Eloam in the House

Considerable innovation in the document camera industry became evident this year at the ISTE 2017 educational conference. (With over 15,000 educators in attendance, ISTE is considered the largest ed-tech conference in the U.S.)

Some delightful sparks flew out from a new exhibitor, Eloam. Eloam offered a mouth-watering slate of highly capable visualization products at an attention-getting price point for our constantly strained U.S. education budgets. Their products ranged from extremely low-cost 5 megapixel portable visualizers to low-cost powerhouse 15 megapixel offerings. Demonstrating considerable product flexibility, Eloam showcased portable, wireless, and even new wall-mounted units, all of which earnestly captured my interest. 

Coupled with some outstanding and easily navigable software, these Eloam products offer me most of what I am looking for in a visualizer for the K-20 classroom. Beyond outstanding HD image display, flexible input options, fast scanning, zooming, timed scanning and video recording (also known as doc-casting), Eloam demonstrates some new or significantly improved capabilities for the classroom, including:

• image editing
• multiple pictures on screen display
• OCR capabilities
• PDF conversion

It is my sense that Eloam seriously raises the bar with inventiveness and true ROI for schools. The truth is that most document cameras in schools are now aging rapidly. Eloam has smartly positioned itself as perhaps the best possible option for replacing aging legacy equipment at a low cost, yet offering even better capabilities and visual quality.

Congratulations!

Congratulations are in order for HUE visualizers for winning a best-of-show award at ISTE 2017 in hot and spicy San Antonio Texas. Good job. I guess HUE is not just a "pretty face."

VIZ + AR

Here's an interesting development I saw at FETC 2016 this year: the unique combination of classroom document camera and augmented reality. See this video to get the idea:

Alive Studios Augmented Reality for Early Education from Alive Studios on Vimeo.

Well, the actual product, developed by ALIVESTUDIOS is quite attention getting--and unique in its offering. What a nice mashup--the classroom visualizer and augmented reality. They mix well. Too bad the document camera they use is such a low end solution. This company would do better partnering with more well-featured document camera companies. That way the doc cam has a life well beyond this application. But this application could also help sell other document cameras. Something to think about!

Pedagogy Matters

Here’s an example of effectively combining document cameras with modern pedagogy in the kindergarten classroom. The teacher hoped to further both her “students’ emergent reading skills and motivation for reading, incorporating the Document Camera/LCD projector to help students lead shared reading sessions.”  “The document camera/LCD projector enables the whole class to access the text,” she explained.

According to the teacher, “current best practices highlight the importance of multiple readings of the same text to develop literacy.  Educational experts like Richard Allington identify the need for multiple readings of a text.  Multiple readings of a single text is also a component of the current Close reading technique as a strategy not just for English Language Learners, but all readers, in order to improve fluency and comprehension.” She adds: “Shared reading has long been a part of the balanced literacy approach.”  Here is how she implemented this notion, in her own words:

“First I developed classroom library of emergent readers. I included the parents and students in choosing the texts.  The only guideline was that they could read it completely independently and unsupported.  Last year, I had the same program but when students shared they would merely share the book in read aloud fashion sitting in a chair in front of their peers.  The document camera has allowed the students to lead a shared reading that is more interactive and engages the listeners in the learning.  In this way, students that are less active in borrowing and sharing—the more reluctant readers—become engaged and the students participate in a more reciprocal [way].  I see students questioning more and engaging more than when I had students sharing in only a read aloud format.  The students are not only recognizing more words, they are learning how to question at a literal and inferential level.”

What a formula! Technology + pedagogy = learning success. It’s so simple and powerful!

Diluting the Dream

I have noticed an unseemly shadow slowly overtaking the document camera industry over the last half-dozen ed-tech conferences, a trend that deeply bothers me: some companies, most recently Aver Information and Lumens, seem to be disengaging from their core mission of selling visualizers and promoting visual teaching and learning. Instead, they are refocusing and retooling their business in favor of display sharing software, school video security systems, or even video conferencing.

Why are they doing this? Evidently, the document camera market has been shrinking, as it approaches 60% deployment in U.S. classrooms. They need to feed the revenue zombies with additional profit centers it seems. They need to survive.

Why does this trend deeply concern me?  Well, I would rather see these companies concentrate on

•  teaching strategies using document cameras;
• better professional development for visualizer use;
• visual teaching and learning approaches.

Doing these things well will create a welcome swell of new customers. Providing professional development services will usher in a fresh new revenue stream for a rapidly fossilizing hardware market. Concentrating on the instructional use, and not the hardware specs, of visualizers will create a freshness in the education market.

It’s always easy to follow the hardware breadcrumbs for revenue. But forsaking the heart of the matter—visual teaching and learning—is an immense mistake. That’s the core mission for these companies. Unfortunately, some of these firms are diluting their future potential by diversifying and moving away from their core.

