“CIBER-GENÉTICA” AN EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The “Ciber- Genetica” blog (http://ciber-genetica.blogspot.com/) was constructed with the aim of supporting different courses related to genetics. The blog constituted a useful tool to encourage students to deepen the topics covered in classroom. The blog was updated daily, offering news about current research in genetics. Students could also have access to materials reviewed in class such as videos and Powerpoint presentations.
A great advantage of blogging as a teaching tool is that students can log on at different times from different places regardless of their teacher. This gives the student a chance to reflect on posts, do research and reply once they have time to do so. This brings teaching and learning to a level beyond the classroom time schedule. As a communication tool, students participating in the project learn to summarize answers, clarify thoughts, and express them accurately.
The blog contains links to several Research Journals about Genetics, Biotechnology, and Health Sciences. RSS subscriptions are also offered, this allowing the blog to be re-purposed in other ways across the Internet, thereby giving the blog the potential to reach well beyond the immediate links above, and allow larger audiences. The blog can be reposted on other websites and subscribed through RSS readers, such as Google Reader.
A dynamic website (http://cibergenetica.fciencias.unam.mx) was created to improve and expand the Ciber-Genetica blog. The main objective is to integrate and interrelate in a unique platform relevant resources and current information that can improve the teaching-learning process.
Ciber Genetica website is based on Joomla!, a powerful content management system (CMS), widely used in online newspapers and other web-publishing services. It allows editors, moderators and administrators to access and edit contents directly and in real time from any computer with internet access.
As a CMS, the Ciber Genetica website allows user-friendly classification of the contents by folksonomic approaches (such as Tag Clouds). Moreover, visitors can register so they can have access to high-quality educational resources arranged in several categories (courses, research, dissemination and teaching), and available in suitable formats (presentations, videos, books and articles in PDF format).