Web tools, sims, data, and PLNs

Here are some tools, simulations, and resources primarily for microbiology, but useful to most life science folks I think.
Internet for Microbiology:
http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/tutorial/microbiology/?sid=972707&itemid=12021

This site is meant to be a tutorial for students to learn how best to use the internet for micro info, but it has fantastic resources! Most of the resources are micro based, but anyone who teaches units on microbes will find some interesting sites. Plus, you can select sites and put them in your cart and then email them to yourself. Brilliant. One site in particular is a UK based image bank:

http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/imagebank/

Author/copyright holder and image bank must be acknowledged but:
“Images may only be freely downloaded and used for learning and teaching purposes within educational establishments (HE, FE and schools) for non-profit purposes only.
Acceptable uses include: academic web pages, lectures, PowerPoint presentations, within computer-aided learning materials, online tutorials, tests, coursework, student presentations/projects, school reports.”

Another British product: a rather ominous simulation about indentifying select microbial agents, but I think my students would get into this; something to think about using when they do unknowns. http://newmedia.kent.%20edu/projects/bio/start.htm


Stumbled on a blog about online science ed, but topic could be helpful to onground classes as well I think. http://onlinesapiens.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/science-labs-for-online-science-courses/

Red tide modeling and movement in Tampa Bay (my old stomping grounds, literally, I’ve stomped around plenty in Tampa Bay!) http://www.marine.usf.edu/microbiology/modeling-red-tide-movement.shtml

Here’s an article of the efficacy of using simulations in a microbiology class—“The post-test results on academic achievement indicated that students in the experimental group achieved significantly higher means scores than the control group.”
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a746600956

And finally, a word on PLNs. A colleague recommended “feedly” as a PLN, since I’m not in love with Google reader. http://blog.feedly.com/feedly-chrome-access/
I loved the look of his and finally got around to looking into it for myself. It is really nice to look at; your “stuff” is presented in an online magazine look format. Much cleaner than Google reader. I think at some point I will want to take a serious look, right now I have other fish to fry. What could be an issue for you—I had to go through Google chrome (which is a pretty cool browser in itself). It also has version for Safari and Firefox, but didn’t see one for IE. What is cool so far, since it is supported by Google, when I signed up everything in Google reader appeared in it. It also picked up my twitter feed (just had to log in to twitter). So I didn’t have to start from scratch to load anything. What I don’t know yet….does it have something like Google docs. Can I get my gmail through it? Or, can I access it directly from my gmail account? If the answer is yes to these three questions I think I would really work with it, I love the look (which is what I don’t love about Google reader).
Ok, my brain is frying again, so not used to spending so much time on the computer. But, despite how far I have to go, I feel like I am catching up and joining the 21st century; and feeling really good about that.