Electronic blending in virtual microscopy

Virtual microscopy (VM) is a relatively new technology that transforms the computer into a microscope. In essence, VM allows for the scanning and transfer of glass slides from light microscopy technology to the digital environment of the computer. This transition is also a function of the change from print knowledge to electronic knowledge, or as Gregory Ulmer puts it, a shift ‘from literacy to electracy.’ Blended learning, of course, is capable of including a wide variety of educational protocols in its definition; it is also at the heart of electronically mediated forms of education. Since 2004, VM has been introduced into Dentistry, Medicine, Biomedical Science and Veterinary Science courses at the University of Queensland, a project aimed at consolidating VM techniques and technologies into their curricula. This paper uses some of the evaluative survey data collected from this embedding process to discuss the role blended learning plays in electronic styles of learning, or ‘electracy’, before finally reflecting on the quantum world represented in VM imagery

Chora-Logic: Electracy as regional epistemology

"Arising out of the work of Marshall McLuhan, Eric Havelock, Walter Ong, Jacques Derrida and Gregory Ulmer, among others, it is widely thought there are three stages in the history of human communication: the oral, the literate and the electronic. Nonetheless, debate is ongoing over the integration, ordering and the substantive separation of these stages. An upshot of these debates is that each stage is loosely allied to a particular socio/political structure: hunter/gatherer or tribal societies, nation states, and globalisation respectively. In the current alloying of electronic communication and globalisation though there is a rising interest in what is termed new regionalism, or regionalisation, even regionality. Accordingly, Chora-Logic: Electracy as Regional Epistemology examines the possibility of an emerging conceptual alliance (and through reference to two Australian regions a sometimes embodied and situated one) between the embryonic communicational infrastructure of electracy and the age-old spatial scale of the region, a relationship that might just come to represent a means of rethinking the civic and the psychic, the commercial and governmental frameworks of an electro-energised global skein. It may also be a way of reinvigorating a study in the relation of the body (in its capacity as a citizen-subject) to the nation state, especially as all these entities are increasingly though ambiguously constituted in and through globalisation. The method of synthesising and antagonising these relations between electracy and regionalism is through the philosophy of chora, Platos conception of embodied place as found in the middle section of the Timaeus, coaxed along by a range of interpretations of this important genesis myth in Western philosophy. In particular, chora is taken up in the work of Gregory Ulmer as a key method in the ongoing conceptualisation of an electrate epistemology. Arising out of these concerns Chora-Logic is an experimental re-configuration of the sovereign, abstracted and disembodied citizen-subject of the Cartesian mould (a significant psycho-political mooring of the literate national character) to one situated both in the virtual density and multidimensional actuality of a particular place (organically conceived of herein as an idiosyncratic mix of psychic, domestic, workplace, local and regional proximities), but whose both dis embodied self-knowledge and world-knowledge are now increasingly realised by access to an electronically arbitrated global/regional polis. In sound-bite terms, the bumper sticker could just as easily proclaim the following inversion: Think and feel chora-logically, act globally. Finally, the nucleus of Chora-Logic: Electracy as Regional Epistemology is a risky praxis whose experimental eddy (in both formal and content terms) spins within the current ambivalence, uncertainty and fast-paced change in electronic communicative arrangements (electracy), as these are themselves wrapped in the psychic and socio-political variabilities of spatial affiliation, all of which are symbiotically entwined regardless of the historical period and/or the geographical context." -- abstrac

The e-evolution of microscopy in dental education

Recent technological innovation has now made it possible to turn the computer into a microscope. This has entailed a shift from light microscopy to virtual microscopy. This development then foregrounds the issue of the pedagogy involved in this move from the analogue technology of the light microscope to the digital, computerized instance of virtual microscopy. In order to address this issue, undergraduate students enrolled in the Bachelor of Dental Science program at the University of Queensland School of Dentistry were surveyed to ascertain their preference for light or virtual microscopy. The value of this study is that it was conducted on the same cohort of students in two separate courses in 2006 and 2008, giving it longitudinal validity. The responses were overwhelmingly in favor of virtual microscopy. When it came to completely replacing the light microscope with virtual microscopy, however, students were much more ambivalent about such a wholesale change although this was less of an issue in the senior year. This shift from light to virtual microscopy signals larger changes in the tertiary sector from print-literate to electronic forms of knowledge and from teacher-centered to student-focused frames of learning. In short, we are in the midst of the e-evolution of microscopy in dental education

Testing the educational potential of 3D visualization software in oral radiographic interpretation

There is heightened optimism about the potential of 3D visualization software as an alternative learning resource in radiology education. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of 3D visualization software on students’ learning of oral radiographic interpretation from 2D radiographic images. Fourth-year dental students underwent a learning intervention phase of radiographic interpretation of oral pathoses using 3D visualization software. The success of the educational intervention was assessed by quantitative means, using a radiographic interpretation test, and by qualitative means, using a structured Likert-scale survey, asking students to evaluate their own learning outcomes. It was anticipated that training with the rotational mode of 3D visualization software would provide additional depth cues, enabling students to create spatial-mental models of anatomy that they can apply to 2D radiographic interpretation of oral pathoses. Although quantitative assessment did not support this, questionnaire evaluations demonstrated a positive effect of the 3D visualization software by enhancing students’ learning about radiographic interpretation. Despite much optimism about the educational potential of 3D visualization software, it is important to understand the interactions between learners and such new technologies in order to identify potential advantages and limitations prior to embracing them as learning resources

Electronic systems of knowledge in the world of virtual microscopy

Across a broad range of medical disciplines, learning how to use an optical or light microscope has been a mandatory inclusion in the undergraduate curriculum. The development of virtual microscopy (VM) technology during the past 10 years has called into question the use of the optical microscope in educational contexts. VM allows slide specimens to be digitized, which, in turn, allows the computer to mimic the workings of the light microscope. This move from analog technology (the light microscope) to digital technology (the computer as microscope) is part of the many significant changes going on in education, a singular manifestation of the broader move from print-literate traditions of knowledge (requiring literacy) to an electronics-literate, or "electrate," mode (requiring "electracy"). VM is here used as an exemplar of this broad transition from literacy to electracy, some components of which include data deluge, a multimodal structure, and modularity. Understandably, this transition is important to clarify educationally, especially in a global context mediated via digital means. A related aspect of these educational changes is the move from teacher-directed learning to student-centered learning, or "user-led education," which points to a redefinition of "pedagogy" as "andragogy." The dissemination of the specific value of VM, then, is critical to both learners and teachers and to a more coherent understanding of electracy. A practical consequence of this clarity might be a better application of this knowledge in the evolving fields of computer simulation and telemedicine, areas in which today's medical students will need future expertise