In today’s post pandemic world, online learning has developed in stride, offering a quality education from the comfort of home. With this new way of learning, many schools have developed different approaches to the online learning environment. The two biggest approaches lie with synchronous vs asynchronous learning.
Synchronous Vs. Asynchronous
The major difference between synchronous and asynchronous learning is how the class is taught. Like a normal classroom, synchronous learning has the student and teacher meeting together live. This gives the student the opportunity to chat and learn in real time with the teacher. The major downside to this model of online learning is that the student has set times during the day that they have to attend class.
Asynchronous learning combats this idea by allowing students to take the class at their convenience (for the most part). Asynchronous learning has the student attending class in the form of pre-recorded lessons and lectures. This is the less popular of the two model but is the perfect learning environment for certain types of students.
The Benefits of Document Cameras
Document cameras are a useful tool for remote based learning. Primarily adopted as a way for businesses to communicate and send files to one another. In our school: Tenney School Live, we issue document cameras for all of our students. We find that in our synchronous learning environment, that it’s important for students and teachers to be able to send documents to one another quickly while on the call. On top of the class times being shorter than normal, we’ve found this saves us time and allows us to focus more on the one-to-one aspect of learning.
1. Visual Clarity
A document camera drastically improves the visual clarity in the virtual classroom. During the pandemic, many teachers and institutions didn’t have a proper way to share information in real time. This led to many classrooms using a webcam or mobile scanning app for sharing documents or lesson demonstration. This slowed down instructional time in the classroom immensely. Document cameras changed this by allowing teachers to easily (and clearly) share documents in a quick manner.
2. Interactive Learning
While we touched on this in benefit 1, it’s important to elaborate on how a document camera presents a more interactive learning environment. The device can be used to demonstrate lessons live. Previously, this was only thought to be possible in a traditional classroom where the teacher can physically write on the board for the student. Document cameras break down this barrier and allow teachers to easily show their work and explain lessons in more depth to students.
3. Flexibility
Document cameras offer a simple but effective solution for the classroom. The simplicity of the device allows for it to adapt to different teaching styles and learning environments. It makes the virtual classroom more comparable to the student’s experience in a traditional school. This makes it more comfortable for both the teacher and the student in lessons.
See the Potential of Online School
Here at Tenney School Live, we utilize document cameras as a way for teachers to deliver the best possible lessons to their students. We understand that each student learns and prefers different teaching styles and environments. This is why we developed our one-to-one remote program, where each and every student learns with their teacher, one-to-one! This environment allows for the best possible online learning experience without sacrificing the student experience in the virtual classroom. On top of this, each and every student is issued a document camera! I highly recommend inquiring here for more info if you’d like to hear more about our program and what we offer!
