In this series I am hoping to cover three trends that I really like in the world of document cameras. I like that...
- document cameras are getting smaller
- doc cams are turning colorful
- high-definition is providing a crisp viewing experience
Most visualizers now on the market are coming with high-definition cameras. The improvement is stark. The quality of images used for learning is nothing less than remarkable.
Perhaps this trend helps explain some statements that were offered up in my last two visualizer presentations:
These comments and questions really bring home the difference between the current generation of high-definition doc cams and the older generation of equipment that first made its way into schools some years ago.
Perhaps this story will help clarify: I was recently using my visualizer as the primary camera for a live web conference with a colleague. We were doing some synchronous live conference testing using both Google+ Hangouts and the conferencing system built into our Canvas learning management system at the university. The colleague immediately noted the difference and remarked: "This was the best, most high-def image I have ever seen on a live session." And she remarked that latency and frame rate were not adversely affected. I explained that the high-def visualizer was the reason why.
By the way, be forewarned that you might already own a High-Def visualizer, but have the settings pushed to a lower resolution. For example, once I was demonstrating a new HD Recordex document camera in a teacher workshop, and I thought something was wrong with the image quality. Actually, I had mistakenly set this HD visualizer to a lower resolution level. I called the company, and they immediately helped me catch my mistake. I had set it to one of the lower of six available resolution settings.
My bad...
Perhaps this trend helps explain some statements that were offered up in my last two visualizer presentations:
"These images are much nicer than what I get using the document camera I currently have in my classroom."
"This visualizer is better than any I have seen. What kind is it?"
These comments and questions really bring home the difference between the current generation of high-definition doc cams and the older generation of equipment that first made its way into schools some years ago.
Perhaps this story will help clarify: I was recently using my visualizer as the primary camera for a live web conference with a colleague. We were doing some synchronous live conference testing using both Google+ Hangouts and the conferencing system built into our Canvas learning management system at the university. The colleague immediately noted the difference and remarked: "This was the best, most high-def image I have ever seen on a live session." And she remarked that latency and frame rate were not adversely affected. I explained that the high-def visualizer was the reason why.
By the way, be forewarned that you might already own a High-Def visualizer, but have the settings pushed to a lower resolution. For example, once I was demonstrating a new HD Recordex document camera in a teacher workshop, and I thought something was wrong with the image quality. Actually, I had mistakenly set this HD visualizer to a lower resolution level. I called the company, and they immediately helped me catch my mistake. I had set it to one of the lower of six available resolution settings.
My bad...
