captured my interest, titled “The hyperleptinemia of obesity—Regulator of caloric surpluses.” An explanatory diagram showed the key role of malonyl-CoA in response to both feeding and leptin levels, and this diagram was available in high resolution for saving as a jpeg file. The sections of Cell are organized as previews, minireviews, and full articles. The content covers such a diversity of life science that there is bound to be something for everyone here. The Chemistry Collective is funded by the National Science Foundation. The web-based resources include a collection of virtual labs and concept tests that can be used as pre-labs or core teaching. The topics may be helpful to life science students that have missed main-stream chemistry in their preparation. It is produced by staff at Carnegie Mellon University for use by college and high school teachers. To reach the session choices, select Instructors—Find Activities. The generic areas of simulation include molarity, stoichiometry, quantitative analysis, chemical equilibrium, solubility, thermochemistry, acids, and bases. To get a feeling for the style consider the Unknown Acid Problem that is introduced as follows: You have inherited an old chemistry laboratory at your new company, and the first order of business is to take inventory of the chemicals in the stockroom so that you can properly dispose of old chemicals according to current EPA regulations. Unfortunately, the previous chemist was lazy, and some of the bottles are not labeled thoroughly. Of particular concern are two bottles marked simply “acid” with no further information. Fortunately you find an old lab notebook with the following notations: “ … available acids: crotonic (pKa = 4.69), methylmalonic (pKa = 3.07), diphenylacetic (pKa = 3.94), picric (strong), alloxanic (pKa = 6.64), methyl-m-a minobenzoic (pKa = 5.10) … ”. The titration simulations are functional rather than gee-whiz. Materials are free of charge, although the authors ask to be informed about who is using it. You can request copies of the Virtual Lab on CD and make further copies for your students. Comments and submission are welcome to help improve the activities in this collection. I would have liked to run a simulation of hemoglobin adaptation to altitude, but the program applet repeatedly caused my computer to suspend execution. Other applets were fine. James Atherton of DeMontfort University, Bedford, United Kingdom, has a rare talent to create witty and informative overviews of educational theories. In his online Quick and Dirty Guide to Theories of Learning we read that learning is one of those areas for which Mark Twain's (attributed) comment might have been coined: “Many researchers have already cast much darkness upon this subject, and it is probable that if they continue, that we shall soon know nothing at all about it.” Of course Atherton does dispel some of the darkness about educational theory for nonspecialists. Navigating an entry to the main material is not obvious; you must choose contents from a left-hand side panel when you display the page titled Introduction. A particular strength is that Atherton constructs a diagrammatic tree of related topics (all hyperlinked) and even states that he thinks visually, and so there are lots of diagrams. The two high-level subjects are What Is Learning and Theories of Learning. Theories of Learning split into behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, and motivational. I work at the University where Paul Ramsden did much of his original research on learning, so I was particularly interested to read Deep and Surface are two approaches to study, derived from original empirical research by Marton and Säljö (1976) and since elaborated by Ramsden (1992), Biggs (1987, 1993) and Entwistle (1981), among others. Although learners may be classified as “deep” or “surface,” they are not attributes of individuals: one person may use both approaches at different times, although she or he may have a preference for one or the other. They correlate fairly closely with motivation: “deep” with intrinsic motivation and “surface” with extrinsic, but they are not necessarily the same thing. Either approach can be adopted by a person with either motivation. This set of notes on educational theory is outstandingly accessible to a reader with a scientific background. After informing Atherton of this review, he replied: “The site is due for an annual re-vamp and I'll do something about the initial navigation issue, on which some other people have commented. The site is mirrored at www.learningandteaching.info, which is a more accessible url to remember, and will eventually move over there completely.” LTSN-01 is one of 24 specialty areas of the UK Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN). The home page offers many browsing temptations, but you might initially try the Resources option included in the banner heading, then select Web Courseware (Free On-Line Resources). This leads to an alphabetic list of subject resources in many areas of medical specialization. The single resource under biochemistry was the excellent acid-base tutorial from Alan Grogono, Tulane University School of Medicine. This pH tutorial is an old favorite of mine, and I was pleased to see that Grogono continues to update it (you can achieve direct access at www.acid-base.com). Other areas such as anatomy, physiology, and microbiology are well supported by numerous links. There are four online medical dictionaries listed. The total site has an enormous amount of material, and it is difficult to specifically target teaching resources among the clutter of options. Another choice that I found productive was to select Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) under the Resources section. This leads to succinct and interesting replies to a list of issues in teaching. Here are some of the FAQs: (1) I have heard that multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are biased in favor of males. What is the evidence for this? (2) I have heard that negative marking of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) can have undesirable results. What is the research on this? (3) What does “outcomes-based” education mean? The site is true to its purpose of providing Learning and Teaching Support.