Developmental Biology CD-ROM

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We will be constructing a CD-ROM entitled A Multimedia Companion to Developmental Biology. This CD-ROM is planned to include those things that cannot be contained in a textbook: moving images of animal development (along with animations, voice-overs, and labeled photographs to assist the learner), research papers that enable each learner access to primary literature, interactive animations that enable one to understand complex experimental protocols, interactive programs that enable one to model development by changing the parameters of cell adhesion, migration, etc., interviews with researchers whose work helped frame the discipline, papers in the history of embryology, and position papers debating issues of ethical concern to contemporary developmental biologists (sex selection, gene therapy, etc.) These presentations will be connected to one another through three hierarchical indices and through hypertext. We plan to create different levels of complexity, from entry level (middle-school) through graduate levels, in several areas. While less advanced students can gain much from watching the videos and animations, more advanced students can now plan their own paths through the various presentations. We hope to develop Version 1.0 of this project over the sabbatical leave of the Principal Investigator and to sell the resulting disc "at cost." It will be multiplatform and could be used with any textbook in developmental biology or embryology (not necessarily the one authored by the P.I.) Version 1.0 would contain sections on fertilization, embryonic cleavage, gastrulation, cell specification, induction, developmental neurobiology, sex determination, metamorphosis, gametogenesis, and differential gene expression.