Again, you'll pay $x more for this than the other ones on the market, but it is completely worth it to have the direct to LCD projector functionality in the classroom.2) There are several "picture size" settings, one of which is HD. If you are looking for technology that is "disaster proof" in your lesson planning, this is about as sure of a thing as there is. Here are the five reasons why you (as a teacher) should buy this one over the others.1) The direct to LCD projector capability is absolutely necessary! If your computer goes down for the day, no worries-your document camera is not connected through your computer. At the price, this was highly affordable EVEN THOUGH it costs much more than the other doc cameras on the market. I went looking for solutions that I could afford and would allow me to bypass the bureaucracy of purchasing and budgets (and avoid having it on record at the tech office, which means they could take it from me at any time). By the end of 2013, it was a had just worn out.
The Polyvision board was provided via a state grant, and unfortunately it was a bulk-produced, cheap-as-possible product to put as many of these boards in as many classrooms as possible. I am a high school math/computer programming teacher who has been using an LCD projector and PolyVision brand "smartboard" for the last four years. I tried to get by without one but as a teacher this is one of my MUST HAVES!!! I have now owned two and loved them both. I was basically able to screen shot the page that was being displayed and then proceed to move the document camera to clear the space (but the kids could still see the image which I had screen captured).Obviously I would recommend this document camera to anyone who is in the market for one. Finally, just today I used the screen capture feature when I needed to keep something displayed on the screen for the kids but also needed that space for something else. I also love the auto focus feature for when the display is blurry. The flexible arm allows it to move into unlimited positions.
I usually keep it at a distance that allows me to display the entire page on which we are working so that the kids can follow along with me.
The only thing I would change about this item is that the cord can be somewhat cumbersome (I plug it into the USB port on my desktop computer and then use it on top of my kidney shaped table where I work with the kids) when it's stretched across a few feet to get where I need it to be but I wasn't under the impression that it would be wireless or anything so that's not a defect with the product, just a wish if I could have the perfect document camera that would fit into my budget lol.I am able to zoom in on size 12 font on a page and enlarge it on my SMART board (similar to a Promethean board.basically an interactive whiteboard) to letters that are over a foot tall. I didn't really want to spend $100 on one (at my previous school the corporation had purchased them for teachers to use.it was fabulous) but it came down to the quality of my instruction and of course it's worth the money. I thought I could do without one but within the first week I realized that I've become completely dependent on using a document camera in my everyday instruction.so I bought my own. I recently moved to a new school where they didn't have these document cameras, or any for that matter.
I have used an older model of this document camera for the past few years in my kindergarten classroom for everything from showing illustrations in books larger so that the kids can see the details to dissecting owl pellets (again, so the kids can see the details) to demonstrating hands-on math activities.