30/08/2019
Helpful Tips and Tricks
Whether you’ve used them before or it’s a brand new piece of kit, it’s always useful knowing a few extra things to create a fantastic, engaging learning environment.
So, we have created a list of 5 fun ways to use your document camera/visualiser this new school year. We’d like to thank HoverCam for their help with this range of new tips for using a document camera/visualiser in the new school year.
Record your lessons
Have you found that you’re repeating mini-lessons? Maybe you have replaced repeating yourself with handing out the same worksheet that’s been used since you started with the topic, but the handout time is taking up a lot of valuable lesson time. Then you need a new way to help the lesson naturally flow whilst helping individuals, but still showing the idea off to the entire class.
If you have a document camera/visualiser sitting around in your classroom, you can record yourself doing the lesson with an explanation in the video and have that play on repeat! Furthermore, if you have access to multiple computers, you can have the video play at each station for groups of children. This gives you the opportunity to provide additional support to individual students where required.
Classroom video
Thanks to well-established video platforms like YouTube, millions of creators are able to share their thoughts and experiences online. There’s a very high chance that most, if not all, of your students, will spend a lot of their own free time at home watching various kinds of YouTube videos.
Get your students involved in the fun of creating YouTube videos! A channel can be set up which shows memories from their time at school, not just great for them to create and watch their videos again later, but this gets their parents involved later at home. No longer will the conversation “what did you do today” rely on the pupils remembering everything they did that day or week. Everything is in video format giving the parents and the students a fantastic way to look back at the time the students had that school year! (Just make sure that you post the videos privately for student privacy concerns)
Simple maths concepts
Many teachers will use manipulatives to really cement the knowledge of a simple maths concept for the younger students. However, maybe due to a lack of sets or even the lack of incredibly precious time for every student to experience the benefit of this hands-on approach.
By using your document camera/visualiser you can use the manipulative yourself to show on a display screen allowing everyone in the classroom to see the concept at once, letting them answer questions in real-time. Requiring only one singular set of manipulatives to be used! This way, you can get several different sets allowing you to demonstrate many other concepts in the same way, and these can be used again year after year by recording yourself explaining the concept.
Web chats
Pupils find it incredibly exciting when a guest speaker comes in; artists, scientists, police officers, etc. find it an exciting change from the normal school day. However, due to travelling long distances, as well as scheduling conflicts, these opportunities find themselves occurring less and less throughout the years.
By using your document camera with video conferencing software such as Skype and Hangout, you can bring the guest speakers to the classroom in a quick and simple way – allow them to connect with these exciting guest speakers, no matter the distance. Alternatively, use this method to connect your students with pen pals and sister schools for them to interact with a large number of new friends!
Wireless movement
Tired of being sat in the corner of the room, stuck at the AV cart, or just at the front of the room? With a cheap Bluetooth mouse, you can operate the document camera/visualiser from anywhere in the classroom!
Additionally, if the software you use for your document camera/visualiser includes annotation abilities, you can use the Bluetooth mouse to annotate over live video or photos which you have previously captured. No more being tethered to the front of the classroom!
Hopefully, you’ve found this to be useful and has given you some new ideas for your new school year, if you require any more information about anything mentioned within this, we’d be more than happy to help you out!
Just call one of our experienced EdTech Consultants on 0843 886 6228 or fill out our contact form to arrange a demonstration!
