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Movies and More (30 years of experience) Gray Matter on My Mind: GMOMMWEB is an interactive program in neuroscience; an electronic “book” designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate neuroscience students, health professional students and practicing health professionals who treat individuals with neurological disorders. The intellectual content is built upon my experience as a neuroscience teacher since 1976 and my work as a basic researcher in systems neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh. There are currently over 225 QuickTime/ Flash Movies that provide a critical dynamic aspect to the program. Some of these movies are QuickTime Virtual Reality Movies where the learner can rotate an object (e.g., brain) in 3D. Others are Navigable Movies that allow the learner to actually navigate and pick sections of the movie to study or simulate neural events in a virtual brain. The remainder are the more typical linear movies. Many of the movies are constructed from 2D and 3D  animation software. Some movies contain human kinesiologic motion data plus muscle activity (EMG audio.) Other movies contain simulated electrical or electrochemical activity of neurons and neural networks; presentation of concepts that go way beyond the printed page. Click this link Pyramidal.mov to play a movie showing a pyramidal cell being activated by synaptic input. QuickTime 7 is required to play this movie. PLEASE BE PATIENT AS THE MOVIE LOADS.

Study Buddies & Discovery- You Have Control These dynamic media (movies) are included with other interactive animations within the GMOMMWEB program. I try to make every page dynamic so that the user is actively involved in the learning process. I include a number of  “Study Buddies” that provide active review of the material that should have been learned. GMOMMWEB includes a good mix of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuroscience concepts/principles and numerous clinical correlations. New material is incorporated into GMOMMWEB as the information becomes available through peer-reviewed neuroscience journals; it must be synthesized before the new knowledge is integrated into the GMOMMWEB program. This is done in a creative way to allow the student to actively “discover” the concepts or principles inherent in the information.

Teaching and Learning Neuroscience in the 21st Century     I use the GMOMMWEB program extensively in my classes to illustrate points that can be made in a few seconds rather than the many minutes that would be required without this dynamic media. I assign portions of the program to students to review outside of class. For individuals/institutions that own the site license for GMOMMWEB, the program may be loaded to individual computers or a Local Area Network (LAN) under the control of the department/program/school purchasing the site license. GMOMMWEB runs well on a high bandwidth local network (intranet) or internet connection. GMOMMWEB may NOT be placed on a public website. Individuals who have purchased the single-user CD may NOT place the program on an LAN NOR copy the program to any computer: single-user licensee runs the program from the CD on their personal desktop/laptop computer. The individual as an instructor may share any of the GMOMMWEB information in class using a data projector connected to his/her laptop computer (single-user or site license user).