3D Doc Cam Refreshed

Wolf Vision
3D Document Camera

Wolfvision’s 3D document camera has been refreshed. Wolfvision is offering a new feature in their ceiling-mounted 3D document camera: the ability to record in 3D.

Displaying 3D with the WolfVision Ceiling-mounted
Document Camera

What's Missing?

The more I work with teachers in my graduate classes who have document cameras, the more I find that they really want to use document cameras more effectively than they do now. So what's missing here?

Transformative training, that's what!

Although it is certainly true that teachers rarely take advantage of some of the best and most powerful instructional features of these tools, the real key is using these powerful tools differently--doing new things--not just automating old practices. My national workshop "Powerful Visual Teaching and Learning with the Classroom Document Camera" is an example of what is desperately

needed. What matters is using richly visual teaching strategies, transformative student-involvement strategies, and fresh ideas. Those are the pillars of my workshop. If your school, organization, or company is interesting in leveraging these strategies and insights, please contact me. I am available to travel and present in your community, if interested.

Document Cameras--Priceless!

I don't mind cross-posting from other blogs when the content is absolutely beneficial to our Future-Talk VIZ readers. This recent post from Jennifer S. James is a real winner; it tells quite a powerful and dramatic story about visual teaching and learning using the classroom document camera:

Teaching with priceless artifacts.

Doc Cams and Assessment

In the examples below, teachers in Colorado elementary schools show how to use the document camera in assessment. The italics are my attempt to highlight some very thoughtful and creative uses of the classroom visualizer.

• Effective assessment requires that results and progress are effectively communicated to stakeholders. So, a third grade teacher takes snapshots of student measurements (a math activity) and posts them to the web so parents can see the progress of their own children in measurement skills.

• A teacher laments: “In fourth grade, my students don’t get to type as many papers as I
  
  would like them to.  The majority of published work is handwritten due to technology constraints.”  One solution this teacher has developed is to quickly and efficiently capture written desk work in PDF format with the doc cam's snapshot feature, and then, using Adobe Reader’s annotation features, annotates each student paper with individualized feedback. “I email the commented papers back to them so they can review their comments and use some of my suggestions to improve their writing,” he explains. “It’s like running 28 conferences simultaneously,” remarks the teacher. “It also makes me more efficient; I am much quicker at making digital comments than handwritten written ones. This allows me more time to plan quality instruction. ”

• A middle school math teacher records audio feedback on the the doc cam (with its camera and built in microphone) as she grades assignments, providing individualized feedback for each student on her/his work. We call this approach ‘doc-casting.’ She finds it is particularly helpful for students still learning English.

• A fourth grade teacher assigns a math problem to the class and then observes how students go about solving the problem. He then chooses a few students, each using a different approach, and has them share their thinking with the class as a whole using the doc cam in a live setting. The entire class then discusses the demonstrated approaches. Each approach is also recorded in case students need to review them at home or later in the week. “This is also powerful to show parents at conferences,” adds the teacher.

Telling Time

Despite recent anxiety about new online assessments, there is certainly no shortage of creativity coming from teachers these days. I recently sampled a group of teachers enrolled in my graduate programs at the University of Colorado-Denver, soliciting some of their best-ever ideas for teaching with document cameras. Here is the first of three postings showing some of the creative ways teachers are using their visualizers in today’s challenging classrooms.

In the case study below, a magnificent third grade teacher working in a Colorado elementary school shows how to use the document camera in a creative fashion. The italics are my attempt to highlight some very thoughtful and creative uses of the classroom visualizer.

One teacher asks her kids to draw a picture of two clocks while sitting at their desks. Working in pairs, they draw one clock with the time 3:50 p.m. and the other showing the hand positions 90 minutes later. The students are then asked to come up and explain their thinking as they view their pictures, which are displayed on the visualizer. This, of course, provides immediate feedback as the students present their work, but the feedback helps the entire class. 

Best of VIZ 2013

Last year was a thriving year for the Future-Talk VIZ blog. As the new year begins, it is fitting to reflect on the most popular topical posts of 2013.  The top nine topical posts of 2013 are presented below, in order of web impressions received:

Digital Shapeshifter
iPads as Doc Cams
The Death of the Doc Cam
Grants, Contests, and More
High-leverage Strategies
VIZ Micro-Worlds
A Bird's Eye View
Simplicity
Doc Cams in Online Teaching

Actually, it’s quite thought provoking to speculate as to why these particular topics were “top of mind” in 2013 for the diverse international audience that regularly follows this blog. My book continues to pull positive interest; the explosive growth of iPads in schools explains the next two priorities, which are worth re-reading; our Great Recession explains the rise of our fourth-ranked posting; keen interest in Marzano’s instructional strategies, as applied to doc cams, explains the interest in “high-leverage strategies”; and the rising tide of online learning explains the last entry. Please let us know your hypotheses or thinking by posting a short comment.

