Welcome to Week 1!

During this week, we will be discussing the study of biology and the nature of scientific discourse.

_________________________________________________

Some notes regarding this open online discussion of biology:

• Each week all participants will receive a newsletter describing the learning objectives for that weeks material.  Included in this will be suggested readings.
• Each day of the week, participants will receive a daily newsletter, which may contain:
• Information for participant reflection.
• Additional readings.
• Links to videos or tutorials.
• Links to articles or topics.
•  Each Daily newsletter will contain a DAILY CHALLENGE.
• The daily challenge is a topic for participants to discuss in their blogs.
• Daily challenges are linked to the learning objectives of the week.

 _______________________________________________

Learning Objectives for Week 1

1. Be able to answer the question:  What is Biology?
2. Be able to describe the defining characteristics of living organisms.
3. Be able to describe how all life on Earth is related.
4. Be able to answer the question:  What is a Cell?
5. Be able to discuss the levels of biological organization.
6. Describe the basic differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.
7. Be able to describe how the word theory is used by scientists and the lay person.
8. Be able to describe how the study of evolution is used by scientists and the lay person.
9. Be able to discuss the hypethetico-deductive model of reason (scientific method).
10. Be able to discuss the history of biology as a discipline.
11. Be able to discuss the naming of biological organisms.

________________________________________________

Suggested Reading for Week 1

1. Chapter 1 of Life: The Science of Biology  by Sadava, Hillis, Heller, and Berenbaum.
2. History of Biology at Wikipedia (yes, I am sending you to Wikipedia)
3. Famous Biologists

________________________________________________

NOTES on References and Readings

We are using Zotero as a group reference collection.  The Zotero group is:

https://www.zotero.org/groups/biology_mooc_at_gsu

There is also a Diigo group set up for reference organization:

http://groups.diigo.com/group/biology-mooc-at-gsu

As a general rule for students, when building your blog posts, you should keep a record of all sites, books, articles, and lectures you use in writing your posts.  Think of the references a guideposts of where you got your information.  If you have a full accounting of the places where you got information, then when you come back to study or reference materials, you will know where you got your information.

What about Wikipedia?  Wikipedia is an encycolpedia, and thus it is not an acceptable reference.NO!  The reason it is not acceptable as an academic reference on a full academic paper is that it is an ENCYCLOPEDIA.  It is not a primary source.  It is not a textbook.  It is not acceptable for an academic paper.  But, Wikipedia is a fine starting off point.  Is it 100% accurate?  NO, but few written sources are.  It is as good as most encyclopedia, and is actually more up to date than most textbooks.  Most of the science articles in Wikipedia are good, and some of the very specific topics are written by people who have worked on those topics.  As such, Wikipedia is fine when writing blogs and forum discussions for Biology MOOC.  I strongly recommend that you go further than Wikipedia, but you can use wikipedia when building references for your blogs.  (heck, if I like an article, I'll send it out as a suggested reading).