Teacher Sites

Winter Wren AP Biology – This site is geared towards high school teachers and students in the tenth or eleventh grades who are teaching and taking Advanced Placement Biology. I like this site because he/she placed all of the class’ worksheets on the site so that students have the opportunity to obtain one if they are absent. This is much better than having students always ask what they missed when they were absent. A second aspect that I like is that there are worksheets for instructions on how to do linear regressions on the TI-83 calculators and other instructional activities that the students will be doing throughout the course of the class. The third thing I like is that there are many useful links; preparing for the AP test, and other biological websites including teacher sites, study tips, biology graphics, and Biological supply company sites. There are some recommendations that I have for this site and they are: to update the site more frequently, it hasn’t been done since the summer of 2002; to include some activities that can be completed using the internet; and to include the class notes on the site. Overall, I thought this was a wonderfully constructed page. http://www.winterwren.com/apbio/home/

Mr. Johnson’s Biology Home Page – I found this site from the Winter Wren AP Biology web page under the link for selected Biology links. This is a site for Mr. Johnson’s Biology 1 and 2 and Advanced Placement Biology students, which could be any student in high school. What I like about this page is the great use of biology graphics, the use of an online source (www.quizlab.com) for students to take quizzes, and his link where he specifically tells his students what they need to do in order to be successful in his class. What I found interesting is that he allows his students to use the classroom computer to print out notes at the beginning of class, during lunch, and at the end of class. What I would recommend to him is changing the layout of the website because it looks very crowded and including some informational sources that are outside of the textbook. I would also suggest that he include other worksheets for the students because repetition is helpful when learning new material. The only worksheets that I have been able to find are the study guides from the book. The students should be given the opportunity to see the material presented in ways other than solely the textbook. Overall, I think this is a good starter page, but it needs to be expanded on. http://www.sirinet.net/%7Ejgjohnso/