Teaching light-tissue interactions: Using technology for education

Current methods of teaching tissue optics in biophotonics and biomedical optics courses include creating computer-based learning environments. However, this method assumes students are going to learn or have prior experience on computer programming, which may generate time-consuming activities of several days. Then, the same activities and material of the schools and courses cannot be used in workshops or outreach activities of several hours for generating students interest in biomedical optics. This is partially compensated by websites such as omlc.org, which provide online material about biophotonics fundamentals and time flexibility to access tissue optics tools. On the other hand, students are still required to spend more time to understand tissue optics concepts and those in their first contact with biophotonics may require additional user-friendly tools. With this in mind, user-friendly tools for quick comprehension of tissue optics concepts have potential to accommodate students with diverse backgrounds and improve biomedical optics education. In this study, we designed a tissue-optics computer app that requires no previous programming experience. The app was designed to cover tissue optics topics in short length activities and generate students interest in the biomedical optics field. This computer app was tested in a 1.5 hour session within a 7-hour biophotonics workshop. By the end of the workshop, we collected students feedback about the quality of subject matter and teaching in the computer lab. Our results suggested that our app is user-friendly and is suitable for short activities. We provide a link to access the current version of our app. In the future, the app can be used in outreach activities and workshops for improvement of teaching and learning in tissue optics.