Monday, July 2, 2012

Implementing Web Tools in the Classroom

I have not been having too much luck with the first assignment - problems with uploading and formating, but hopefully it is figured out.  The following site has some great interactive activities for introducing evolution in biology.  http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/explotime.html
I love the first 3 sites for giving a geological perspective to biological diversity.  Many of my students have not taken earth science, so it helps to build some background information. 

The activity for which I have done this assignment is the "What does T.rex taste like?" activity.  It is a very good interactive introduction to the basics of cladistics and how cladograms are used to show common ancestry and evolutionary relationships.  The main problem I have with the activity is that it is difficult, once you have moved ahead, to go back to review something in a previous folder.  You essentially have to click back through the folder again.  This would be a bit of an annoyance for most of my students, but in general this is a very good activity. 

I have modified the assignment for this activity to suit my needs.  It was copied  into a Google doc and I had to reformat it, so it may not be exactly as it should be.  The link to the assignment is: http://tinyurl.com/introtocladisticsTr
and the direct link to this activity is:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/explorations/tours/Trex/index.html

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