University of Minnesota WebAnatomy Web Site Review

I am quite impressed with the University of Minnesota's WebAnatomy web site. I remember the days when I had to take Anatomy and Physiology. It involved a HUGE amount of memorization, but I had an excellent instructor who actually made the class interesting. That could have been a horribly boring class.

I now teach classes online and am always on the look-out for interesting web sites to augment my students' learning. The University of Minnesota's WebAnatomy web site is great.

WebAnatomy offers several choices:

• Self tests
• Timed tests
• Multiplayer games
• Image bank

What I like about WebAnatomy:

• It's easy to use. Just make a choice and click, and you're quickly into a game.
• This site is nicely organized and uses fonts and color combinations that are eye friendly.
• There are lots of choices. You can choose something simple like the basic major bones of the body (my 8-year-old just had a test on these bones in her class) or you can choose very specific areas that are more detailed. It also includes medical terminology games.
• It offers games to play alone or with others. How cool is that? If my online students wanted to have a tournament to see who can name parts the fastest, they can arrange to log in at the same time and have a bit of a battle.
• It's free. You don't have to sign up and I don't even see advertising on the site.

What could be improved on WebAnatomy:

• There's not much I would suggest, but if I had to make one suggestion, it would be to include more detailed pictures within the image bank.
• My only other suggestion would be to expand the site to include disease processes and physiology and other health-care related information and to add some geared toward kids, like simple information about handwashing, smoking, etc.

My Viewpoint:

WebAnatomy is an absolutely great site for people who are studying the various parts of the body and medical terminology. Trying to memorize anatomy and medical terminology is pretty difficult for many people. WebAnatomy is well-organized, accurate, simple to use, and offers a variety of games to make learning anatomy more interesting and fun. All of that and it's free and without ads. This site deserves 5 stars in my book!