Fig 1.
Development of Tooth ARcademy.
Tooth ARcademy is a mobile app developed as a teaching and learning resource for oral histology. (A, B) Steps of developing the mobile app Tooth ARcademy. The first step was the selection of histology glass slides, followed by digitization, curation, and annotation. A series of multiple-choice questions was prepared, followed by the final incorporation of the resources into the mobile app. (C) Whole-slide scanning was performed using Z-stacking technology on an Aperio Digital Slide Scanner (Leica Biosystems). Z-stacking technology takes multiple images at different focal distances and combines them to make a composite image. This composite nature of the digital scans allowed the creation of multiple images from a single digital tissue section.
Fig 2.
An overview of Tooth ARcademy.
(A) Tooth ARcademy is designed to suit various displays. (B) Tooth ARcademy is a mobile app with three modes, Learn, Practice, and Quiz, which are presented to the user on the homepage. The Learn mode is AR-based. When a user views an unannotated target histological section through the device’s camera in Learn mode, they can see the annotation for that image. (C) The QR code to download Tooth ARcademy from the Apple App Store. (D) A sample target image to test the AR function of Tooth ARcademy. (E) The logo of Tooth ARcademy.
Fig 3.
The Practice mode of Tooth ARcademy.
(A) Tooth ARcademy has three modes, Learn, Practice, and Quiz, which are presented to the user on the homepage. (B) In the Practice mode, students can choose to study from three groups of tissue sections: Tooth, Soft tissue, and Development (B-D). For each category, students are first presented with a histological section, followed by the fully annotated version of the same slide.
Fig 4.
The Quiz mode of Tooth ARcademy.
(A) Tooth ARcademy is a mobile app with three modes, Learn, Practice, and Quiz, which are presented to the user on the homepage. In the Quiz mode, students can choose to study from three groups of tissue sections: Tooth, Soft tissue, and Development. In this mode, students can participate in quizzes that assess their ability to identify and/or label histological images. (B) At the end of the quiz, students get their total score and can review their performance on each question.