Document Camera for the Classroom
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to Amazon.
Not too long ago, I bought a portable document camera to try out. I have to say…it’s so great!
I didn’t have anything like this when I was teaching, but I know that it’s very common for classrooms to have something similar. A lot of document cameras work with your laptop and projector so you can share pictures, books, science demonstrations, or whatever else with your students!
Here’s how it works:
- Connect the document camera to your computer or projector. The HUE HD Pro Document camera made that a breeze! I simply plugged it into the USB port on my computer and it was ready to go. I didn’t even have to download any software to my computer.
- Since I use a Mac, I opened up QuickTime to use the camera. Windows Camera would also work.
- Then I just placed an item underneath the camera and a larger version appeared on my laptop. If I was in the classroom, I would hook this up to the projector so a bigger picture would be shown to students.
The point of this camera is to show close-ups to students. I’m sure you all know that feeling when you’re trying to show the whole class something, but not everyone can see. This solves that problem!
Ideas for the Classroom
- Show science demonstrations
- To show students words or pictures in a book
- Explain math problems with manipulatives
- Show & Tell items
- Demonstrate how to write alphabet letters or numbers
- Model how to do an activity
- Show concepts of print from a book
- Display students’ work
You can also use this for virtual learning!
I love that this document camera allows you to take snapshots or even videos of what you’re demonstrating under the camera. The neck is adjustable so you can position it however you’d like.
Here are some other features of this camera:
- built-in microphone
- auto-focus
- manual zoom
- can be used for video chat
This is really a cool addition to any classroom!
How would you use a document camera in the classroom?
We use document cameras in our classrooms.
They’ve proven invaluable!
I document can help with virtual teaching which is still happenng at times through out the year. It is aslo useful for students to get a brids eye view of read alouds and manipulatives at work. It helps to keep students engaged!
I really need to get one of these cameras. I teachprek/k severe and profound and always need to video my students doing amazing things such as learning to speak, write, read, etc. I share these types of videos with my principal, my supervisor and the student’s parents. This helps people realize all they are capable of doing when others said they can’t. I have to use my phone now but many times if the kiddos see my phone they stop doing and become shy. Thank you for sharing about these cameras.
I would use the document camera so much especially right now since we are online for the next two weeks and who knows how long we will actually be online for. It is such an excellent tool to have in a classroom.
Oh my goodness. I have a had a document camera but it was so old that it became blurry. I wasn’t sure if it was the camera or my eyesight. I would love to have a new document camera so I am not always showing a book read by someone from YouTube.
Doc Cameras are so awesome to have in class. They save so many steps and so much time and are very useful to keep the kids all focused on one thing.
This would be so awesome to have to use!
I’ve never seen this before, this looks like a great tool to have!
Great for modeling in the classroom.
This would be great to use for teaching from home and school!
This would be so great in my special ed. Classroom for my little ones who have vision impairments
This would be so handy in the classroom! Love it!!
I love how this camera has the ability to move it’s camera around!
Love it! Very easy to use! Thanks for sharing
That is an awesome document camera. It would be nice to winit!
This would be fun to use with my day care littles!
This looks useful!
I would love this document camera for my spaced out kindergartners and to show art demonstrations. It would be amazing!
This would be great for experiments with my littles when they all want to be right on top of each other!
I think it would be cool to use this in the classroom to expand documentations and add a new element to small groups.
I would love a document camera to use in my class when doing whole class activities. It would make it easier for my students to see what we are doing, instead of having to walk to each table.
I would the opportunity to use this in my class! What a great product! Thank you for sharing:)
This would be so helpful for small groups on the smartboard!
thanks for everything you put out 🙂
I’d love for my daughter to have one. SHe’s a non-verbal autistic who attends virtual classes.
I would love to win a document camera to use with my students. It is hard for all of them to see at the same time.
I have seen other teachers use these but haven’t had the opportunity myself. I would love to give it a try!
