A virtual microscope system for histology learning in education

Traditional microscopes are used as basic tools for histology education and have caused many problems in schools. Due to the advances of information technology, some virtual microscopy systems (VM systems) have been developed over years for educational purposes. The VM systems have been proven in the literature to be useful and helpful for students' learning. However, currently, most VM systems just try to mimic the physical microscopes and there is still a lot of room to improve their usefulness for educational purposes. In this paper, we discuss what kinds of features and technologies a VM system should have in order to support various pedagogical strategies. We discuss the features of an ideal virtual microscope system that are needed to make the histology learning more effective and efficient. We have developed a prototype system based on this ideal VM system and some results are demonstrated in this paper. We believe that a VM system with these features will significantly improve the histology learning in education.