[BioEdu] How to teach bioinformatics into an isolated area?

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Hi Karlo,

I haven't tried teaching people in remote areas, but I would assume that the barriers to teaching bioinformatics in those areas are the same as teaching anything on a computer.  You may have heard of the "One Laptop Per Child" effort (http://laptop.org/).  That may be a good place to start.  Those systems will run Linux, but there may be some issues to installing certain applications on them (I don't think they have hard drives).

This also brings up the issue of teaching bioinformatics at the secondary level.  What would be a good curriculum for this?  I'm sure that only very rarely would there be a course dedicated to the topic, perhaps for honors students.  So, it's almost always taught as part of a biology course.  What then could/should be taught in that limited time?  And, of all the software applications in bioinformatics, what would be the easiest for high school students to learn?  Consider this: in remote locations, you might as well forget about an Internet connection, so visiting NCBI, etc. would be out of the question.

Cheers,
Jeff

Karlo Claridades wrote:
> Hello everyone! I am Karlo Claridades,a third year from Bachelor of 
> Secondary Education, and I'm from the Philippines.I am an aspiring high 
> school teacher and I am specializing in biological science. I have seen 
> the objectives and visions of Bioinformatics and I say that they are 
> marvelous. Now, I want to gather some tips on how to teach 
> Bioinformatics in some isolated areas such as from the tribes that live 
> in the mountains that are uncivilized, those people who live in the 
> rural areas etc. I have this urge to become a successful educator and 
> more primarilly to help those who are uneducated and cannot be reached 
> by the government and other educational institutions so I am posting 
> this message.
> Thank You!     
> 

-- 
J.W. Bizzaro
Bioinformatics Organization, Inc. (Bioinformatics.Org)
E-mail: jeff at bioinformatics.org
Phone:  +1 508 890 8600
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