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."

Makerspaces

Here’s an amazing idea for using document cameras, one that has not been suggested before. While cruising the aisles of the ISTE 2016 Expo, I ran into this sign at the HUE visualizer booth:

This notion is spot on. What a great application for a visualizer: having one in your makerspace. Brilliant! It can be used for so many things:

• Showing up close how to make cuts, assemble objects, twist ties, connect pieces, and etc.
• Showing clarifying details of an example project
• Zooming in on the smallest areas to show where to hook, nail, tie, or screw a part
• Showing off finished products for everyone to see
• Scanning or recording final products to display on a website
• Filming any of the above for later re-use

Thanks to the HUE people for bringing this up. What a great idea.

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!

What's new @ FETC

I recently spent many days at the FETC 2016 conference in Orlando, looking for what’s new. One of the most interesting findings was in the AVERinfo booth. They released their new AVerVIsion F70W document camera. So what’s new? This high-definition classroom visualizer offers wireless mobility—the ability of the document camera to rove free across the classroom.  AVER claims this can help “transform the traditional front-of-the-classroom teaching style that so characterizes document camera use.Simply move it to where the kids are! It’s eight-hour battery makes it all possible. 

Cross-Post

Here's a cross post in another blog about doc-casting that might be worth your attention:

DOC-CASTING

Jetion Arrives

Another new product appearing at conferences this summer is the Jetion visualizer. This visualizer offers a number of advantageous features for the educator:

• It’s very high definition (ten megapixel)
• It’s compact
• It permits wireless image transmission to laptops, tablets, smartphones or other mobile devices.

You can learn more about Jetion here. 

Ultra Cool

While attending ISTE 2015 in Philadelphia, I was pleasantly surprised to see HoverCam had reached new heights with their document camera offerings. Of course, I am talking about their new Ultra 8 visualizer, which was on display at the conference for the first time. 

Basically, the new Ultra 8 raises the bar in three ways:

A bump in high-defintion to 8.0 megapixel. (Special note: high definition really matters in the classroom.)

Compatibility with USB 3.0. (Special note: a good move, catching up to the newest devices, which have left USB 2.0 for the high speed USB 3.0)

No noticeable latency. (Special note:  latency is a deathblow for many classroom visualizers. Down with lag! Up with instantaneous response time!)

There’s some real ground breaking news here, folks. Something akin to a secret sauce. Viewing lag is a big deal. I did my secret latency test on this HD visualizer and was shocked to discover unnoticeable lag. That’s good for teaching. And good for learning. And oh-so-good for children’s eye comfort!

Hue of Learning

A number of new developments in the classroom document camera world erupted at the ISTE 2015 conference in late June, among them the release of the HUE HD Pro classroom visualizer. This document camera is full featured, high-definition—and frankly—just beautiful in its look and feel. Quite an aesthetic experience, really.

This USB visualizer can also be purchased with powerful control software and additional creativity tools, notably an animation tool that allows students to create stop motion animations.

And the price is right: the visualizer sells for only $69.95. Schools will like that, along with teachers who have to carve resources out of their own budget.

Readers should note that the HUE HD Pro won a Technology & Learning “best of show” award in their category.

Another iPad Solution

Another iPad version of a document camera was demonstrated at the large TCEA conference in Autin this year. The concept of Justand is simple. Take a look for yourself:

As I stated in a previous post, I am not sure this is the best use of an iPad in the classroom, but what the heck?

As things slow down...

After attending the first three large ed-tech conferences of the winter (TIES, FETC, TCEA), I realized that there wasn't a whole lot of new news or recent developments in the field of classroom visualizers or document cameras. 

But that's a good thing, if you remember my recent post about the industry changing features too fast for for education, making us dizzy. It's better to concentrate more on how to teach with the tool, than to worry about the next feature of the tool. That is why I want to remind you to take a look at the only book on the market focusing on effective teaching strategies using the classroom document camera, shown below.

Digital Shapeshifter

Visual teaching, differentiated learning, and formative assessment with the classroom Document Camera.

It's the only book on the market about great teaching with document cameras. You'll love it! I't's 165 pages dedicated to totally transforming how we use classroom document cameras. You can find Digital Shapeshifter directly from the publisher at this link. 

A Mobile Twist

Here's something completely new...

Casio just introduced a new, free mobile application called C-Assist, which offers educators a suite of tools that work wirelessly in conjunction with Casio’s projector.

The C-Assist Mobile Application is compatible with both Apple and Android platforms and enables educators to display and annotate content and presentations directly from a mobile device. The features for this new mobile app include:

• remote PC access (allows users to remotely access and display content on a PC connected to the projector)
• real-time projection of photos (by activating the device camera with the app)
• using a mobile device as a hand-held document camera
• an image capture function that permits using the mobile device’s camera to snap an image and send it directly to a Casio projector. 

Here is the Android App.
Here is the Apple App.
You can see www.CasioLampFree.com for details. 

Visual Teaching and Learning (2)

Classroom visualizers can become transformative tools for visual teaching and learning. If we are going to get really effective at using document camera, consider the following highly effective instructional practices:

• Fill your screen with large images. When showing pictures, photos, graphs, charts, or other visuals in class, be sure to fill the entire screen with your visual. Small visuals don't grab the brain's attention. Full-screen visuals do.

