The Team

What's New Archive

Acknowledgements

What's New 2000

SPRING:
GenScope development is complete and our efforts are now channeled into a successor program, BioLogica. Where GenScope was a general-purpose tool students used to investigate genetic phenomena, BioLogica is a tool with which researchers and teachers can develop genetics curriculum, as well as provide prompts to encourage and guide students' reflection on their own learning. Please visit our new web site at http://biologica.concord.org.

The final version of GenScope is on our Download page. Some of you may have noticed a bug in the earlier version of GenScope. Populations could not be saved and run again. We have fixed that. You can now run the evolution file in the population level, save the file, start it again , and continue running the program.

GenScope 1999

SPRING:
We ran this project for six years, moving through various stages of development, implementation, redesign, and evaluation. Nearing completion, we share with you some of the tools we used in evaluation and assessment of the GenScope program.

So, take a look in the Research section of our site where you will meet the NewWorm and join in Dragon Investigations!

The assessment data has been analyzed and was presented in April at the American Educational Research Association in Montreal.

FALL:

We have analyzed our research data from 43 high schools over 3 years and have presented our findings. Three broad themes emerged.

• After using GenScope, student ability to reason about genetics improved.
• GenScope helped bring about a fundamental, qualitative change in student thinking.
• In later test-taking situations, GenScope students took risks in solving problems that non-GenScope users simply passed by.

GenScope 1998

SPRING:
GenScope moves from BBN to The Concord Consortium. Demo version of software is available. See our Download page for the latest demo and tour.

SUMMER:
We teach GenScope the easy way, offering four summer workshops called "Design-A-Dragon." Each ran 3 days, at various locations in New York and Massachusetts. Teacher participants learned the program, reviewed Mendelian genetics, and wrote activities for use with the program. Word on the street says it was terrific.

FALL:
You couldn't make it to the "Design-A-Dragon" workshops? Wish you did? Well, it's true that you missed seeing and being seen, but why not do the next best thing? Read Joyce's Journal and join workshop leader Joyce Schwartz as she looks back on her summer of travel, teaching, and learning. She shares not just memories, but cool classroom activities developed by participating teachers. Check it out.

WINTER:
We announce the arrival of GenScope 1.0. Its population level is greatly improved over the one that used to be up on our web site. Also, this is a fully functional version -- you can print and save files with it. This version of GenScope is also "scriptable," meaning you can run interactive curriculum pieces (we call these"interactivities") that embed curriculum and assessment functions into the software. You'll find it in our Download section.

For those who plan to download GenScope and are wondering what possibilities the software holds ... check out our new activities. We've put up some of our favorite teacher and student-tested activities. We've included fun (and challenging) things to do with the dragon, Labrador and human species. And for those who have explored GenScope on their own already and may need an inspirational boost ... you're invited too. Maybe you'll get some new ideas.