Document Cameras- popularly known as docucams…..They are used to capture real time image of any object and present it to a larger audience. But they cannot be treated equal to traditional projectors as it offers many advantages over the overhead projectors. The digital visualizer can enlarge anything you want to project through it.

The images, transparencies, documents, three-dimensional objects, illustrations kept under or in front of the camera can be further displayed to a large audience. Its applications are found in various fields like businesses, educational institutes & government.

Often document cameras are used along with interactive whiteboards to avail the full functionality of a typical document camera. Together with the system, the presentation is made easy. You can show your audience every edge of the object you want by zoom in & out functionality.

Document cameras are extremely flexible in terms of the jobs that they can do. Some have got moveable mountings (like goose-neck) so that the user can rotate the camera to closely examine specific dimension of the object. They can connect with LCDs, interactive whiteboards and other such displays.

Applications

Document cameras are extremely famous in corporate environment. In a business environment, a document camera is used to capture the image of any important document and maintain a copy of it as an image file.

The speaker of a meeting might want to present the monthly ROI reports to the members of the meeting so he may use it to generate the real time video and display it on the screen. It also allows the presenter to enlarge a specific part of the report to emphasize on some particular point. Mostly the equipment is used in conjunction with a smartboard to demonstrate the ideas efficiently.

These are widely used in courtrooms to let the defender present the piece of evidence to jury and the observers.

Electronic whiteboard or what you call interactive whiteboard…. Everyone would agree that the interactive whiteboards technology is based on a wonderful concept… “Teach or train with ease”.

An electronic whiteboard is somewhat similar to classroom whiteboards in look ONLY…. It’s like a projection screen; you can connect it to your system and bring your PC’s content into display to a large audience. The electronic boards are designed to provide various functionalities; there are some which hook up to your PC via cable, some might connect wirelessly without any cables….

If you are a corporate trainer, you would want to involve your audience by adding spice to your trainings… Bring in illustrations, images, flash presentations to make people accept your ideas.

For a school teacher, it‘s a great tool to build up the interest of students by helping them with visuals…

What can you do using an electronic whiteboard?……

Extremely flexible in terms of the functionalities which an Interactive board features… Some interactive boards are built with the surface sensitive to human touch… In this way, you can navigate through your PC’s content by just running your fingers on the whiteboards’ surface, browse through useable webs, run your software application & present it in front of your audience…

There are interactive Whiteboards which come with stylus or electronic pens. By using electronic pen in different colors you may highlight specific portions of the screen & add comments to it. Your audience will not be required to sit down & invest their whole effort in just writing down the notes.

Electronic boards save all the board content so that you may use it later. Some have integrated printing system & those which do not have one, can be connected to PC via USB cable. For effective learning, it is very important that you maintain a documentation of whatever is discussed and an interactive Board does that… the content is available in your desired format; whether you wish to have it printed on papers or you may want to email it to those who couldn’t attend the session, the interactive whiteboard can do whatever you wish for….