HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology: iCell 3.6.1

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The first app that I will be reviewing is called iCell. It is a free app that allows users to see plant, animal and bacteria cells in a three-dimensional place.

The Good

The app has many good things about it. It is widely accessible to whoever wants to use it. It is available for free download on apple devices (iPad, iPod touch, iPhone) as well as android devices. Not only can it be used on hand-held devices, but the application also has a web-based version, allowing teachers and students to show use it on their computers. The app does not have ads.

This app provides a great visual for today’s students, who are so accustom to visualizing things in three dimensions. The cells are nicely laid out, and are aesthetically pleasing. The annotation is helpful, because it can be used with different degrees of detail. This can help students review the basics, as well as allow them to dive deeper into the function of each organelle. It is easy to use, and very intuitive.

The descriptions provided in the application are very helpful. Perhaps one of the best parts of the application is the ability to change the level of the description. For example, the basic description of the cell wall in bacteria is that it “monitors and selectively controls entry into and out of the cell” (iCell, 2018), while the advanced says that the cell wall “is a semi-permeable double phospholipid bilayer, which contains proteins and lipids that aid the cell.”(iCell, 2018). This allows for the app to be used for many different levels of learners.

This app doesn’t require users to register personal information, and doesn’t collect the cell phone’s location (McClain, 2018), making it fairly secure to use in the classroom and with students.

 

The Bad

The app has some drawbacks, though. Aesthetically speaking, the cells look quite nice, but the home page for the app isn’t overly attractive. The application could be improved by creating clickable links within the text. There is some complex vocabulary within the descriptions, and being able to define some of the words would make the app more useful for all students. This could easily be used as a classroom activity! The app can also be considered boring, as once students have read the description, there are no activities to complete. Developers could look into adding a quiz or game component to the app to make it more engaging for longer periods of time.

More importantly, iCell only includes one cell model for animal, plant and bacteria. This can reinforce a common misconception in students, who could assume that all animal cells have identical appearance. There is no mention of differences that exist within animal, plant, or bacteria cells, such as specializations. As teachers, it is important to draw the attention of our students to the various cells that exist under the umbrella that iCell is depicting – this application is the classic model of the cell, not “the animal cell” because there are many types of animal cells.

Another possible problem people could encounter with this app, is the possibility to miss different parts of the cell. The app is three-dimensional, and some organelles remain blocked by others from some angles. Also, the app includes quite a small text box, so in order to read all the information for the intermediate and advanced sections, users need to hit ‘more’ after each sentence or so. As a study tool, this could cause problems for students trying to learn new information. Finally, it can sometimes be difficult to click on what you are interested in seeing. There are small organelles that can be hard to zoom into, and sometimes when aiming for one thing, you receive a description for something different – especially in the bacteria cell.

Overall, although this application could use a few small adjustments to improve it, it has a lot of great uses for the classroom. I believe that this app could be very useful in every grade of high school science/ biology.