I have heard about these cameras, but no one ever explained it before. Thanks so much. It sounds like something I would use in my classroom.
I have a document camera from the school but it is very old and on its last leg. It would be nice to have a new and reliable one to use with my students.
This would be amazing to help all my students see what I’m doing up front if they’re at the tables.
This seems like it would be a game changer for sure. It seems like an easy solution to helping everyone see better. I am glad I ran across this post. Thank you
This is amazing and so compact!!
Love it!!! So small and easy to use!
This would be a game changer!!!!
I like how this is moveable and you can adjust more easily than the document camera that I currently use.
This is great, and so compact. So glad you shared this!
It would be great to have something like this in the classroom!
I didn’t even know something like this existed! I would love to have one so I could use it for some for
Learning for my little ones!
This would be amazing! I love using document cameras in the classroom! But at the new school that I’m at, I don’t have one. This would be a great win!
I would love to win one of these document cameras for my classroom so I can use it to read to my students.
Thank you
How fun! This would be handy even in my Sunday School room!
Not sure how much I’d use this, but I’m sure once I start it will take off. The imagining looks amazing.
This would be great to use with small books, so that kids could see the details in the pictures.
This would be awesome. I have been subbing and have been using a doc camera in the classrooms there, would love to have one in my preschool classroom.
Used an OHT until they brought Interactive whiteboards which I found restrictive. I would love one.
That’s really great, looks easy to use and kids can display there own work awesome!
I would love one of these. It would be awesome to use for all subjects.
When we have quarantined students, we meet with them over the internet. I have to use the camera that was provided (which can be used for documents) so that they can see me and what I am demonstrating. It would be RIDICULOUSLY useful to have a second camera to be able to show them stationary items rather than having to readjust the entire setup every time, or lose valuable teaching time shuffling the camera around. Thank you so much for your generosity (and amazing ideas).
I would love to win this because I currently do not have anything like this. Although I have a Promethean board it is hard to show books, etc that are not in digital form with me students. With Kindergarten that is so important that they are able to see what you are doing or what you are reading to them.
I would love to have one of the cameras for the classroom. It would be a great beneficial tool to have. I love that the view is up close for the students to be able to see.
This would be helpful for the visually impaired.
This would be amazing to have in my classroom! I also tutor online and it would be so helpful with distant learning!
Wow! This is an amazing Giveaway! I would love to try it out. Thanks for offering such great Giveaways!
This would be a great addition to my tools I use to help my students learn better.
I would totally use this to help with group group instruction especially with social distancing.
This would greatly enhance my virual instruction to my student with special needs. Due to health issue, he is in and out of school; online instruction is our way of staying current with him. I set up a temporary box to hold the chromebook so he can see what I am writing on the whiteboard; OR hold the chromebook up by hand. We are definitely behind the times…..!
I would love this for my husband. He’s a 7th grade history teacher. When I asked him about this, he said it would be really nice to have in the classroom.
This is a great prize – I have been wanting one of these for a while.
This looks so useful! I think it would help me project reading materials well as I tutor students.
I have a document camera in my classroom that I use ALL THE TIME! I can’t imagine not having one. An extra one to use at home would be amazing while making videos for times we are virtual.
This camera would be a great way to demonstrate directly from the text. which is difficult to do when working with students. As it is now, I write on the board what I’m trying to explain or demonstrate.
I would love to have this. This looks super to teach students.
Wow! These are great! I would love to try this in my resource room! Thanks for all the fun tips and helpful info!
I Would love to have one of these. It would have been so useful in my schools.
Would love to have one of these. It would have been so useful last year when schools were switched to virtual learning!
Years ago I used a similar device. An EMO?? I don’t recall the name. It was great to have, especially to share stories, books and pictures. I will need to investigate this updated version, inless I am privileged enough to receive one. Thank you for sharing this information.
I would love to have the doc cam to teach directed drawings! And then there are the other 999 reasons to have one! Thank you for your consideration!
