Archives for August 2006
31 August
A Tale of Two Wikis
30 August
Use of Document Cameras Considered Harmful
Just about everyone at Case has encountered the ubiquitous WolfVision document camera. For any non-Case readers, I'll explain: the document camera, present in many classrooms on campus (the so-called Level 2 and Level 3 Technology Enhanced Classrooms), is essentially a high-tech overhead projector. It's a video camera mounted on a stick, which points downward at a small surface. One places a sheet of paper, transparency, book, or whatever on the surface. The camera transmits an image of the document to a ceiling-mounted LCD projector which then projects the image onto a screen at the front of the classroom.
The document camera is a powerful tool, but unfortunately it is also an easily abused one. I believe that abuse of the document camera is directly responsible for some of the poorer lectures I have experienced here at Case. Read on to find out why...