INTERNET ASSISTED LEARNING OF BIOCHEMISTRY

The revolution  in information  technology  has included the INTERNET to the available  resources for biochemical  education.  There  is a great  deal of biochemical  information, and  the  amount is increas- ing rapidly,  indeed  exponentially.  The  aim of this work is to analyze  the  biochemical  issues cellular respiration, photosynthesis and membrane  transport available  in web pages, taking  into account con- tents  quality,  trustworthiness and effectiveness. Firstly  1st secondary level students were inquired by a questionnaire on their use of INTERNET resources.  More then 80 percent of them were regular users. The  results  confirm the  already  known  potential of INTERNET in education.  Fourteen sites  were analyzed  regarding  to contents, presence  of bibliographical, references,  authorship, titles  responsible and adequacy  to the target public.  In relation  to contents, presence of conceptual  errors, illustrations and other  stimulatory elements  were analyzed.  The great  majority  did not mention  bibliographic  ref- erences and target public.  Less than  half divulged responsible  names and/or their  graduation status. Some sites contained critical  conceptual  errors,  as the mention  of, as examples:  during  the cell active transport process, of energy (ATP) waste (desperdicio) by the cell; the yeast is a pluricellular  fungal; and  the  oxygen is essential  for anaerobic  respiration.  However,  one of the  sites,  where  such  errors were found, was the only one to mention  enzymes and regulation  steps of cellular respiration. Half of the sites present identical  texts  and figures. None of the analyzed  sites thus  was considered excellent. Our data  strenghthen the need for rigorous evaluation concerning of scholarly research  of biochemical theme  on the web.INTERNET ASSISTED LEARNING OF  BIOCHEMISTRY