I love this! I wish I had it when we were virtual. I love that it is adjustable
I have always wanted to have one. I have a smartboard that I think it could project to. I could use it to do demonstartions to my class of s[ecia; needs students.
I would love to do this when I do telehealth with my students. I am a school-based occupational therapist, and when I do telehealth with students, we are unable to see what each other is doing when we complete table-top work/handwriting activities. This would be incredibly useful to help with models, visual instructions, and educating students on specific topics such as editing handwriting mechanics.
What a fun tool to add to our homeschooling! Thanks for the chance to win.
I would love to enter to win one of these. It would be so great for my ECEAP classroom. Our resources are very limited and I know my team would love to share it with me. But, I can’t seem to find a way to enter for it?
Thanks everyone, for all you do. Together, we are changing the world for the better.
Wow, this document camera has a zoom lens! The books I present will no longer be tiny!
What a wonderful teaching tool, thanks for sharing info, and a change to win one. m 🙂
This camera seems awesome!!! I have never seen anything like it before. I homeschool my severely Autistic, severely developmentally delayed, nonverbal son.
Would love this b/c our social distancing practices makes our students sit farther away from the teacher during whole group learning.
Wow, I would love this as I made a cardboard box holder to put my phone or iPad on and the students put their books underneath – I have been hunting for this gadget!!!
What a great idea! We normally huddled around the monitor to see.
This would be awesome to use with my Pre-K students. They’d be able to see things better and interact more.
This would be great for story time!
I have always wanted to try this, just didn’t have an updated system- now I can do it if I win!
I borrowed a doc camera from one of my schools and I have loved it, especially for my virtual students! I had no idea that pictures could be taken with it! That is so cool! I would love to have my own so that I could use it for my in-person students and also be able to take pictures of their work as well!
I teach young preschoolers and this could be a lot of fun to use with a projector!
This would make story time so much easier so all the little ones will be able to see the pictures.
Thank you!
I woul LOVE this camera! As a Children’s Librarian I record online educational video, this would come in handy.. In addition I could see this being useful at Storytime for showing book pages to a larger crowd as well.
I think my students would love this! I would love this. Thanks.
Thanks for sharing. I haven’t seen one of these. It would be great for some of my vision impaired kiddos and basic everyday use too. How much more fun reading time would be AND I could do group demos and everyone could see what was happening.
This is a great tool for the classroom. With 36 students I am sure they will all be able to see using this camera and he smartboard.
This is such a cool product! Would love to try it out in my classroom.
I would love the chance to win this document camera! It would be SO helpful for my virtual learners especially. Thanks so much for the consideration!!!!
Wow, this camera is great. It will make my documentation much easier and I can use while reading so all the little ones will be able to see the pictures. Thanks for this opportunity. Eileen
I had no idea you could get portable ones! This is so cool! I teach elementary sped and we are all about visuals. This would be amazing!
What a great opportunity!! I’ve always wanted one of these! Thank you for the chance to win!!
This would make story time so much easier, everyone could see the pictures at once!
This woud be great for my classroom!
This would be awesome to have in my prek class to show books and other things to my students
Good document cameras are such an asset. I would love o e to use in my classroom.
A document camera would make presenting with hands on manipulatives so easy, even when I don’t have a class set for each student to use.
🤩 I have asked admin for two years now for a document camera, but I’m “only Pre-K”, so it keeps getting forgotten…I haven’t been able to purchase my own, so winning one would be fabulous!
I was unaware of such an amazing device. I’d love to add this to my preschool 3’s class. Thanks for any consideration.
That is so cool.
I LOVE this document camera!! Soo many possibilities for my full-day kindergarten classroom!!
The doc cameras helped me so much during distance learning. I was able to easily share with my students during zoom classes.
What a great idea! I could imagine using this a lot for readings of books. Thanks for the opportunity to win.
I need this in my life! Our school has one per grade and my class doesn’t get to use it. This would help so much in my instruction every day. Pick me! Thanks!
