What are classroom visualisers and how to get the most from them?

Advances in modern technology are continuing to have a huge impact on everyday life, in many ways improving it for the better. Nowhere is this more evident than in the classroom, influencing not only the way pupils learn but also the way teachers teach.

Less than two decades ago, teachers were required to schedule time for the portable school television in order to show videos. Overhead projectors (OHP) were the go-to source for annotating and displaying work on a board. Nowadays however, TVs have been replaced by interactive smart displays and OHPs have been replaced by classroom visualisers.

But what are classroom visualisers? Why should you be using them in your class? And how do you make visualiser technology work for your classroom? Read on to find out more.

What is a classroom visualiser?

Classroom visualiser use has grown considerably over the past few years. They are now an important resource for teachers in classrooms and science labs across the world.

Enabling teachers to share pupils work at the click of a button, visualisers contain a camera that can capture, record and save images and videos. Often lightweight and portable, they are a great classroom tool for recording work and sharing with individuals, groups or even the whole class.

Why use a visualiser in the classroom?

Visualisers are perfect for modelling work. Let’s be honest, most English teachers have been there trying to demonstrate handwriting techniques to students, leaning against the board, trying to maintain good practice! By using a visualiser, teachers can incorporate ‘live writes’ into their classroom. They make it easier to demonstrate a good writing style as well as allowing teachers to verbalise their thought processes as they construct the sentence.

Visualisers can also help generate increased engagement within the classroom. By demonstrating in real-time, students are able to give suggestions and ideas, helping to shape the conversation and create a peer-to-peer learning environment.

What are the different ways to use visualisers in the classroom?

As highlighted above, visualisers are the perfect classroom resource for modelling work. But that’s not all they’re good for. Here are some more examples of ways you can incorporate visualisers in the classroom.

• Save time recreating lessons or experiments by recording and replaying. How many times do you wish you could replay or repeat a class demonstration or experiment without having to set it up again? Visualisers give you the tools to record and save your lessons, demonstrations and experiments, allowing you to replay to your heart’s content.
• Share best practice student examples with the whole class. What better way for students to learn than to see best practice work from their peers. The 5MP Wireless Visualiser from Hope Education for example allows you to move around the classroom and share work for wider discussion in real-time as you go. No need to waste time photocopying the work or scanning and sharing after the class.
• Demonstrate complicated or difficult experiments with the whole class. Sometimes in science, there’s the need to show students how to safely complete and experiment prior to letting them lose. Rather than have the class crowd around and, sometimes, struggle to see what’s going on, visualisers allow you to project the experiment so everyone can see. What’s more, you can record the experiment and replay at a later date, giving students a chance to consolidate learning.
• Develop a culture of self-assessment and independent reflection. By simply sharing an image with the whole class, teachers are able to live mark work, demonstrate where it can be improved upon and give the students time to go away and make improvements as applicable. What’s more, this can also help to reduce the time spent marking in class.
• Manage remote learning, ‘bubbles’ and distanced classes. In the current climate, many schools are operating with reduced numbers, separate ‘bubbles’ and children having to isolate at home. Visualisers can make these challenging times easier by allowing you to record and share work, regardless of where students are currently located. Newer visualisers such as the range of visualisers from Hope Education are compatible with Zoom and Google Hangouts, making them perfect for the modern classroom.