National Antivisection Society
Revising and updating computer assisted learning objectives
Posted: 27 May 2009. Updated: 20 July 2009
RECAL2 – enhancing the impact of computer – based educational alternatives on animal use in teaching biomedical sciences.
This project, now in its third year, has seen a total of 35 computer-assisted learning (CAL) programs being taken apart, revised and renewed and then catalogued into the “learning object repository”. The repository, which is now fully operational, currently houses 2945 unique, reusable objects. Users, with full permission, are able to download existing items and upload brand new learning objects.
All of the programs are designed to support university teachers of pharmacology, physiology and biochemistry, both in teaching students and in supporting students’ autonomous learning.
Importantly, out of the 35 CALs, eight are foreign language versions; Chinese, Serbian and Spanish. These translations will assist in overcoming barriers in the countries where these languages predominate and where there is very little distribution of alternatives programs i.e. Central and South America and China.
The system is able to deliver programmes to the users either via the RECAL web site or on CD-ROM. The ability to have the program on CD is especially valuable because, with additional work, it could be delivered on a PDA, iPOD or even as an iPhone application.
In addition to the work on RECAL, in the winter of 2008, the team launched a survey “The impact of computer-based alternatives on animal use in university teaching”. This is due to be completed and the results analysed this year.
In addition to this work, in November 2008, Dr Dewhurst attended a symposium on alternatives which was hosted in Seoul, Korea. This afforded him the opportunity to both network with senior scientists and university teachers and also to learn about animal use in Korean universities and the problems to be faced when introducing alternatives. The symposium was hosted by the Korean Association for Laboratory Animal Sciences (KALAS) and the Korean institute for the 3Rs, which is newly established.
Find out how this exciting project evolved
