Anatomy Online

There are many free Web 2.0 tools to help teach Anatomy and Physiology. There are a myriad of sites with diagrams and information that can be used as “texts” or as supplemental information. The fact that they are online and that they are student centric makes them much more interesting to the students. They are also good tools for students to use for review.

Bodymaps is a little slow to react, but has very good images once they focus. The systems start off in very cartoonish diagrams, but then become more realistic once you zoom in a bit. You can manipulate and rotate images to look at from the top, bottom, front, back, left and right. I think that students might get frustrated waiting for the images to load, as they take a long time.

Healthline offers rotatable images that are fairly realistic. They can be clicked on to identify structures and students can find out further information on each part. Healthline also offers multiple computer animated videos of many processes and medical conditions that are very informative and easy to understand.

AnatQuest has images that are labeled, but are very cartoonish. These images have much detail, but are very colorful and not very realistic. There are sectioned views of the Visible Human that can be zoomed in on, but are not labeled. They would be helpful for a teacher to use with students, but it would be difficult for students to pick out some structures. The Visible Human project produced cross sections of a human male and human female. The male was a young executed murderer and the female an older woman. Before they were cryogenically frozen and sliced, MRI images of their full bodies were taken.

Anatronica offers free rotating diagrams with good images, however, it does not have any information about the parts. It also takes a little while to load, and a viewer needs to be downloaded.

SEER Training is like a virtual textbook. It discusses each system and then discusses cancers of that system since it was created by the National Cancer Institute.

Zygote Body has very easy to manipulate images that are reasonably realistic. Once a structure is clicked on, the name is provided. However, there is not a further description of the structure or its function.

The University of Leicester has an outline of different systems, brief information, but has some very simple and easy to understand animations. The information is intended to be used to prepare for a virtual autopsy.

Kids Health for kids and for teens is great for students with difficulty reading, with visual difficulties, or those who are auditory learners, this simplistic program orally reads the content, though it is in an animated voice. It is lacking in a multitude of pictures that are an important part of anatomy. It does have very good information on disorders.

Essentials of Human Anatomy and Physiology, Elaine Marieb 8th edition, 9^th edition, and 10^th edition and Essentials of Anatomy & Physiology, Martini/Bartholomew, 5^th edition offer materials for each chapter of the text. There are oral descriptions, review quizzes, picture labeling games, case studies, and other review materials. These are great materials to be used as supplements or for students to use as review. Another site for review is Anatomy Arcade. It has games that are fun, though many lack significant detail.

There are abundant free programs that make learning and reviewing much more interesting. I wish that all of these tools were available many moons ago when I was taking Anatomy and Physiology myself!