Depending on their age and experience, students should be given 2 or 3 (45-50 minute) class periods to complete the tutorial. Students can be asked to work in class or on their own time, depending on the availability of computers and internet access. A thorough introduction is required if students are going to work outside of class.

Reserve a computer lab for your students well in advance. Students can work on the activities in pairs, but ideally they should each have their own computer.

Introduce gene annotation in the regular classroom before going to the computer lab. If possible provide a preview of the activities using a projected image of the web pages. If possible review some of the related topics (from the previous page) as a large group, or in smaller cooperative groups, before beginning the gene annotation activities.

The tutorial is a shock wave file. Students are not working at the live site as they complete the activities in the tutorial. Students should be encouraged to visit the live site between activities to browse the genome and try out their newly learned skills. Students can create annotations and use the annotation tool without registering. However, to submit annotations students must register with AtGDB by clicking on the "Register" link.

This tutorial was last modified in July 2006.