Biology is one subject that is interesting because it is a study of living organisms and that includes us. But, the school and college curriculum demands a set table of contents in a textbook format that not all students take to these days. With the advent of education technology, students are more likely to learn subjects the digital way, rather than the so called boring textbooks. The use of colorful diagrams to explain concepts and processes no longer stimulates interest in today's student. But, bearing in mind, the needs of the student, using a digital textbook adds a spark of interest in the subject,especially if it is a multimedia version complete with audios and videos showing processes being explained in 3 D. Now, would that not have made us learn faster when we were studying Sciences and Maths. Several video websites including youtube have a collection of some excellent tutorials for explaining various concepts, and some of them can be found here.
A non profit organisation, E O Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, named after the renowned naturalist and founder, is releasing a 59-part series on Biology - Life On Earth is a 59-Chapter Digital Textbook, to suit the school curriculum. As each chapter gets completed, it is available for anyone to download for free.
The first chapter,"Cell Division", will be available for download in a couple of weeks. Here is a preview of the video with interactive animations that will be an integral part of the text. K12 editions will remain free whereas the University-level edition will be up for sale at 10 % of the cost of an average print textbook, to fund the continuous updating.
Interactive educational videos are excellent when you want to explain complex details,whatever the science subject.A new educational 3 D video game has been developed for High school students studying Biology.The interactive video game helps them understand the basic concepts of immunology, microbiology and cellular biology. Immune Attack is at once both engaging and challenging for a student playing in the virtual bloodstream. Students are challenged to heal a sick patient as they traverse the virtual human body and make choices regarding the white blood cells and those causing infection. Immune Attack is free to download and certainly useful for college students as well.
Human anatomy and physiology are fascinating subjects for all,particularly the medical or nursing student.There are several posts in this blog related to finding the right learning site about the human body for you,depending on what exactly you are studying. Some of the best resources to study online are open courses and the top 100 are listed in 100 Awesome Open Courses To Learn About The Human Body. Thanks,Kelly for the input!
Sir David Attenborough launched arkive website in 2003 which is the world's centralized library of films and photographs of endangered species. Freely accessible to all online for private research and educational purposes.It has profiled over 2500 endangered species using movie clips and photos and won many awards for conservation,education and communication. www.arkive.org www.arkiveeducation.org