Digital Image Interview Series
Ann C. Burke, Associate Professor of Biology, Wesleyan University

Ann Burke teaches evolutionary and developmental biology at Wesleyan University. Her image-intensive classes now also use animations and she looks forward to using 3-D images in the near-future. In 2005, she developed, with the Wesleyan University Learning Object Studio, an animation of the Body Wall Formation of the Chick Embryo, which has provided a useful link between her teaching and research.

Academic Commons: What would you say the chief impact has been in using digital images?
Burke: Because what I teach (anatomy, embryology, evolution) is extremely visual, I have always used a lot of images. Searching for images on the web, mostly using Google Images, really has changed things for me. Things that I wouldn't have done before because it was too much work, like digging out the exact picture I thought I wanted from the library but then might not use, is now no problem. Literally you can sit and Google just about anything you want and come up with an image and import it into PowerPoint and that's a tremendous boon. I used to have big books of slides accumulated at great expense of time and money and now they're in the closet. So I don't know whether it fundamentally changes anything, but it just makes it much easier, so I can do more.

Would you say that most of the images you use come from various sites via Google? Are there any regular sites you visit for teaching images?
Yes, Google is just so convenient for showing the possibilities. Even though there is a pool of sites that I mostly go to for images, really all from journals and universities (the Tree of Life web project with its image galleries is one great example), using Google is often much faster in finding a specific image than if I hunt through the individual sites.

Do you change the images you use more frequently than in the past?
Definitely. If I'm working on a lecture, for example, and there's one image I realize I really don't like that much, it's much easier than before to find a replacement.

How do you use PowerPoint?
I use it more as a means for sorting images than to build a lecture (though it depends on the kind of class). You know, with PowerPoint it's very easy to write out the lecture and put in the slides. It's built-in organization. But as a teacher you can then go on automatic and students doze off and you lose them. So I use PowerPoint just to show the images and I minimize the amount of text, otherwise it starts going too fast.

Images with a bit of text?
Yes, or with no text at all, or just the minimum. Then I'll do the labeling on the chalkboard. Using the board paces me--it helps to slow me down.

Yes, I've heard this at several schools now, that the chalkboard can be useful in slowing the pace of a class that might just go too fast with PowerPoint.
That's right. By working on the board with the vocabulary you interrupt the smooth flow of the visual presentation--and that's where the learning happens--it encourages interaction that otherwise wouldn't happen.

It's like a dance between image and text, between the screen and the chalkboard?
Yes, and they figured that out here at Wesleyan, that you need both the screen and the board together. Initially in most of the classrooms the screens came right down over the blackboard and you could do either one or the other. But now it's wonderful, they've moved the screen to the side.

In many places I've heard that's still an issue.
And you really do need to be able to use both.

Do your students work directly with images? Do you give image-based assignments?
I haven't actually, but the undergraduates in my lab, where there's a lot of one-on-one teaching, are constantly making images. We take a lot of digital photographs, mostly of embryos, through the microscope and then they make composites that convey a lot of information.

So that's a new thing?
To process that information, yes; because it used to be: take the film image, get it developed.

So it's not such a new thing but the time is contracted and you can do it together?
Yes, same thing but much easier. And that means you use many more images than you used to. When I was an undergraduate you spent a lot of time in the darkroom, but now these undergraduates are doing the image processing themselves.

Do they have complete control of the product?
Yes, and they don't need much training. We're not doing anything fancy to the image, we're interested in the data, so for the most part we're compiling.

Do they have a portfolio?
It's more like a learning notebook that they'll print out. They're preparing specimens and taking images all the time, (either with the light microscopes or with a technician using the confocal laser microscope) labeling them in Photoshop, compiling them and printing them out as a notebook for whatever they're working on and it's very accessible. It's a process of getting to know the specimens. The more you look, the more questions you'll ask. Students are essentially compiling a photo-essay on the organism they're studying. Ideally it includes any visual input, including drawings.

Do you still use textbooks?
Yes, we use textbooks. I scan images I need. Some books have CDs. This one on Comparative Anatomy doesn't come with one but the author has a website where you can download a PowerPoint with all the images from each of the chapters and then I pull things in from other places.

So overall, using digital images in teaching has made things easier and brought access to greater variety and volume of material?
Yes, that's true, but it's more than just still images. I've also been involved in putting together a learning object here at Wesleyan. It's an animation of bodywall formation in the embryo, working with Wesleyan's Information Technology Services (ITS). I use it in teaching and presentation of my own work at seminars.

If the tools were easier, would you want to make more animations yourself, or have your students do them?
Yes, definitely. Actually, I have a student right now, working with ITS, who's doing some work with Maya, building a 3-D image from 2-D data. Maya is very complicated. Frankly, I don't have a clue how it works and I don't want to know--but someone from ITS is taking the time with one very talented undergraduate in making a 3-D reconstruction. This should be a tremendous asset for me both for research and teaching: the ability to generate a comprehensive image from a really complex set of 2D data is really useful in teaching--getting the point across on a visceral level.

Have you found discovered any 3-D work online that you've used?
Very [little]. It's clearly harder to do well than you'd want it to be. The way people are doing it in my field is through various ways of scanning--like doing an MRI of an object. When you have a set of serial sections reconstructing without outside references is hard to do. The computers find it difficult--there's a lot of tweaking involved. So people are putting together their own combinations of hardware and software to collect and process the data. But it's clearly not an easy thing.

Have you been using Flash animations?
Yes, animations in embryology are extremely helpful and you can find some on the Web. Another learning object we were involved in putting together, with several others in the biology department, is on a couple of basic processes in embryogenesis. You can find some of these on the web and we've simplified some of them. When you're teaching students something about certain types of cell movement, giving them a bunch of static images just doesn't work very well: give them the actual motion and they understand instantly. So that's very useful.

Are there any sites that are particularly helpful in this regard?
Yes, there are a number of sites, usually set up by someone's lab at a university and they will upload different Quicktime movies that they've made in various ways. So there's a lot out there. But I don't think it's so easy to generate. Having a repository of these would be very useful.

So there is a need for good 3-D tools that you can use without months of training.
Yes, as far as I know, there's little, though I would like to be surprised. It's not an easy thing.

Even Flash, which is so much easier than Maya, is not something you can just sit down and use.
Yes, and again it means that once one person puts in the effort of producing something it can really be very helpful if it can be disseminated for teaching purposes.