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.

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Do you sometimes think your document camera displays a fuzzy image, not at all the high-definition quality you thought you were paid for?  I touched lightly on this problem in two previous posts: first in Lights-Camera-Action and then more recently in Call Me Crisp. But since then, I have discovered some more reasons why your classroom document camera may not offer the image quality you had hoped for. Almost all the issues are under your control, fortunately. Below find my troubleshooting list (helping you resolve this problem), with the newest findings added in color:

• The display surface can cause lack of focus. 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.)
• Surface matting matters. 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.
• Your document camera settings matter. You might already own a high-definition 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 actually set it to one of the lower of six available resolution settings. 
• Legacy equipment matters. Your problem may be that your document camera is an older high-resolution device (720p), and not a high-definition visualizer at all. It’s only been the last couple of years that manufacturers have been producing high-def visualizers (defined as 1080p or greater). Perhaps it’s time to give your current document camera to someone who uses it less and invest in a new high-definition visualizer.
• Your classroom projector matters. I was presenting at the University recently, and found myself disgusted and embarrassed by the quality of the images my state-of-the-art high-def visualizer was offering.  After some troubleshooting, I realized that the problem was the classroom projector.  The projector in this university facility was so old that it degraded the quality of the images I was showing. Keep your eye out for this problem as well.