Doc Cams in Online Teaching

I periodically conduct a short workshop featuring techniques and resources for using document cameras in support of online teaching. Here are some of the main advantages I like to discuss in these workshops:

Techniques

• Picture-in-picture synchronous teaching
• Doc-Casting
• Personalized assessment: voice and color-annotated feedback
• Scanning (e.g., PDF preparation)
• Digital stills
• Live demonstration toolset: presentation and annotation

Strategies

• Aiming at the Abstract: Visualization
• Use / Re-use (make it once, use it many times)
• Time-saving (efficiency)

Document cameras can do so much in support of online teaching—so much so that these devices should become a required part of the online instructor’s basic equipment toolkit. 

iPads as Doc Cams

The newest craze in document cameras at the FETC and TCEA conferences this year is the attempt to turn the iPad into a document camera. Some of the products I found on the exhibit floor included those featured throughout this page. As you can see, they come in every imaginable size, shape, and color.

One of the products, produced by Belkin, come with an app to give document camera software functionality to the concept. Max Cases also offered an interesting table-grip approach. 

What do you make of this trend? Will it last? For now, just take a look at this interesting phenomenon. I will comment on the relevance of this development in a future post after I interview lots and lots of teachers about the concept.

(Note: I have completed my extensive teacher interviews and have posted the results here.)

 

      

2013 Super List

2013 List of Visualizer Manufacturers

Here’s my comprehensive list of all known visualizers on the market. (If you see one missing, please leave a comment below.) Use this list for purposes of product evaluation, comparing features, bidding, and identifying RFP resources for your classroom document camera needs:

Top Manufacturers in K-20 settings (in alphabetic order)

AVerInformation www.averusa.com/presentation

Elmo http://www.elmousa.com/

Ken-A-Vision http://ken-a-vision.com/cameras/groups/document-cameras-visualisers

Lumens http://www.myladibug.com/

Pathway Innovations      http://www.thehovercam.com

QOMO http://www.qomo.com/ProductList.aspx?CategoryID=1

Recordex http://recordexusa.com/PresentationSolutions.html

Samsung Techwin: http://www.samcam860.com/

Other Notable Manufacturers (in alphabetic order)

All in Learning ($25 dollar Doc Cam) www.allinlearning.com 
Buhl http://www.hamiltonbuhl.com/store/c/3161-Visual-Presenters.aspx

Califone http://www.califone.com/visual.php

Epson http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/EdProjectors/Home/ClassroomSolutions.do?BV_UseBVCookie=yes

iPevo http://www.ipevo.com/

Luna http://www.learningresources.com/product/luna--8482-+interactive+projection+camera.do?sortby=ourPicks&sortby=&

Optoma http://optomausa.com/products/detail/DC300

VidiFox http://www.vidifox.com/documentCamera.php

WolfVision http://www.wolfvision.com/visualizer/index.php/en

On the Road Again

I’m doing quite a bit of presenting this year on how to best employ Document Cameras in transformative teaching and learning. Here is a current list showing my speaking schedule, in case you are interested in attending. If you are in the vicinity, it’s also always a good excuse for an opportunity to meet, have some conversation, and practice our Donkey Cam Kung Fu.

Conference	Location and Date	Topic(s)
FETC	Orlando, FL January 31	·         Get Your Donkey Cam Kung Black Belt (2 Hour workshop)
TCEA Campus Leaders’ Academy	Austin, TX February 4-8	·         Cultivate Your Donkey Cam Kung Fu
Tech Forum	Atlanta March 1	·         Cultivate Your Donkey Cam Kung Fu
MACUL	Detroit, MI Cobo Center March 20-22	·         Cultivate Your Donkey Cam Kung Fu
Colorado TIE 2013	Copper Mt., CO June  (tba)	·         Visualize This! What’s New and Good to Know about Document Cameras in the Classroom

Twist and Shout

At a recent technology conference I ran into another document camera product that appeared newly on the scene: Luna.

The Luna Twist

Luna manufactures the Twist flexible digital microscope. The Twist is a small document camera/microscope on steroids, with some interesting classroom-centric features, such as measurement and recording software.

The gooseneck Luna I lovingly call 'Shout'

This manufacturer also produces a petite gooseneck document camera. I call this little document camera “Shout” because the vendor was shouting its praises at the tech conference.

It appears that the Luna products are only available through a few resellers. One of those resellers is Learning Services, a reliable company with which I have had years of positive purchasing and customer service experience. You can learn more about the Twist here. You can learn more about the small gooseneck Luna visualizer here. Twist and Shout.

Twist and Shout, side by side
at the conference booth

Now, I have searched the web and cannot find out much about the manufacturer of Luna. It’s a mystery. Perhaps someone can post a comment below with more follow up information for all of us. It would be nice to get more detailed spec sheets from the manufacturer to post here. Be it as it may, Luna is another interesting player on the educational document camera scene.