I’d love to win this for my classroom! Both the online& in person kiddos could see what we’re doing!
This would be great for my kinders – I don’t have a doc cam!
It would definitely be great to use this for my hybrid class so both the online and face to face kids can see what we are doing!
I love how flexible this one is! I inherited a classroom with a VERY old doc cam and it doesn’t work anymore 🙁 When it did, it had limited movement and was very jerky.
I would like to win this because I go into several classrooms every day and think this would be a great take along instead of having to use the classroom teacher’s.
That is a great tool! I personally wouldn’t be able to use it for teaching my grandkids. But my daughter teaches Agriscience and it would be a great addition to her teaching!
Thanks for the chance to win one!
Special Ed kids would really benefit from one of these!
These are so cool. I would love one of these for my classroom, especially for math concepts and reading to the class.
Saw on one these in use when I subbed in a local school. This would expand my ability to do lots more in lots of different places and ways!
Oooo! So many good ideas! I can think of lots of ways to use this doc cam in the classroom.
I would love to win because the one we are using is old. Love this version.
Love this! Always wanted a document camera and this one looks great!
My classroom needs this! The school provides them to the general Ed classes, but not special Ed.
This would be of great use in the classroom! It would certainly help to enhance the learning for the students (and adults).
I’d love to win it!
PS. I’m not sure which contests are open worldwide or just for the US. Am I missing where it is stated?
Looks like a great product!
We are teaching hybrid and this would help with the virtual students see the worksheets.
I have been eyeing these. Thank you for your review as I think it is difficult to choose which one to purchase. I do only teletherapy now so this looks like a must have for me. 48 years with special needs and still loving children and families. Technology is the new normal. I remember mimeograph machines. LOL
This looks awesome. Would love to try it
Would love this for my storytelling in Spanish I do in Mexico!
i would so love 1 of these to use with my littles at work!
It looks like it covers a lot of area and shows clearly on the screen. Very nice for a small product
That looks like a great product…thanks for sharing!
This looks like an awesome little doc cam! I’d love it for distance learning.
Love this! I’ve been wanting one of these for my kindergarten classroom. I love the idea of having my students follow step by step directions while watching my model on the board.
What a neat gadget!
I would love to have a portable document camera for subbing. Not all classes have this technology but it would help immensely!!
Doc cameras can be useful – we have 12 year doc cameras on our campus and they are not always working! A new one that works would be amazing!
super cool, especially because most document cameras don’t have the flexibility this one does so it’s hard to show everything on your screen.
This would be perfect for read alouds on the Smart Board!
This looks awesome. Be so handy in our classroom. Never knew anything like this existed.
I would love the camera. I have visually impaired preschoolers. I would love to see what we can accomplish with this.
I would love to have this camera! I was in the classroom in the overhead projector days! When I subbed and helped in my children’s classrooms I got to use these and I always think about how great they would be for virtual learning – especially when I teach printing and cursive!!
Love it. So compact, portable, cute and modern compared to the old one I use to use in my classroom! Technology has definitely come a long way since I started teaching.
This would be an awesome addition to my classroom!
Very cool product to use in the classroom!
Thank you sharing this great find. I will have to look in to one.
This is so cool! Apparently I’ve been depriving myself, because I didn’t even know this was a thing! haha…I know right!
Thank you for sharing this great find
Cute document camera! Looks compact to take and use for remote learning.
I love how small this camera is and that there is no extra prep to using it, just put the items under the camera and off you go!!
This is such a cool camera that gives you a better option of presenting the lessons when you are teaching.
What a great idea! That is a very cool camera. I can see it being very useful during story time–so all the kids can see the book. Also when demonstrating how to do new tasks, so the kids can see it up close. I’d love to try it!!!
Love this! There are so many cool ways to use this!!
Awesome!! Fantastic for virtual learning. I am excited to participate!!
I love the small size of this document camera. My current one is large and cumbersome to use.
What a great review on this. Thanks for finding an awesome and easy to use one.
