Webcams for remote teaching

[Guest Guest]

We currently have several teachers who are self isolating and need to be able to teach their classes remotely. We're looking to buy several webcams that ideally will sit on top of the interactive whiteboard, have decentish video quality and a half decent mic. Would anybody recommend anything in particular?

 

Thanks

[Wubbalubbadub]

No matter what people recommend, it's near impossible to get ahold of webcams at the moment. I cleared out John Lewis the other day for my school...

[Steve21]

AV Partsmaster till have lots of Logitech (920s etc) available as we did an order the other day. Not the cheapest but lots of stock

 

Steve

[Protec]

I got a Trust Exis webcam from eBay new.

[chazzy2501]

I've done a few lessons with a remote teacher now. Just have the TA use a laptop and point it at the class from the teacher desk. Mostly positive results.

[gpjt]

Depends on how much your willing to pay for a decent webcam the Logitech 920's are good. For £25 you can buy these which do the job and are better than in built 720p camera's on laptops etc

[dhicks]

For £25 you can buy these which do the job and are better than in built 720p camera's on laptops etc

 

I looked at those - do they have a standard screw thread on the bottom for mounting to a stand? I went for one of these in the end (£34), mainly as the description actually showed them attached to a stand:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08DJYNSC8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01

[gpjt]

They haven't got a screw thread no!

[DrCheese]

Depends on how much your willing to pay for a decent webcam the Logitech 920's are good. For £25 you can buy these which do the job and are better than in built 720p camera's on laptops etc

 

Yarp, have bought over 100 of these. The microphones not fantastic, but they do the job.

[chazzy2501]

I think I got lucky that 99% of my laptops had mics and cameras built in. I NEVER specced a laptop to have them it just kinda worked out. This has been a butt saver in the lockdown. The only real issue was getting TEAMs to not pick the external mic EVERY time..

 

Most laptops I'd never checked the webcam even worked or had drivers. (as we buy reconditioned)

[Protec]

The Trust Exis is manual focus believe it or not.

[dhicks]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08DJYNSC8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01

 

Actually quite impressed by how wide-angle this webcam is - example image:

 

 

That's a 3.3m by 1.2m image from 1.5m away - there's a bit of a fisheye effect noticeable as it's framed by straight lines, but that should work quite nicely as a reasonably wide-angle lens for meetings.

[psydii]

We have the HUE visualisers in all classrooms. The cover teachers discovered all by themselves that they can point them into the room so the remote teacher can see the class.

 

FWIW we've run around 200 periods so far with remote teachers. Its working really well. We do have a great cover team and we organised SLT support roaming the site with radios in support.

Edited October 2, 2020 by psydii