Virtual Microscopy New, Old, Out, Or Just A Part Of Education
Abstract
Introduction/ Background
More than six years ago – accompanying the start of the new study program “Modellstudiengang†– we began a virtual microscopy program for our students. This started with slides to accompany the course to use during the lesson and for review of the slides at home (or in the library). But we wanted to go further.
How far have we come?
Â
Aims
Our aim was to provide our students with more benefi- cial information and to increase the amount of material available - in the form of slides and accompanying exercises.
A secondary goal was streamlining the education of our students (fewer slides to manage and better opportuni- ties for students to prepare for lessons).
Â
Methods
The slides were scanned using NanoZoomer 2.0-HT slide scanner.
The virtual slides were made available to students using Slidebox system (version 4.4.3.) in three different ways:We provided annotated slides with healthy (physio- logical) and diseased (pathological) samples to ac- company the entire course. Some of the slides were for use during lessons, others as supplementary material.
- The virtual slides were integrated into a new style of lecture (“blended learningâ€) mixing learning opportu- nities from case reports, including clinical information; radiological images; and virtual slides. To review acquired knowledge memory-quizzes were used.
- We complement the cases seen in the practical course “Autopsy – How, why, to what end?†with histology. Thus students are able to have a complete overview of the case from clinical history, to macroscopic findings and their correlation with the microscopic findings, to the final report.
Â
Results
Usually the students were suprised, when they first come in contact with the virtual microscopy. But the Initial suprise yields to experimentation and getting used to it.
Â
Virtual microscopy is not only just a part, but an import- ant part of our education.
Â
Downloads
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
4. In case of virtual slide publication the authors agree to copy the article in a structural modified version to the journal's VS archive.