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Virtual Laboratories in Molecular and Cell Biology

Virtual Laboratories in Molecular and Cell Biology. David Male, Ignacio Romero and Jane Loughlin, The Open University. Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. Benefits of using virtual laboratories. Allows optimum use of real practical time

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Virtual Laboratories in Molecular and Cell Biology

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  1. Virtual Laboratories in Molecular and Cell Biology David Male, Ignacio Romero and Jane Loughlin, The Open University. Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK.

  2. Benefits of using virtual laboratories • Allows optimum use of real practical time • Allows students to try things out and make mistakes without using costly consumables or instruments • Allows students to use equipment that could not be used with large groups eg electron microscope • Can telescope long experiments, into a shorter time-frame • Excellent for teaching experimental design and the use of positive and negative controls • Gives quick feedback to students and may be linked to automatic assessment

  3. Molecular and cell biology – level 3 • 3 Virtual laboratories - SDS PAGE and Western blotting to identify a cell surface molecule on T cells - Immunoelectron microscopy to identify intracellular traffic pathways in Kuppfer cells - Immunoblotting and pull-down assays to identify intracellular signalling pathways • Within each laboratory - Introductory section on the techniques used in each laboratory - Video from a real laboratory (~10 minutes) - Guided questions that are answered by carrying out experiments in the virtual lab • Ancillary files - Background files on the use of the laboratories, for students - Assessment material for writing up the laboratory, model answers and marking notes - Reading from the associated course ‘Molecular and Cell biology’

  4. Supplementary materials • Laboratory manuals 6-10 pages Black and white pdf documents • Assessment materials a research problem and model lab report - ~4 pages word documents [no marking guidelines]

  5. Background Reading • Three stand-alone units • Available on OpenLearn • Also available on Jorum • 150 pp and 120 figures • XML HTM or PDF formats

  6. Contents & Instructions download download Virtual laboratory Installer Reading run run Lab. manual Problems answers Make the download packages simple

  7. Using virtual laboratories as OER • Requires considerable programming time • Often requires programming skills, not widely available • It is difficult for non-specialists to modify the code • Computers/ operating systems/ browsers cannot be anticipated • New versions of ‘standard’ programmes may not run original programmes eg Vista, Windows 7.0, Quicktime 10 • We cannot give separate information to tutors – eg assessment materials.

  8. Virtual microscope – Histology & Histopathologyhttp://www.open.ac.uk/StudentWeb/s210demosite/main/main.html

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