Histology for Biology…. Hey that rhymes!

For anyone trying to learn Human Anatomy and Physiology this site is an excellent resource.  It was created by Karen Hart at peninsula college for her biology students.  She took the time to post pictures of all the slides she uses in the class.  It has great labeled images of epithelium cells, bone tissue, connective tissue, cross sections of epipyseal plates, sebaceous glands, nerve cells, lymph nodes, cardiac muscle… It has so much available to help review for lab tests.  So if you need to be able to identify cells check this out.  It is free, and doesn’t require any logging in.  Therefore you do not have to be a student at Peninsula College to use this resource.

Check it out here at at Peninsula College’s histology Site

http://www.pc.ctc.edu/hart/

FREE PDA software for Nurses!!!

Many nursing students and med students these days are using PDA’s to help organize the tons of information that comes there way.  It is a great tool and there are lots of programs available for the medical field.  Unfortunately many are fairly expensive.  So students may mot be able to afford all of the latest programs.  So I have put together a few links to FREE PDA programs for the medical field.  I hope you like them.  Let me know if you would like to see any other programs listed via comments.  I will add them to my post!

Here is a link to a page that has 41 free Palm OS and Pocket PC programs for your PDA.  It is geared soward nursing and med students.

http://www.fppda.com/free.html#free

This next sit, Clinical Skills Online, provides online videos demontrating the core clinical skills  was created for students in necessary for most Nursing, medical, dentist and veterinary medicine courses.  You can download them to a PDA or just watch with your laptop.

http://www.elu.sgul.ac.uk/cso/

Study and relieve stress? YES it is possible.

Are you stressed for a big test? Need to study but just can’t seem to retain much? Perhaps you should try another method. A new study from East Carolina University says you should fire up a casual game. The gaming company PopCap underwrote the research, so much of the study is focused on games they offer. However, this can easily be translated into study skills. So, if you just aren’t getting anywhere or are getting stressed about upcoming tests try a study game.

Get a study group together for a game of trivia; everyone can bring their own questions and answers to put in the game. This will help you retain information better, if you hear several questions about the something worded different ways. Plus it starts a great support group for getting good grades in a challenging class. If you are enjoying yourself, your brain will release endorphins and that may help increase your power to retain information.

If you are looking for some solo games try StudyStack.com. John Weidner submitted this idea. Study stack allows a user to input information they need to learn in a ’study stack’ and then use it for flash cards, notes, or games. You can play matching games, hangman, cross word puzzles, word searches, and fill in the blanks. You can search other people stacks to see if anyone else is learning about cellular respiration, or photosynthesis, or human anatomy. You may be surprised at how many subjects are already covered.

Top 5 FREE study tools (Biology, Chemistry and Human Anatomy)

Here are a few web sites you need to check out if you are a Nursing major, or any other medical related field. These study guides are FREE and a great supplement to any college class. I found these from instructor and student recommendations. So if you know of any other great resources please comment and post a link!

This web site is wonderful! It contains study guides, flashards, quizes and animation to help demonstrate concepts. it has information of chemistry, cell biology, Human Anatomy, and general biology. It has some great tutorials.

http://www.college-cram.com/study/biology/presentations/

This site has a free ebook for download entitled, Interactive Physiology 9-system Suite Human Anatomy and Physiology. I haven’t down loaded it to check it out. However, from feedback received it seems like a good study guide.

http://www.college-cram.com/study/biology/presentations/

This site is an unbelievable wealth of information hosted by the University of Minnesota. It is strictly pertaining to Human Anatomy and Physiology. This site provided practice quizzes, dissection videos, animation, and radiographic anatomy. These are provided by their school of medicine to their students and the public.

http://www.med.umn.edu/anatomy/learning.html

This another resource provided by the University of Minnesota. It is a A collection of study aids for entry-level anatomy and physiology students. Completely worth looking at if you are a student in anatomy, and want to get an A.

http://msjensen.cehd.umn.edu/webanatomy/

This is a shareware program you can sample for free, a licensed copy is roughly $79.00. 3D Virtual Human Anatomy Studio is Highly detailed and accurate 3D Virtual human anatomy reference application .Reveal both superficial and deep muscles, , tendons and bones. Perfect for learning and teaching for all levels.

http://www.brothersoft.com/downloads/human-anatomy.html

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FREE Spyware and Virus protection

Most students tend to use the the internet A LOT and so are at a higher risk of viruses and spyware clogging up or even destroying their computers. Just because you may be on a budget, isn’t a good excuse not to protect you most valuable tool.  These are my favorite  Anti-Virus and Spyware programs….but the best news is they are free!

