Development of a Web-based Teaching and Learning System in Plant Biology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio

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An Internet-based teaching and learning system for plant sciences is being developed, including the establishment of a dedicated web site that will serve as a repository for educational materials related to the teaching of botany. This library of botanical information includes digitized and edited still video and microscope images, Quicktime 3.0 movies, time-lapse videos of natural phenomena, virtual reality simulations, as well as computer animations prepared by the investigators. Most commercially available plant biology educational CDs, animations, and web pages suffer from a clear lack of quality and scientific soundness. Thus, out of necessity, we are creating our own high-quality educational materials for use in lectures and labs. In addition to the creation of educational materials, we are experimenting with a web-based publishing system for our undergraduate students as well as pre-service and in-service teachers. With this system, students publish their reports, allowing for peer review of successful laboratory activities which the PI and Co-PI have developed in recent years. An important part of this project is also to explore methods for training and encouraging other faculty members to use these educational techologies. Finally, educational materials will be made available nationally, not only through the Internet but also as educational CDs and videos, distributed at an affordable cost through a book or CD publisher. This is necessary because most of our materials are based on very large file sizes that can't easily be transmitted over the Internet with current technology.