County: Contra Costa
District: West Contra Costa Unified School District
School: Madera Elementary

EVERY classroom should have a document camera! The document camera can do all of the things the old overheads can do and more! Hillary Miller is a fifth grade teacher who first saw the power of the doc camera being used by professors in her master’s classes at Saint Mary’s College. Then, there the doc camera was again when she was being trained to be a district math coach, and the CCCOE trainer was using a document camera as an instructional tool during the sessions. So what did Hillary do? She was convinced of its power and took her stipend from that summer training and put it right back into her teaching and classroom by purchasing an Elmo document camera and video projector for around a thousand dollars. She cannot imagine not having it!

There are so many things that this equipment can do but right off the bat – here are three cool things that you can EASILY do with the document camera that do not require any high tech skills and that will allow to take learning and engagement to another level in your classroom.

1. Share three-dimensional object to the whole class
2. Share authentic writing in a timely fashion. As soon as the pencil leaves the paper, student writing can be projected via the document camera and feedback for revising can be discussed as a whole class or in small groups.
3. Fewer copies! The document camera allows you project an image in a book, a photo, typed or hand written text in a format that the WHOLE class can easily and interact with. No need to make copies for the whole class.