Activity 15: Use a simulation.

Visit NetFrog, which is an online simulation of the disection of a frog, and blog the site.
Evaluate it against its purpose of practicing before disecting, or using the site instead of actually disecting the frog. What general lessons does it teach you about online simulations in education?

For activity 15 I visited NetFrog, I looked at the pictures and watched the videos, the videos were organised in five sections: "Introduction", "Preparation", "Skin incisions", "Muscle incisions", "Internal organs". This made it much easier to navigate through the site.

After clicking on these sections, there are several detailed steps that explain what to do, these steps are written side-by-side annotated pictures that illustrate the procedure.  The text combined with the pictures make it very easy to see what is going on so you can later on replicate the procedure accurately. There is also a video at the end of each of the five sections, the video very clearly shows you what to do as it is being narrated every step of the way, you can also pause or rewind that tape at any time,  so it is quite literally impossible to make a mistake.

I think that NetFrog is an excellent website for a novice disector to watch before doing, as it is very clear and makes use of several educational techniques - such as text, annotated pictures and videos - to teach the disection of a frog. This site is also a very good substitute for disecting a real frog as it teaches you where to disect the frog and more importantly, how to disect it. NetFrog also gives an in-depth look at the anatomy of the frog, which uses the annotated pictures mentioned earlier. After watching NetFrog, i've found myself with very little need to go out and actually disect a frog. I would say the only disadvantage to using NetFrog as opposed to actually disecting a frog is, when looking at pictures or watching videos online, you aren't actually free to do what you want with the frog, you can't inspect the internal organs of your own and your vision is restricted to what is shown in the video. (No matter how detailed it is)