In Praise of the Humble Document Camera

In an era when artificial intelligence and virtual reality dominate conversations about technology in education, the simplest and most effective teaching technologies can be overlooked. One of these is the low-tech, humble document camera (similar to an overhead projector but more advanced). It's a relatively small and inexpensive piece of equipment that can have a big impact on student learning.

Until a few years ago, my own use of the document camera in my English language and literature classroom was limited; I mainly used it to annotate texts or show top student work. This changed when I visited the Michaela Community School, a public middle and high school in a socioeconomically deprived area of London that has some of the best academic results in the United Kingdom.

I saw teachers in every classroom using document cameras to expertly live-model the precise thinking behind how to formulate paragraphs and solve formulas, addressing misconceptions along the way. Student engagement was palpable as they worked in tandem with their teachers and responded to higher-order questions about why the next step was X and not Z. What I saw was harmonious and clearly rigorous.

A Low-Tech Tool with High Utility 

Some might argue that with today’s interactive display boards and immersive technologies, document cameras are outdated and unappealing; certainly Michaela Community School’s lack of edtech bells and whistles looks spartan in comparison with a room full of tablets and virtual reality headsets. Nonetheless, current document cameras offer more versatility and sharper pictures than earlier models, with lightweight yet durable designs.

It’s hard to believe that just two decades ago, they weighed over six pounds and had eight-frame-per-second motion capture. Even basic versions today have 1080p resolution, autofocus, 30-frame-per-second motion capture, built-in lighting, and the capability often to connect to Wi-Fi. Most document cameras are compatible with any classroom setup, whether it has smart boards, one-to-one devices, smart TV screens, etc. They are user-friendly, are quick to install, and require minimal maintenance. Also, with models starting at just under $100, they are much more cost-efficient than other popular edtech tools, with a long operational life.

4 Ways to Use a Document Camera in Your Classroom

If a document camera is gathering dust in a classroom, its lack of impact is probably linked to the user, not what the gadget is capable of. Case in point, I wasn’t using mine regularly because I didn’t know the value it could add to my teaching and learning. Here are some of the practices I now know are possible:

1. Guided practice. Along with live-modeling answers for students as the Michaela Community School teachers do, you can highlight key vocabulary in a text and predefine it before reading with students, model annotation of a text, or walk students through chunking or summarizing sections of reading.

With their jointed bodies and swiveling heads, document cameras can also be used to record demonstrations such as exhibiting surface tension in physics, showing charcoal pencil shading in art, or solving a quadratic equation in math rather than having 20+ bodies hovering tightly around you during cold and flu season. You can even model executive functioning skills like organizing notes in a notebook. 

2. Assessment for learning. This can range from simple actions like gradually revealing answers on a quiz for self-correction to more complex activities, like correcting errors or misconceptions on example work and then improving it together with deep and rigorous thinking. Example work can also be highlighted according to grading criteria. Teachers can celebrate excellent aspects of student work and, with clear expectations and a supportive class culture, provide immediate rounds of carefully managed peer feedback to students who share their work under the document camera. 

3. Sharing materials. After students work in groups to mind-map a concept or produce a collaborative artifact, a document camera can provide a “gallery walk” without requiring students to leave their seats. Students can give their peers an up-close show-and-tell under the camera, and teachers can zoom in on advertising small print in English, an exoskeleton in biology, or a vintage map in geography. They can page through a storybook, textbook, or collection of political propaganda. Photographs, like recordings of demonstrations, can be posted on online class platforms.

4. Expanding teaching and learning possibilities. Host a remote speaker and turn the head of the document camera toward the class for a virtual audience, in the vein of a webcam. Let students use it to make a stop-motion video to display the mechanics of an object or block the opening of a play so they can analyze character positions like mine did. Have students lead exercises through reciprocal teaching under the document camera. Broadcast your watch or a timer on your phone to keep students on track during a timed activity. Use it to scan and store materials without making the trek to the photocopier. Record yourself teaching a lesson and talk through it with a trusted colleague, coach, or mentor.

Without denying the scope and potential of more advanced classroom technologies, sometimes simple solutions are best, especially when we want to maximize our lesson time with students. Document cameras might not be able to take students on a virtual field trip to the Inca Empire, but they are distinguished edtech tools in their own right and, used effectively, offer many ways to enhance teaching and learning without fuss and massive expense.