 

AVAST

http://www.avast.com/

a multi-award winning solution to virus protection, with anti-spyware and anti-rootkit software built in for added security. It is available free for non-commercial, home use and with its fast, automatic updates avast! antivirus is already being used by more than 50 million users worldwide to provide continuous protection against all forms of malicious software (malware).

AD-AWARE 

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-2008/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5&cdlPid=10844457

This program protects against password theft, key loggers, spyware, trojans, and other identity theft methods.  Erases racks left behind while surfing the Web, on browsers such as Internet Explorer, Opera, and Firefox

6 reasons to consider Open Source College

 

Open Source is touted as the face of online learning. Many colleges MIT, most notable has published their entire curriculum online in the form of free learning forums. As you can imagine this is a great opportunity for many who are unable to afford a traditional college. The down side is that the syllabus, and basic curriculum is there. Most classes do not have recordings of lectures or tests available for you to test your skills on. MIT has been getting a lot of negative feedback about this. So perhaps in the future it will be available. However, don’t let that discourage you. An individual motivated to learn and not afraid of seeking out their own answers can still get a lot out of these classes. If you meet any of the following 5 categories, you may want to consider looking into Open Source classes.

MIT’s open source can be found here http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.hml

1. You do not need the credits, but want to learn a new material for a career. Many employers may still contribute to expenses like books, if you can still down and explain the concept to them or show them the web site. Especially, if you want to find a class to help improve management skills or update HR practices. Employers may appreciate your cost saving strategy for learning.

2. If you are looking to enrich your life by learning and would normally have to travel a long distance to a community college. Many Sr. Citizens may find this a cheaper alternative. As long as you are internet savvy and able to search out material not found in the course-such as, videos shown in the lecture available in a different location online.

3. You are planning on attending college or are already in college and would like to challenge a class, this could provide you with the resources to learn the material ahead of time. Then you can ‘buy’ the credits without having to sit through a class. This option will generally save you a lot of money and allow you to achieve a degree faster. Most colleges allow you to test out of basic courses like math and English as long as you can score high enough on a placement test. This can get you into advanced courses faster, and help you to get out of college sooner.

4. If you are having trouble deciding on a major and want to check out some of the classes offered in a specific area. So next time you aren’t sure if psychology or social work is the right path for you. Check out a few classes over the summer and see what strikes your fancy without having to pay for a class and change your mind.

5. If you are unable to afford college, or get to a college for any reason, but want to increase your job skills. Even though it does not offer any degree. An employer will always like the fact that you are improving yourself. You may need to emphasis the responsibility, creativeness, independence, and motivation that it takes. But, if you find the right employer, they may just hire you because of the class work. It looks much better than just a high school diploma or GED. Especially if you can talk to a local college and take a final in a like course and show some type of proof of your learning. Even if the college doesn’t count it as a credit, they may be able to help you in other ways.

6. If you want to improve your computer skills, learn a new program or code. There are plenty of classes available to teach these skills. Classes for Office, Access, HTML, Basic, java. This is a great way to teach yourself new computer skills.

Top 5 Vista Gadgets

Gmail Checker 1.2.0.0

Allows you to check you gmail account from your desktop

XM Online radio 1.7

this allows you to select and listen to any XM station. in order to use this product you must have an XM account. If you do not have an XM account they do offer a free three day trial.

Time Keeper v3 0.0.0.3

The time keeper syncs with windows calender to show you your upcoming appointments and tasks, it also gives you the date and time. It has several different skins so you can customize this to match your desktop background.

My Dictionary 1.3.0.0

I find this gadget so handy when for writing assignments in college. Just type in the word you want and it gives you the definition.

