Visualisers have been around for a while, but with the recent fall in prices, schools are looking at them again with fresh eyes. Certainly I have been having more conversations about them recently with people.
A visualiser, at its simplest, is a video camera mounted on a stand that connects to a data projector. You can then place objects in front of the camera (or more usually below) and project the image onto your interactive whiteboard. Since anything (within reason!) can be placed in front of the camera, it is great for showing 3D objects, sharing books, children’s work, photographs and even demonstrating drawing techniques or other Blue Peter style “how tos”.
Teachers are wonderful about being creative with new technologies and I’m excited to see that a blog has been recently set up to hopefully share ideas and good practice. The Visualiser Forum is aiming to help promote the effective use of visualiser technology in schools. One of the posts, gives a good overview of what a visualiser can do for you and one teacher’s initial experience of using one. There are also links to manufactures, ideas for using the visualiser, videos from Teachers’ TV and advice on which models are suitable.
Here is an interesting case study from HGfL about how one school has used a visualiser to support different areas of the curriculum.
If you have experience of using a visualiser, why not contribute to the forum or post your thoughts and ideas as a comment below?
May 30, 2008 at 1:23 pm |
Thank you for talking about the forum.
We are currently gathering and adding more material and also recruiting active educational partners to help spread the message about this technology.
Please feel free to share any experiences from schools in your region. The forum can be contacted via the blog or also the facebook group.