The “Teaching Moment” with Document Camera Capture

Instructor Profile: Jim Wallace is an award-winning professor in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering who has experience teaching an advanced level Alternative Energy Systems course online.

Essential Idea:
To effectively respond to the students’ questions about the course content, Dr. Wallace uses features of Echo360 capture software to create a mini-tutorial explaining the theory or concept in detail.  For example, he may write out a formula or a diagram on paper using the document camera to capture the process, while at the same time recording a verbal explanation of the solution as a voice over.  Dr. Wallace is able to create the capture with voice over using basic document camera and recording technology from his own office without the assistance of a technician. The result is a succinct tutorial that can be accessed and replayed by the student as needed.

Benefits for Students:

• Provides variety of modalities to address a range of learning styles
• The professor can move through the explanation at an appropriate pace, adding detail and emphasis to guide the student as required
• Responses are customized to the specific question

Tips and Tricks:

• While Engineering has licenced Echo360 for use in their division, many other tools also provide similar capture tools. For example see Camtasia for capture from you desktop or ScreenChomp for use with an iPad
• Store the video on the UTL MyMedia server for ease of access. Link from the online course shell discussion or other content area to the capture file.