As with most of today’s technology, education and classroom technologies have been evolving and growing at an extremely fast rate. New classroom hardware and software seems to appear daily, from networking solutions, interactive software and hardware, to visual presentation and web based products. Today’s classroom is very different from the days of blackboards and easels where classes have the potential to look more like a NASA control room than a typical textbook and pencil environment.

The difficult aspect of these new technologies can first be a question of where to start. The second can be obvious budget and funding limitations, while the third can be a question of the actual effectiveness in a classroom setting. The vital question seems to be; will investing in new technologies actually help increase teaching and learning effectiveness, or simply fill a room with a lot of flashing buttons and colorful computer screens?

When evaluating classroom technologies, there are some key questions that should be addressed before beginning the search process:

1. Will this technology increase the effectiveness of my lesson plans or teaching environment?
2. Is this technology easy to use, or will it require extensive training?
3. Is it affordable, and will I be able to obtain funding to purchase?

With similar questions and concerns in mind, Ms. Stephanie Contreras, a 6th grade math teacher at Autrey Mill Middle School, Alpharetta, GA began looking at available classroom technologies. Ms. Contreras felt her teaching and her student’s understanding and retention could be increased by adding an extra visual element to her lessons. Ms. Contreras had previously seen an AVerVision Document Camera in use, and immediately saw its potential for her own class. The ability to display her demonstrations and lessons on a large screen had so many benefits, especially to her visual learners who may otherwise have trouble following along with a textbook or auditory cues alone. Furthermore, the ability to connect an AVerVision Document Camera to most TVs, as well as a monitor or projector was a bonus since Ms. Contreras’ school was not yet outfitted with LCD projectors in every class. Even her class TV gave her the ability to run step-by-step math problems and other demonstrations on a large screen to the entire class.

Technology funding at Autrey Mill was fairly limited, so the district PTA provided Mini-Grants to qualified applicants. Ms. Contreras completed the application and was quickly awarded the funds necessary to purchase three AVerVision110 Document Cameras for her math team in August of 2006.

Upon receiving her document camera, Ms. Contreras noticed immediate benefits. For example; Set up and use was extremely easy, and she was able to begin using the AVerVision110 within minutes of taking it out of the box. As soon as her document camera was running, she was able to completely eliminate her old overhead projector from her daily lesson plans. The AVerVision110 allowed her to display all of her lessons and notes in full color and detail without needing to create and maintain transparencies, change overhead bulbs and try to hide her seemingly permanent Vis-à-vis stained hands. Being able to display real color 3D objects and manipulatives was also an immediate improvement over the black shadow produced by the overhead.

Since her first AVerVision110 Document Camera, Stephanie has been able to obtain a newer AVerVision300p as well as an interactive whiteboard and a desktop computer. Since her AVerVision300p has the ability to easily integrate and work with her whiteboard and computer, her lesson capabilities are now that much stronger. With a simple push of a button, Ms. Contreras is able to switch from her interactive whiteboard, to her document camera, or her computer presentation instantly. She is also able to project video from the document camera through her interactive whiteboard and utilize the whiteboard features around her document camera visuals.

One surprise Ms. Contreras encountered is how much her own students love using the document camera. On a daily basis, her students model warm up math problems to the class with the document camera. They share word problems and essay answers, share homework and geometric 3D projects. Even though Ms. Contreras teaches math, she has seen an overall improvement in grammar, spelling and handwriting as her students prefer to display their best efforts on the large screen to the rest of the class. Class participation and confidence in presenting has also increased as students are eager to use the document camera on their own.

After getting her first document camera, immediate benefits were obvious. Student participation greatly increased, as well as on-task behavior. The students themselves have indicated that the document camera helps them focus on problems at hand, and to better visualize problem solving concepts and ideas. Visual learners see the most benefits as concepts and ideas are displayed in a large, clear format where even students in the back of the class have no difficulty seeing and comprehending lessons.

Ms. Contreras uses her AVerVision300p daily in a variety of lessons and demonstrations. A few examples are:

Flower Gardens-students had to design flower gardens of a specific area, and had to fit as many gardens as they could create within the same area, but different perimeters. Students worked in groups and cut cm paper grids to model their gardens. Once the gardens were complete, students shared them with the entire class using the document camera. Without the document camera, students would have had to physically approach each model as the small cm paper would not have been visible to all.

Integer Computation-Modeling how to use integer tiles to represent adding and subtracting integers with students with the document camera. Students followed along at their desks with their integer tile manipulatives as they watched my modeling projected on the large screen. They then worked in groups to do computations with the tiles.

Daily Homework-The document camera is used almost every day to review homework answers. Graphs and 3-D images are easy to model with the camera and it saves time copying transparencies for the overhead. Since you can display and zoom in on the teacher edition, all students are able to see very small items such as x and y axes and box and whisker plots.

You Be the Teacher: Box and Whisker Plots-Working in cooperative groups, students were given an open ended lesson that required them to create a lesson to teach fellow classmates how to create box and whisker plots. Students were allowed to use the document camera for their lesson. All groups chose to use the camera and many used the camera and the interactive whiteboard for their lessons to the class.

Ms. Contreras uses her document camera daily in her class, and has been instrumental in helping other teachers in her district and beyond obtain and enjoy the benefits of integrating a document camera into their lesson plans. “My AVerVision Document Camera is a staple in my daily education of my students,” says Ms. Contreras. “The students love it. It helps me to reach many students in several and interesting ways using hand-on approaches to learning. The camera is engaging and visually stimulating. It has definitely impacted the day to day of learning of my students by saving transition time in class, saving planning time for teachers, saving valuable teaching time when explaining steps and solutions in math. I can’t say enough about how much I enjoy my document camera and how it has become an absolute necessity in my teaching methods.”

Ms. Contreras has not only enjoyed the teaching benefits of her document camera, but has been instrumental in assisting other teachers in acquiring one for their own classes. She has assisted many teachers in grant writing and funding searches so that others may experience the same success in reaching, and inspiring their own students.

When asked how she would feel if suddenly she was no longer be able to use her document camera, Ms. Contreras explains, “If I no longer had my document camera I would feel like something was missing in my teaching not just literally missing. The cameras has interwoven into my daily teaching so richly that it is hard to imagine not teaching without one again. My students and I are actually dependent on the camera when it comes to sharing homework, student responses, and daily lessons. In the past, on days when the camera has been borrowed by fellow teachers it is amazingly missed like a best friend by myself AND my students. I’ve had to resort to the white board again and find myself having to make transparencies and not being able to visually show graphs, equations, and solutions as easily and clearly as before. These should be in every classroom in our nation to help our students be part of the 21st century of high achieving learners.”