Saturday 5 September 2009

Visualiser in Class -£14.99


I was chatting to my nephew, 8yrs old, who had done podcasts in p3. Shocked by this, I asked more questions and learnt they used a webcam for looking at discovery Items, eg they bring in any dead insects and flowers etc and show them to the class using the webcam.

We have two £1000 visualisers, not in the room I use, they are ok, they can't move and don't fit A3 paper so have limited use. I have a new school but a small interactive whiteboard sized space for projection, whereas in the old school I had a full size, 10ft by 8ft roller blind that was a huge area for projecting on. I don't want an interactive board, casts shadows when touching, small image, small buttons when teaching software etc.

My laptops built in webcam has poor focussing and video, so a £14.99 webcam from logitech was a good test option. Me, and my AdvHGC class, were blown away by the image quality. The pupil sat at the back of the room saw my normal handwriting appear on the projector screen clearly. It is slightly slow-mo when rendering fast eg ,markers but has great potential. Ideally I get the HD Logitech £50 webcam with 3000pixels resolution and 30fps video. Ideally I can get a bluetooth camera for using in the workshop as well. Pupils could take the camera to their desk as well to interact/show.

Here is a link to Tom Barrets 13 ways to use a visualiser

Here is a link to a free website that shows the image and you can snapshot, capture video and right over the image. It can be made to go fullscreen in IE.

2 comments:

pm said...

Hi Nick

I was trying to video my Higher drawings after our student brought in his own visualiser, he left and took it with him. Had big problems getting the angle right using a video cam, especially after using a tripod. I thought of using a webcam and borrowing clamps from our science colleagues. You have already managed this I see. I'm wondering how clear your images were using this method.

Regards

Pete

Mr T said...

They are excellent. I'm waiting to get the new MS Webcam, http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=187079 which is HD quality ! £43.

I'll post an image from the back of the room looking at the projected screen. I now have an old angle poise lamp to use as the mounting.