Hi, friends! Last week I chatted about the perfect blending board. Check it out here if you missed it. 😉 Now, I'm going to share a perfect tech add-on, the teacher document camera. A teacher document camera saves us time and prep work. We can use materials that the students are already familiar with which makes them less frustrated. It also helps us maintain control of the lesson. There are so many benefits of teacher document cameras, some of them I have spoken about here and here. This week, I'm going to chat about the best features of a teacher document camera and what to do with them.
Keep Using Your Favorite Teaching Materials
With the document camera, you can use any of your books, games, or word/sound cards. Just because you are teaching with tech doesn't mean you can't use your favorite teaching materials. A lot of my coaching clients have been so happy to hear this. We all have our favorite teaching things that we know our students just love to use. If you want to learn how to use your favorite materials effectively, sign up for a coaching call here. The 20% OFF coupon ends soon. (Here's the code: SUMMERCOACHING21) Students can even use Zoom tools to mark up the screen and make lessons more interactive and engaging.
Model Tapping and Handwriting
When we model handwriting or are tapping letters, we sometimes wonder if the students are seeing it the right way on their side of the screen. Only under the document camera can we ensure that students are seeing these things correctly. In addition, we can use tools to really zero in on these teachable moments. Students will also know how to set up their side as well.
Use the Document Camera's Freeze Screen
Since I'm a little bit wiggly, this feature really comes in handy. It literally freezes the screen. The feature allows you to freeze anything you put under the screen. You can still use the Zoom tools to mark up, just be cautious of anything 3D. Also, If you want to show your student another item during the lesson, it will not show under the document camera once it's frozen. For example, if you put a book under it and freeze it, then want to show a picture on your phone, you have to unfreeze it for it to show. The freeze screen feature is like a screenshot.
Take Photos
This feature is perfect for taking progress shots and examples, collecting data, or saving content. Again, this is just like a screenshot. It gets loaded into a folder on your computer for easy access. Just don't forget to go back and place in your student's folder. 😉
Auto Zoom In and Out
This is probably my favorite feature of the Inswan document camera. My first teacher document camera was the Hue. It was so frustrating! 😑 I had to move the neck of the camera up and down every time I needed to zoom in and out, and it wasn't very clear for the students. Finally, it broke because it was connected to a USB port and was not tough enough to stand teacher usage. I then found my favorite teacher document camera, the InSwan! 💕
Auto Focus on Learning Materials
With a touch of a button, you can auto focus on anything under the camera. This makes things super clear for students. Using this feature has eliminated a lot of frustration on both my students' and my own part.
Take Advantage of the Black/White Board (InSwan Only)
The InSwan document camera has a blackboard and a whiteboard that is perfect for practicing Heartwords, extending vocabulary lessons, or working on comprehension. It also works great to use for a quick drawing break for students that use Zoom tools because the students are already used to them.
Thanks for visiting the blog this week. If you want to read more about my favorite document camera or want to purchase one yourself, click here. I've also got another free game this week for my Read to Rewire community members. Click here to download my game of the week, Olympics Spin & Spell. Don't forget that the summer promo code for personalized coaching calls ends soon. Sign up here & use SUMMERCOACHING21 to save!
Have a great week!
Michelle