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BioQUEST Resources

Access to BQ Workshop Presentations, Resources, and Participant Projects
BioQUEST Resources | (0)
11.20.09
If you look at the BioQUEST calendar, you will see an array of undergraduate faculty workshops and some K-12 teacher and student workshops. Did you know that you can access the presentation materials, resources, and participant projects from BioQUEST workshops over the past four years? BioQUEST workshops are associated with specific disciplinary or pedagogical content and are easy to find by clicking on the calendar links.

BioQUEST is committed to the support of open community resources in science education. This means that any BioQUEST site visitor can access curricular materials from our extensive collection of downloadable resources as well as the presentations and resources from our faculty workshops.

Visit the selected workshop sites below to view the presentations and workshop resources by staff as well as participant-generated curricular materials.
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testing showtime slideshow plugin
BioQUEST Resources | (0)
11.20.09

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Interactive, Collaborative, Quantitative Biochemistry Education in the 2.0 Era
BioQUEST Resources, Teaching and Learning | (0)
07.26.09

Today Srebrenka Robic and I presented at the 23rd Annual Protein Society meeting in Boston at their Educators Luncheon. Attached please find a copy of our presentation (pdf or ppt).

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What’s a blog?
BioQUEST Resources | (0)
03.11.09
So, you can take this question literally and answer it with the wikipedia definition. However, the best description I have found describing a blog is by Andy Carvin at the PBS Teachers blog. As a jumping off point I have excerpted the beginning of his post here:

May 22, 2006

What Exactly is a Blog, Anyway?

by Andy Carvin, 12:01PM

If you don’t know what a blog is, you’re not alone; according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, nearly two-thirds of Internet users don’t have a good idea of the meaning of “blog.” In case you fall within this group, you’re in luck, though – you’re looking at a blog right now.

But this is just a website, right? Yeah, I get that a lot. On several occasions while doing workshops with both educators and non-educators, people have asked me if blogs are just websites. Yes, it’s true, blogs are a type of website, but there’s more to it than that.

continue reading Andy Carvin’s post …

So what is the “more”?
- Blogs Offer Independence AND Togetherness
  - An online content management system – such as the WordPress platform that we are using – frees up daily dependence upon a web developer, designer or administrator. The software installs in — no kidding — 5 minutes. You can update your own content and post media such as images, video, slideshows, and podcasts with minimal effort.
  - Multiple people can share in the maintenance of the blog. No need for multiple copies of expensive HTML editing software, FTP’ing files, and worrying about over-writing each other’s versions of the document.
- Blogs come in hundreds of different flavors
  - Whether you start with the “classic” or “default” themes that come pre-installed or select from the many, many, many freely available themes, you can change the look and feel of your blog with a touch of a button. For example, compare three of our blogs: SCOPE, Summer2009 and BioQUEST.org.
  - Many enjoy the built-in features that allow for a very visual presentation of your content, while others enjoy its ability to maintain a public diary which invites and supports a dialog with its readers.
  - Some enjoy the fact that Wordpress (the most prevelent blog software) is an open-source (i.e. community) project which invites people to create plugins to add features. We are currently using plugins that do things like support forms (e.g., Where Are We? Evolution Survey) and automated page translation (just click on one of the flags near the top of the page).
These are just some of the “more” that bioquest.org is trying to take advantage of. Please take the time to tell us what you think about what we are doing by sharing a comment on this page!

Next time we will share some information about how to find your way around in a blog. All that dynamic content requires some new surfing strategies.

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BioQUEST Blog Update – March 11, 2009
BioQUEST Resources | (0)
03.11.09
Pea image by zaser shared under (cc).

Welcome back! This is the second BioQUEST Blog Update and we have a great collection of resources and materials to share again this time around.

First, a quick thank you to all of you who shared notes of encouragement and interest with us after the first update. We have started to refer to the blog as the cyber-BQNotes, in reference to our print newsletter, because it is an important tool for sharing information with the community. The biggest difference is that the blog updates are much easier to produce and they accumulate over time as new content on the web site.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions drop us a line at bioquest@beloit.edu. You can also use this address to sign-up to receive these updates via email (or to stop receiving them). We send out updates every 2 weeks and we will never share your contact information without your permission.

In this BQ Blog Update we are excited to highlight:
We also want to remind you:
- Apply Now for the BioQUEST Summer Workshop
- The Where Are We? Evolution Survey will close on March 18.
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