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Testimonials |
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| "Cell Structure & Function is excellently set up. It contains the maximum amount of information – about the amount that could be found by looking it up in 6 science textbooks." Issac Reefman, home educated student (aged 15) |
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| "Imagine a diagram in a high-school biology book suddenly coming to life, spinning off the page as a detailed three-dimensional image. Or picture a written explanation of how blood is sampled and tested, translated into a video clip that actually shows how it's done." eSchool News Staff and Wire Service Reports, July 1999 |
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| "I had heaps of trouble trying to understand cell division. The BioScope animations made it easy!" Jennifer de H, Year 12 Student
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"I have just been browsing through two CDs - 'The Living Cell' and 'Cell Structure & Function' - and have enjoyed the experience thoroughly. I think the authors have succeeded in finding the winning combination, pack the CD full of scientific information, and package it in such a way that the students find the process of extracting that information absorbing. The information packaged ranges from basic to advanced. Having gathered the basic information, a student is able to check what he/she has learned, and build on it, through quiz shows, games, build a cell, etc. In addition, there are movies demonstrating various science experiments that can be carried out in a lab. Students can search through extensive web based data bases for a vast amount of advanced information. They can use this resource for many years, from primary through to high school years as part of their science study programme." Usha Qazi |
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Report on “Cell Structure & Function” This CD package is excellently set up. It contains the maximum amount of information – about the amount that could be found by looking it up in 6 science textbooks could uncover (assuming that all the textbooks covers something different.) It's also very easy to use. Every link button has a clear label, and is relevant to the page it is located on. All the buttons do exactly as you would think. There are even little speaker buttons that vocalise the information on the current section of page. Some programs boast interactivity and… well… but this one really is. The stuff it lets you do, honestly! These little speakers aren't just for the “deaf and dumb” though, they actually often have more information stuck on at the end than the page has. These again make the page particularly appealing and user friendly. There are a couple of other ease helping sections, one of which is the “info bank”. Here you can type a subject, and it will come up with a description and voice pronunciation of the word. A link to this appears in the top right corner of most pages. Another is the “frequently asked questions” section. Here the program has a list of “frequently asked questions” and answers them. It has Q.s 1-16 dedicated to Mac users, and 17-36 set aside for people running the program on Windows. This program also boasts an easily accessible microscope section where you can see 4 different kinds of cells (onion cells, epithelial cells, e.coli bacterial cells and elodea cells) through a range of different microscopes, with very high resolution. You can even view the cells through an electron microscope – groovy hey? Also featured in this program is unlikely interesting stuff. The kind of things you wouldn't find anywhere else. For instance, there is a program inside the section talking about drugs and their impact, called “Dribbles”. “Dribbles” is a program that investigates the effect any number (between 0 and 15) of either whisky shots, glasses of wine or bottles of beer will have on a custom “person” (that's Dribbles). You decide what Dribbles weighs, and if Dribbles is male or female. Extra interactive fun!!!… If however, you're not a “total science freak” as some might call us bunch, no worries! Just to get you started, there is a basic introduction to life and cells in general – the first rung on the ladder, if you like. If you want to go straight to the information, then the best and quickest way to get it is to go to the “handles” section. Although it is big and choccas with facts and interesting things, it's so well labelled and put together, that it is a breeze to navigate. If you came for the fun… well… Actually no, they even have “fun stuff” in an area called “cellular challenges”. Here you get to build a virtual cell, bit by bit, having the next-part-you-need's specifications in the top right. In the same bit, you can also do a quiz, at your chosen level of difficulty, to test your acquired knowledge! This package is really worth getting! A worthwhile deal, and well worth having. Issac Reefman, home educated student (aged 15) |
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Imagine a diagram in a high-school biology book suddenly coming to life, spinning off the page as a detailed three-dimensional image. Or picture a written explanation of how blood is sampled and tested, translated into a video clip that actually shows how it's done. If this sounds a bit more titillating than the average high school lab class, then J. Paul Robinson and his crew of scientists at Purdue University are on the right track. The BioScope Initiative is a project Robinson started last year that uses Purdue's laboratory facilities to produce high-quality images and videos that accompany subjects commonly taught in high school biology classes. These images are being incorporated into a CD-ROM that works in conjunction with the internet. The result is a fully interactive program that will give kids anywhere in the world multimedia access to science, allowing them to dig as deep into the subject matter as they wish. "There's lots of stuff that you can't teach kids because you don't have the time in school," said Robinson, a Purdue professor and director of the initiative. "But the kids, if they're excited and interested about it, will go off and learn about it themselves." For example, the BioScope software--which is still being developed--can display the structure of a plant cell in which each distinct part of the cell acts as a link. By clicking on one of the links, students are shown a rotating three-dimensional view of that specific cell part and given a brief explanation of what it does. If students want additional information, they can proceed to a more detailed section. The students can also view images of different cells through an interactive microscope. This part of the program provides everything from pictures taken on relatively low-powered microscopes to ones from high-powered electron microscopes, images that previously would only be available at a research university. "We want to expose the student to science and scientific images," said Kelly Carles-Kinch, the project's manager. "Expose the student to things they normally wouldn't have access to. The idea for the BioScope Initiative came early in 1997. Robinson's son, Tim, had done a lab experiment at school one day. It was a common high school procedure where students scrape cells from inside their mouths then examine the cells under a microscope. Robinson asked his 15-year-old what the cells were and what they looked like. Tim didn't remember, and didn't seem too excited about it. Later that night, father and son marched into Robinson's lab at Purdue and did the same experiment, this time using a $350,000 high-powered microscope. The resulting colour printouts showed detailed images of human cells, highlighted by fluorescent dyes to illustrate different parts. "He was pretty excited," Robinson said of his son. "He was able to take to school these pictures that were so much better than the ones in (the) textbooks." That's when the light bulb clicked on. Why not use computer technology to give kids an exciting way to experience science? Why should they have fuzzy, flat textbook pictures when kids anywhere can see dramatic three-dimensional images on CD-ROM? A couple years and a $2 million grant later, Robinson and his team are nearing completion of their first BioScope CD-ROM, which they hope to make available in the fall. A consortium of educators from across the country acts as an advisory board, and the software is being tested by several teachers in Indiana and other states. Linda Anderson, a biology teacher at West Lafayette High School, worked with a preliminary version of the software and was impressed. "The kids liked it a lot," she said. "They like computers and they like technology, so it was really good for them." She said the average low-power high school microscope can frustrate students because it's sometimes hard for them to see what they're supposed to see. "The same images on the computer are much clearer and sharper," she said. In the end, the scientists, programmers and graphic artists working on the BioScope project hope to provide an affordable means of bringing interesting, high-quality scientific information into any school that has internet access and a CD-ROM drive. "We want to give them the excitement of science," Robinson said. "One really questions today whether kids get that. "Science is important, and we want kids to see that science is not just an exciting hobby, it's an exciting profession." From eSchool News Staff and Wire Service Reports
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