A Talking Document Camera?
3rd in a series
As a teacher, you might find yourself repeating one or more segments of the day’s lesson, either to a smaller group of students or re-emphasizing key concepts to the entire class while preparing for a test. But what if one group of students wanted to review what was covered that morning while a different group wanted to focus on what was covered last week? After all you can’t be in two places at once – or can you?
If you’ve read the previous blogs about the image recognition and write on capabilities of the Diggiditto™ Smart Document Camera, you’ve already gotten a taste of how its unique features which can help facilitate how you teach. With a little help from its integrated “smart” technology, you can create tutorials with linked “talking images” to establish a retrievable library of your lessons for students to access any time.
Whether you’re teaching vocabulary to ESL students, explaining components of a formula in Chemistry class, analyzing an equation in Algebra, or reinforcing basic concepts in classes for students with special needs, the built-in microphone of the Diggiditto can save and later deliver your added comments to the lesson. Each linked file enables you to record up to 3 minute narration for playback when linked through the image recognition feature. You no longer need to repeat yourself since your comments are saved and linked to a specific image (or page of text) which can be accessed anytime. Now instead of straining your voice to explain, you just need to replay the lesson (images) to let students hear your comments. While they listen to your newly created tutorials at their own pace, you’ll have the time to observe them more closely and provide immediate feedback.
At the same time, students could also review material from missed classes or conduct self evaluations. With the “talking images” feature, students who don’t speak up in class to ask for specific passages to be repeated or just need more time to process the information will have the opportunity to ensure they’re on the same page with the rest of the class.
Consider another application of the built-in microphone – would you have normally associated using a document camera in a music class? Well now you can. Besides one of the four choices for a background is a blank music score you can write on with the built-in pen feature, you can also integrate the built-in microphone to record comments and music to link both to the corresponding musicians’ photos. So for a music appreciation class for instance, you could quiz students about a specific musician, show that musician’s previously saved photo image under the document camera and they’ll hear the saved piece of music associated with that artist. Multiple music pieces (images, or even websites) can be linked to the same image to build a collection of information about the musician. One easy way to test comprehension might be to display the musician’s photo image under Diggiditto for students to write down the musician’s name, the title of the music piece they are hearing and the year it was created. There is no need to involve other audio equipments or musical instruments in the assessment process.
We’ve shared some tips on how the built-in microphone can do wonders for your teaching and student learning. Read about the Record Movie feature in the next article.
