The Document Camera

A Story from the Classroom: The Document Camera

A few weeks ago, we received a document camera to use in our classroom. As with the Promethean board, we use the camera one week of the month as we share it with three other kindergarten classes.

The document camera is a piece of technology equipment that projects any image that is placed under its lens on to a board or wall. It is a great tool to use for demonstrations or even to show something small up close to the entire class. While working on a writing activity, I picked up a student's writing piece and placed it under the document camera. I directed the attention of the other students to the paper under the lens and pointed out how nicely the writer had used spacing between words. In a matter of minutes everyone was remembering to space between words and I was placing paper after paper under the lens for the entire class to see. Seeing their work recognized under the lens was a wonderful motivator for all students and once again I was amazed by the power that the effective use of technology can have on learning.

That demonstration proved to be such a positive experience that I decided to open the "document camera" as a literacy center one day. I placed several books in a bin by the camera and told the students that they could place the books under the lens and read the projected books to their friends. I sat back and watched in amazement once again as my digital natives enjoyed this experience all while practicing their reading skills.

One of my students who up to that time had shown little interest in books and reading placed a book under the lens and began reading the book to his classmates. When he got stuck on a word, the other children did not jump in and tell him the word, but instead sounded just like me and reminded him to look at the first letter and get his mouth ready for the sound and look at the picture for a clue. As he finished, the look of pride and accomplishment in his little face brought tears of joy to my eyes. He took his book from under the lens and ran to me to tell me that he loves to read and he loves the books. He asked if he could take the book and camera home to read the book to his mom and dad. I told him that I was sure that now that he could read, that he could read with and without the camera. He sat at his table and read the book once more to himself. This time without the camera and then asked once more if he could take the book home. He skipped all the way to his backpack as he put it away with a new level of confidence that has made all the difference in not only this particular student's reading, but writing confidence as well.