This camera sounds like a great tool for the classroom.
This is an awesome camera! I can think of so many ways I could use it in my classroom!
I would love to have this new tool in my classroom.
This would be interesting to try
This like this would be great for my kids that have to post stuff on google classroom. The phone or ipad camera, just doesn’t work.
Thank you for all the teaching hacks, to help make our life easier.
God Bless
I would actually love to gift this to my brother who is a middle school art teacher in LA. He has outdated equipment and this would be amazing for him to share art work and art techniques virtually and in person.
That looks so cool and incredibly useful in a classroom setting!
Wow! I didn’t know something like this existed! This is so useful for virtual learning!
This is so cool
This would be wonderful to use during my small group time.
This would be a great addition for remote learning/teletherapy!
This document camera is really cool! I currently have a document camera, but it is connected to four different wires! So this would be awesome!!
This looks great!
THIS LOOKS LIKE A GREAT ADDITION TO MY SPEECH THERAPY CLASSROOM!
I would love a modern one to use in life skills classroom.
This would be such a help instead of writing everything on the board. I sub teach and tho there are usually these hook ups in the room, the teachers take their laptops with them. With the portable was of this, I could pack my own with my computer. What a game changer THAT would be!
Yes!! That would be very ideal!
This would be a great tool to use. Right now I have to use my IPad and it does not connect to my chromebook so that doesn’t work very well. This would make lie so much easier!!
This seems so interesting! I can’t wait to try it out and play around with all the ways I could use it here at home teaching my son both live at home and virtually with the school, ST, PT, OT.
Would love to win this awesome tool!
These are wonderful. I would love to win one.
This would be awesome for my classroom. It would help me explain so many things better to all my children at one time instead of 12 separate times!
Yes!! That is exactly why I love this camera. No one wants to explain something 12 separate times!
I would love to win this. It would help with teaching multiple children at the same time. What a great giveaway!
It is nice to see something that any teacher can use for helping children understand what we are teaching! This looks like a very helpful tool.
First, where did you get that blue tray/plate? I could use one of those!
Second, I don’t have an official doc camera but I use a makeshift setup with an stand and the camera on my iPad. It’s not perfect but works for now.
Hi! The trays are from Target. I believe they only sell them when it’s back-to-school time!
I’d love to try this out in my classroom! Great ideas!
As a tutor who currently teaches only online (through Zoom), this would be a game-changer! I could do so much more with my tutoring students if I had a document camera!
This would tremendously help with virtual read-alouds of stories and analysing printed text not found online.
Thanks for sharing!
Love this! The ability to show items up close helps all students and makes the classroom much more inclusive.
Some teachers I know have these and love them. It would be great for kids to share their work without having the others crowd around them.
I have used these in the past at a previous school and the camera is awesome! I loved it! I would highly recommend this purchase and would love to have one in my current classroom. Thank you for this opportunity.
I have used this type of thing before and found it very helpful in class and would love to have one of my own to use in my Pre-K class.
This Camera looks amazing very innovative I would like one of these
This would be a game changer for my classroom!
This looks so versatile! I could really use this in my classroom. Thank you for sharing this. I had not seen one like this before.
Wow! That looks so cool!
Would love to win this product to help my student see those small documents or show how to follow directions on assignments.
I have a document camera( not this one) but it hardly connects and it does not move around well. This one looks a lot more functional.
The document camera would be helpful in the event we have to return to remote learning
This would be so helpful for the hybrid learning rooms so the students who are in the classroom and the students learning from home would all be able to view the book or handout.
I find that my kids need visuals more than ever when learning and practicing new skills and concepts. There is the constant “I can’t see” when I am modeling for the whole class or even a group. Especially with sound boxes and with math integer bars. This would support all of the kids in learning and practicing skills and concepts across the curriculum. I would love to win this, and I will be happy for whoever does win. It will be a blessing!
What thoughtful and generous giveaways! In my teaching and my prof dev with colleagues, the Hue would be amazing.
