Showcasing annotation layers

September 22, 2014

The creation of personal annotation layers on Slice has seen a huge increase in the number of annotations. Slice has over 500 annotation layers and over 1400 annotations, with these numbers growing by the day.

Academics are using Slice in class in a variety of ways, with students annotating images in real-time, incorporating annotations posing questions into classroom activities, as notes for class tutors or circulating annotated images to students with the correct answers at the end of class.

We’ve seen the use of Slice in action as part of pathology classes at UNSW Australia and University of Melbourne with some excellent examples of annotation layers and thought it would be great to share annotation layers here in the comments. Hopefully this provides a source of inspiration and highlights the ways Slice can be used in class.

We’ve seen the use of Slice in action as part of pathology classes at UNSW Australia and University of Melbourne with some excellent examples of annotation layers and thought it would be great to share some more examples of ways people are using annotation layers. Ideas and examples from five members are shared below to provide a source of inspiration of the ways Slice can be used.

Ariel Shoham, Smart Sparrow

Happy to share "Smokey the Rat" layer (http://goo.gl/NqbPQ8) - This layer was created as an example for a SmartSlide, which includes links to other external resources, links to other relevant images on Slice, reference to other resources on BEST courseware page, annotations, questions, reference to a case example and many more.

If one wants to have a good visual understanding of the rat - this layer is a great starting point. Any BEST member is welcome to duplicate the layer and make any changes needed.Just log in to BEST > Click the link to view this layer > and click duplicate to create your own editable copy of it.

Tip: If you want a short link – go to https://goo.gl/ log in with a google account, paste the long link to your slide and generate a short URL. https://goo.gl/ will track all the clicks on this layer, so you can see the number of clicks it generated, where they originate from, when and many more...

Patrick de Permentier, UNSW Australia

I am a lecturer in the Department of Anatomy at UNSW and I teamed up with Kristy Weir at UQ to annotate some virtual slides in Slice. The links below are samples of these annotations:

Nicholas Hawkins, UNSW Australia

I teach pathology at UNSW. Here are some of the ways I have used slice

With students

  • before and during tutorials to get students to think about a specimen they are looking at , like this - http://goo.gl/hDgU1e
  • after the tutorial to provide students with a summary of the things we discussed, like this- http://goo.gl/Fjo7C5
  • during the tutorial - to share a layer with a particular login, so they can all annotate the same layer as a group, to answer questions, like this - http://goo.gl/bu4Bi8With tutors
  • to provide information to tutors about a slide, so we are all on the same page come tutorial/practical class time, like this - http://goo.gl/Icbwv5

Dr Betty Kan, UNSW Australia

I also teach Pathology at UNSW. I ran a class last week where students annotated slides as I guided them through cases, pointing out important features. At the end of the class, I shared with them my annotated slide, giving them an opportunity to compare their own work with mine: https://www.best.edu.au/s/hxh82jsp/9rbv9n4k?data=1%40[%2243sw41pu%22]!8%400!9%4011744!10%40-4256&version=1

Dr Chris Hopkins, University of Melbourne

I teach pathology at the University of Melbourne. We have yet to really get into using Slice, but here is a layer we linked to as a model answer from a "drag and drop" virtual slide in one of our tutorials:

https://www.best.edu.au/s/59ulymkp/c6fnnbi2?data=8%402!9%4051186!10%40-24240&version=1

Some inspiring ideas below - thanks!