Document Camera

[Wendy Greve]

Recently I have been hearing a lot about the use of Document Cameras in the classroom. Does anyone have one and how do you use it?

[Lloyd Sommerer]

We have two. I purchased one to share among our faculty, and right after I demonstrated it, the science department asked me to order one just for them. Biology uses it the most. Leading dissections is much easier when everyone can see what's going on. It gets used for other experiments as well.

English has used it for collaborative editing of student work, and Art has checked it out, but I don't know what they were doing.

[Jeremy Biddle]

Is yours a stand-alone (with projector attached) or do you have a separate projector for it?

[Lloyd Sommerer]

Attached to projectors (some mounted in the room, some shared on carts).

[Joel Rahn]

At Concordia Texas, we have some Samsung Digital Presenter models.
Document cameras are the higher quality replacement for an overhead projector and add additional features. They use a data projector for showing the information. Most allow recording of what is happening within the camera viewing area onto a connected computer.
Some of the features that go beyond the overhead projector: higher quality of picture, zooming capability, recording capability, can project any object - not limited to a transparencies.
Our art professor is one of the primary users and uses it to demonstrate techniques for drawing, painting, etc. He has also used it to show 3D objects so all the students can see object at the same time.

[Rob Jacklin]

We have a nice Ricoh color scanner, copier, and printer. We can get by not having a document camera because anything we want to show we can scan.

When it comes to science, you'd be surprised what a webcam on a stick can do :-)

Sure would be nice to have one though.