Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
I am finishing off an article on e-learning and have been reviewing some e-learning material as, largely, displacement activity. I cam across this virtual dissection site and got hooked on owl pellets!
The site (Froguts.com) is used in thousands of schools, and single licences are now $30US per year which is very reasonable. One of the demos gives you an owl pellet and you have to blow away the dust and extract the bones in the pellet and make up the skeleton of a vole. It is absolutely fascinating seeing how many tiny bones make up a vole skeleton and wondering how they can fit in a single owl pellet. As you complete the exercise, the bones are named and finally the skeleton animates and walks off the screen. So in the process you learn about bones, habitat and activites of voles and how a skeleton hangs together. Great learning yet very simple. A combination of action, information and elegant use of Flash animation.