• Add color. Use color to show organization, relationships, hierarchy, or key concepts/vocabulary. But watch out! Moonlighting directly above your projection screen can wash out even the most vibrant colors.

• Add the creative storytelling. Some of the most effective teaching I have seen with document cameras is when the teacher combines a large immersive image with gifted storytelling. The multiplier effect is phenomenal. Try it out.

• Involve your students. Can you get your students to use the document camera more than you do in the classroom? Think about it. How could you do that?

Visual Teaching and Learning (1)

Document cameras are great tools for visual teaching and learning. If we are going to get really effective at using this amazing teaching tool, first we must get intentionally rid ourselves of some weak instructional practices:

• Too much text. Lose the outlines. Stop showing the syllabus. Remember the 6 x 6 rule for any text you put on the document camera screen: no more than six lines per screen, no more than six words per line.

• Not enough visuals.  Again, lose the outlines. Avoid death by text. Stop promoting text comas in the classroom. Use more visuals: charts, graphs, illustrations, photos, pictures, and visual representations.

• Black-and-white. That's right, lose the black-and-white. Color matters. What percentage of your document camera materials are in black and white? That number will be roughly proportional to your visual instructional effectiveness in a lesson.

• Too much teacher talk. When you're document camera is in use, consider who is doing most of the talking. If it is you, reverse that equation. Involve your students.

Flipping Awesome

It happened again. Another great post in the blogosphere about great teaching with classroom document cameras. I don't mind cross-posting from other blogs when the content is absolutely beneficial to our Future-Talk VIZ readers. This recent post is another winner; it focuses on using the classroom document camera for flipped instruction.

Document Cameras in the Flipped Classroom

Viz @ ISTE

The ISTE 2014 educational conference, with over 16,000 educators and thousands more vendors in attendance, was remarkable. Let’s zoom in on some of the document camera developments in the exhibit hall. 

Document camera manufacturers and vendors were back in force this year, after a slight dip in presence last year. Checking in with each booth, I found no breakthrough features being touted at this time. But that's a good thing. See my previous post, Improve This!, to find out why. Some of the new offerings are shown below, although not all. 

Still, document camera exhibitors continue to make the same mistakes and need to address these issues in order to be more successful in reaching schools:

• learn how to speak in the language of the educator
• don't just show the visualizer--show how to teach with it
• develop training programs behind your offerings

More Assessment Ideas

Here are some more ideas for using document cameras in an assessment role. These ideas come from some of the creative graduate students in my University classes.
"It would be beneficial to record a student's hands moving over a text while reading aloud and document progress over the year. It would also save time because students could record their own reading while I'm working with other students--and I can assess the recordings later."

"For first graders, I would engage the entire class in an assessment as learning activity in which two kids at the visualizer search out long vowel a words in Click, Clack, Moo while the rest of the class follows along. I would give the children glass magnifier beads and show them how to take screen shots to share with others."

Improve This!

Here's another open letter to document camera manufacturers everywhere. 

You're constantly improving your visualization products by increasing hardware features, capabilities, and performance. That's fine. But one area that seems to lag in the visualizer industry is its software.

Sometimes I think that the software that is packaged with many visualizers was created cheaply and without much forethought. Sometimes visualizer software has an archaic “look and feel”-- appearing like something created two decades ago; something not at all as appealing as the look and feel of modern websites or current software. (I served as a judge for Technology & magazine’s 2013 annual software awards and remain a current software reviewer for T&L and other journals, and I know when software has anachronistic look to it.)

Document camera manufacturers would do well to stop upgrading their hardware at such a brisk pace, and instead concentrate on their software interface. To date, the most attractive, easy-to-use, and fresh-looking controlling software interfaces for document cameras that I have worked with belong to these companies: Recordex, Lumens, and HoverCam. Software should not be an afterthought. Just sayin’

Three Things

What are the three most important ways you can use your classroom visualizer?

In the spirit of doing simple things that work when using document cameras in classrooms, here are three succinct ideas to remember and implement in your classroom:

Use Color

Don't step your document camera back to the days of overhead projectors! Use color to highlight, attract, organize or shape meaning into a lesson.

Use Immersive Images

Don't show small pictures, cartoons or object. Magnify them to the point that they fill your entire classroom screen. Full-screen, rich, immersive images really hook students, drawing them into the learning at hand.

Involve the Students

Step away. Imagine ways for your students to use the visualizer. The better you get at this tool, the more the kids will use it--not you!

Say It Simply

In a past post, Visualize Better Messaging, I warned about the kind of technical messaging coming from document camera manufacturers that will never reach into the hearts and minds of educational customers.  “Say it simply,” I argued.  I finally ran into an advertisement/promotional, (coming from Ken-a-Vision) that did messaging right (or at least without technical overkill). Look at their simple, core message, quoted below:

I'm the FlexCam 2, but my friends call me Kenny.  I help schools, like yours, unlock their teachers' existing curriculum on all their digital devices at once. I love helping teachers share their existing curriculum digitally with every student in their classroom…

You can get me set up and connect in minutes, and I work well at any grade level or class subject . Together, we can make the transition to a paperless, digital classroom easier and faster. If you want to make your tablets and laptops more than just digital textbooks, contact my friends at Ken-A-Vision. I know they'll be happy to tell you more about me…

What a great example of marketing to real customers!