Learning tools: Visual aids

Abstract

Internet-based tools and videos are making it easier to perfect lab techniques and tasks. But they augment, rather than replace, conventional guidance in person. During her PhD, neuroscientist Maria Toledo-Rodriguez needed to use the single-cell reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction, a specialized technique that combines electrophysiology with molecular biology. But only a handful of labs in the world had experts in this technique, and she could not manage to visit them. Toledo-Rodriguez, who is now an academic fellow at the University of Nottingham, UK, spent two years struggling to master the technique by following written instructions.