Lights, Camera, Action!

Teachers who want to use classroom document cameras well must master some of these indispensable lighting secrets:

Document Camera Lamps Matter

• Don’t be afraid to use the built-in lamp on your document camera for fear of bulb replacement. These LED lights typically have a 60,000 hour life!
• Sometimes artifacts or documents, due to their color and ambient room lighting, look better when you turn on the document camera’s LED lamp; sometimes items look better if the lamp is on, but room lights are dimmed. To find the best and sharpest image, try different combinations.

Room Lights Matter

Most classrooms today were built in the last century. Even classrooms in new schools were built by architects born in the last century. Most ceiling lighting is placed in rooms by architects based on canned lighting formulas. Enter the modern age of document cameras, and sometimes ceiling lights mess your display up: with the lights on, your visual display loses colors or fades unnaturally; with the lights off, the visuals are fine, but students cannot take notes or complete supportive desk work. Some common solutions include:

• Turn off the bank of lights closest to the display screen or document camera to prevent white out or color bleeding
• Purchase a lamp for the back of your room that enables you to turn off al lights, and student can still see their desk activities
• Use various combinations of room lighting and document camera lamps to produce the best instructional results.

Tables Matter

• Test and compare different display surfaces to ensure the best and sharpest display possible. (Some wood-grained display tables, and even gray-topped tables, can cause document cameras to have problems. Images can be slightly out of focus or not as bright and sharp as desired.)
• Better display results are always achieved when I layer the teaching display surface with a mat, construction paper, or other contrasting flat background.  Experiment to find the best solution.