Abstract:

The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has had an exponential growth during the last few years, at the same time, the application of such technologies in education has showed a remarkable development. The increasing use of social networks by students also has made it viable for educative purposes. From October 2009 we have used the blog “Ciber-Genética” (ciber-genetica.blogspot.mx) to support Genetic teaching in Biology at the Sciences Faculty of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). In 2010 we implemented the use of three different social networks: Facebook (facebook.com/ciber.gentica.unam), Twitter (@cibergenetica) and YouTube (youtube.com/user/CiberGeneticaUNAM) to increase the interest in the area. These services available online provided information about the news and events relative to Genetics area; we also uploaded presentations and videos created by our group. The use of these social networks has had a very good acceptation between our students and also allowed a greater interaction between the students and the teacher.

Keywords:

ICTs, genetics, social networks.