Experiencia en el uso de microscopia virtual en la implementación de un curso no presencial sobre patología de crustáceos

MARTORELLI SERGIO R; MARTORELLI SABRINA

Jornada; II Jornadas de Intercambio en Educación a Distancia, UNLP; 2010

EAD_ UNLP

Within the framework of La Plata University, Argentina (UNLP) e-learning project, an elearning platform (WebUNLP) is being used to teach a postgraduate course on crustacean pathology,since three years ago. Within its contents, this course includes several teaching units that need to study cytology and histology aspects in normal and pathological tissue conditions. The capability of providing this type of knowledge has a direct correlation with the possibility of visualization of specific cases under high definition microscopes, to distinguish important cellular structures. This is necessary to provide  essential contents and prepare the tasks related practices aimed at achieving an effective learning in the students. To address this challenge we used, in the process of course implementation, a virtual microscopy software ImageScope provided for one of the companies that perform digital slide scanning service (Aperio Technologies, Inc). The aim of this paper is to describe the reasons for the choice of the mentioned tool, and to related the steps followed for the use of the virtual microscope in this course. Virtual slides were obtained both:  commercially through the scanning service of Aperio and anually using an Olympus BX51 microscope with an Olympus DP71 digital camera of 12.5megapixels.