My current document camera decides when it wants to work so a reliable one would be great for every subject!
I would love to have one for my classroom! I have been wanting one for years.
I’d love to play around with this to see what home uses I could come up for it. Very cool.
These flexible ones are so cool! This would be great for smaller print books and manipulatives! It would be really neat to own one!
I saw my mentor teacher using this in her classroom this semester and it was great. It was easier to show the students something up close all at the same time. I would love to have one of these when I begin to teach in my own classroom!
What a great tool to have in the classroom!
This document camera is amazing. I love learning of new things from you that help aid in improving teaching. Thank you.
Me too
This is a neat little gadget. My 1 child attends a special school and they rely on donors and fundraisers for most of their funding. Sometimes when they are working remotely his teacher has mentioned how beneficial a camera would be. If I won this giveaway I’d gift this to his school because I know it would be greatly appreciated and useful. Thanks!
Wow that is super cool! I’ve never seen one that was so flexible! Most of the ones I’ve seen are so rigid and just swivel. This would make virtual learning days so much easier!
That’s a cool camera!
What a great gift for the teacher in your life!
This would really help with virtual learning and enhance it. I think it could get my students engaged.
This would be awesome for showing science experiments since we have to keep Covid safe distance right now.
This is so neat, I never knew these existed
This camera is amazing and so helpful in my classroom and make my job easier.
I have one like this at school and I LOVE it!! But we recently switched to a virtual learning schedule when school closes on bad weather days so to be able to use this camera with my computer at home would be huge! The one I have at school can not be moved, so I also love that this one can move anywhere and is so small and compact!!
I would love to win this for my classroom!
These are so awesome! I have one in my classroom already, but I like
The look of these better! Doc cams are so helpful!
Love this. Thank you for introducing it
Thank you for the give away. This would really help me with all types of learning this year. It will be fast and easy for remote, in-person and hybrid teaching. Good luck to everybody!
This is so cool! I no longer teach but that would be so helpful in a classroom!
I need one of these for my house.
Wow. This would be neat even for homeschool showing the girls the same thing across the table.
So great. Very useful for the classroom.
Last year I was a remote teacher so I was familiar with the one my school gave me (it was a game changer) but now I’m in the classroom in a lower grade. This one looks so sleek and easy to use rather than the clunky one I had.
This doc cam would be so useful in many ways. I could see it saving much time when teaching about primaary documents in social studies for example.
I’d love to win this so I could gift it to a new teacher in our building. We do not have a lot of tech, but a few of us have something similar. Unfortunately she does not.
This is awesome! I got a document camera from my school several years ago, but I love how the neck moves on this one. Game changer!!!
What an amazing gadget! I have never seen one of these before and would love to have one for story time, science projects, art lessons, etc.
I work in full day kindergarten snd would love this!
Thank you for the giveaway! This would be amazing for my classroom.
This is a cool camera compared to the one I’ve got in class! Might have to get one for home!
This is amazing!! My kids would love this!
I am a speech therapist and I would love to use this with my students.
This would be amazing in my special Ed room. My students love taking pictures of their work.
These are fun. I haven’t seen one like this. Super compact and fun! Thank you for sharing.
I would love to have this to demonstrate correct letter formation.
I would love to have this! I love showing my students real life versions of things (our next unit is Tools & Machines, so like screws, nuts, bolts, etc) rather than printer our pictures blown up. This would be amazing!
I would like to win this to make demonstrations easier.
Love it!
I’m adding this to Christmas list.
This would be amazing when creating MCAS Alt Portfolios.
This is so much cooler than the giant, clunky one I had in my classroom. I loved to project the book I was reading aloud so everyone could see the pictures easily. I had to take some time off during the pandemic, but I would love to have this when I get back in the classroom.
I would like to win because this would be a great tool for the classroom!
Wow! A modern projector. Very cool!
A good tool for the classroom
This is a teaching game changer😊
This camera would be so helpful in my classroom! 🤞🏽