Calculator 4.2.1

The Calculator features: Expandable size. Automatic update notification. Scientific notation display. Memory, Trigonometry and Copy/Paste functions. Active operator indicator. Keyboard shortcuts. Help. And many other qualities.

*they can all be found at down loaded for free at http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=d6152b70-2908-4176-b491-610c4f538bd4

If you have a favorite I didn’t list (there are lots to chose from) Please leave the name and description in a comment!

Freeware for Toddlers

I love the freeware I have found for my daughter. She is 17 months old now and loves to play with my laptop. Plus it is a great distraction for her while riding the bus. Also if you leave your computer unattended, you can enable these programs to come up. No matter what you push you bring up a picture or music….toddlers can’t get into any trouble. So next time you defrag, or down load a huge file, you don’t have to worry about little fingers!

TouchePlay3

Hit any key to make a picture appear and hear a sound. TouchePlay 3 is also identical to TouchePlay 1 except both the pictures that appear and the sounds they make are totally random. An apple may make a train sound one time and a bell sound the next and you just might hear a dog speaking a foreign language (in this case, cat or elephant)!! There is only one level.

Hopping Frogs

This “game” doesn’t do anything but it is fun and it can be relaxing to watch the frogs move around the pond! Hit any key to see the frogs jump to random locations and hear them ribbit.

Both can be found here:

http://www.computotgames.com/keyboard.html

Baby One

this program is designed for one year olds, they can bag on the keyboard and random pictures will appear with various beeps.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/peterbalch/prb00041.htm

Mac Freeware for college students….

Here are a few great mac downloads for college students in math and science. I found these helpful for my nursing prerequisites.

CRYSTAL MAKER 8.1.0

An award-winning Mac program for building, displaying and manipulating all kinds of crystal and molecular structures – with real-time photo-realistic graphics and “out-of-the-screen” 3D display.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/math_science/crystalmaker.html

ATOMIC MAC 6.9.0

The award-winning periodic table of the elements for the Macintosh. In addition to the usual information found in such programs, The Atomic Mac also contains a wealth of nuclear information on each isotope, including half life, decay mode, and daughter products. No other periodic table of the elements has more data than The Atomic Mac!

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/math_science/atomicmac.html

GRAPH PAPER MAKER

Software that lets you create your own custom sheets of graph paper. You have complete control over the graph characteristics:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/math_science/graphpapermaker.html

PAPERS 1.8

Bundles all the great technologies that come with Mac OS X to give you a completely new workflow for reading scientific articles. You seek, download, archive, and organize all your articles within a single application. But that is just the start, using spotlight you instantly find the paper you are looking for. Read it fullscreen, add your notes, send it to a classmate.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/math_science/papers.html

Freeware for serious college students

One great way to get the most bang for your buck in college is to get the most out of your computer. I found some great freeware that is useful for college students. Most of the web sites that list freeware seem to focus on ways to play on your computer. However, these apps are more for the serious student.

DreamCalc.com

Instead of spending a fortune on a graphing calculator you may only use for a few quarters. Why not use a freeware graphing calculator for your laptop? This site offers the best calculator out there. In one calculator you can have a simple, scientific, graphing or financial calculator. You can select the mode most suited for your needs and away you go. It is completely free, but does take a little practice to get familiar with. It can take you from pre-algebra classes all the way though statistical calculations.

http://www.studyminder.com/index.html

Study Minder offers a 30 day trial on a great student planner software. It tracks your classes, grades, homeworks assignments due, and your projected study sessions. It helps you focus your energies on the tasks that take the most time, or have the highest priority. It is a great alternative to carring a planner or using a standard windows calandar.

http://www.docstyles.com/index.htm

This site is the most informative website for formating papers to specific styles. It offers a desktop reference program for each style for free, and a quick reference guide to print and carry in a notebook. The site covers, APA, AMA, ASA, CBE, CMS, MLA, and EOS formatting styles. There are also online classes you can enrolling for no charge that walk you through the basics of APA formatting for students new to using it.

*IF YOU KNOW A GREAT COLLEGE FREEWARE PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT AND I WILL ADD IT TO MY LIST!!!

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