Classroom video camera to record lessons

[SimpleSi]

There are a few (VERY EXPENSIVE) classroom video/audio recording tools (for teachers to video their own lessons and then watch them back afterwards)

 

One of my heads wants to try this out but without having to spend £8k !

 

Anyone using (or can suggest) a cheap(er) option - pref looking at something that can cover 360 degrees with a couple of wireless mikes.

 

Examples of what I'm talking about

Camera Systems - Products - IRIS Connect

 

regards

 

Simon

PS Would the Edugeek BETT Stand camera do this?

[bwestlake]

what about just putting a normal video camera in the corner of the room on a shelf?

[plexer]

Mobotix MX-Q24M-Sec-N11 360 degree IP dome camera -

 

If it has the ability to hook up an external mic then that could do it I guess but they're not cheap in the first place.

 

Ben

[dhicks]

pref looking at something that can cover 360 degrees

 

A decent camera pointing at a ceiling-mounted reversing mirror (about £20 off eBay)?

[jdoyle]

2 or 4 camera CCTV/DVR systems would be a lot cheaper than £8k. Able to view back all camera footage at the same time.

[Steven_Cleaver]

One of our staff is using an IPAD with teachers doing training here so they record the lesson then review after and make suggestions whats good whats bad etc then delete the video I thought this was quite a good idea and seems to work well. We had a look at various ways of doing this but wanted soomething good quality and something video not stored but instant feed back.

[SimpleSi]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

The solution has basically got to be easy-peasy to setup and use (e.g no 3rd person/techy) - just stick camera (or laptop with a webcam) in a corner and connect up 2 wireless mics and press record.

 

The Motobix one (which looks like the one Edugeek uses at BETT) might be the one for the job - or maybe just a very wide angle webcam would do the job .

What about suggestions for some wireless mics that could feed into a laptop or the external mic connector on a camera?

 

Simon

[S.C.]

Hi,

I think you've missed the point of Iris Connect. It's an entire system not just a camera. We have the system at Cramlington Learning Village and it's brilliant.

 

While you can just put a camcorder in the room, that removes the most powerful bits of the Iris system. Observing teachers can watch the lesson live without being in the room. In normal lesson observations, a senior teacher sitting at the back of the room completely changes student behaviour. With any camera system, the students quickly ignore the camera and you get a much more accurate snapshop of the teaching and learning. I dread to think how distracting it could be to have a teacher "playing" (as the kids would see it) with an iPad at the back of the room. With live remote viewing, the observing teacher is able to view AND make comments on the lesson as its happening. These comments are automatically timestamped to the video. After the lesson, these timestamps allow the viewer to jump to that point of the lesson to see the comment in context. This alone is massively powerful and one of the major factors which led us to buy Iris.

 

Two other huge benefits are the lack of technical management required and the secure nature of the videos. Setting a camcorder up a room is easy enough, but someone has to get the files from the camcorder, copy them to DVD or network area, convert them if they are too large etc... None of which will provide secure protection for the students or teachers. Yes, you can place them where students cannot access the videos, but you still have a file that can be transferred. And what if you have teachers uncomfortable with their colleagues "judging" them. So that rules out general areas. Do you drop the videos into individual's network storage? What if two teachers want to watch it? Multiple copies? It all leads to a massive headache. And of course, all this happens without the observation forms being kept with to the video. With the Iris system all the security and file managing is handled for you. The observed teacher "owns" the observation, can make their own comments and can invite others to view it. I encourage our teachers to record multiple lessons, choose the one they are happiest with then invite a senior teacher to officially observe that. None have gone that far yet, but the suggestion takes a load of pressure off them.

 

I've been managing our Iris system for three years it is truly easy. The system links to the camera, the recording PC records then automatically uploads the video. Biggest "issue" I have is remembering to charge the mic.

 

SimpleSi - do yourself a massive favour and let the head investigate Iris. Be in the sales meeting and contact me if you have any questions. Just call Cramlington www.cramlingtonlv.co.uk - 01670 712 311 and ask for the web designers.

[plexer]

Hi,

I think you've missed the point of Iris Connect. It's an entire system not just a camera. We have the system at Cramlington Learning Village and it's brilliant.

 

While you can just put a camcorder in the room, that removes the most powerful bits of the Iris system. Observing teachers can watch the lesson live without being in the room.

 

Most of the suggestions have been based around ip cameras not camcorders therefore there is no need to d/l footage.

 

I don't think he's missed the point of the commercial system at all just that it's too expensive for them.

 

What about Xprotect Go that gives you an ip based dvr system that's free for up to 8 cameras and gives you user access control on who can watch what cameras and who can playback what footage?

 

Ben

[S.C.]

Fair point regarding IP cams, but the file management and security issues still apply

[plexer]

Not when deploying a solution like Xprotect they don't.

 

Ben

[S.C.]

And what about the observation forms and video ownership? I'm sure Xprotect is a good system, but it's not designed for Teacher Observation. Yes, you can build a cheaper system, but within a year, I'll bet you'll be fed up of managing it. Three years in and Iris is still the easiest system I have to deal with.

[plexer]

Fair point regarding IP cams, but the file management and security issues still apply

 

And what about the observation forms and video ownership? I'm sure Xprotect is a good system, but it's not designed for Teacher Observation. Yes, you can build a cheaper system, but within a year, I'll bet you'll be fed up of managing it. Three years in and Iris is still the easiest system I have to deal with.

 

Yes I agree that from that point of view the iris system probably wins but the OP may be happy to sacrifce that part of the functionality for a much cheaper setup.

 

Ben

[laserblazer]

What's the legal position on this? A good number of our classrooms contain pupils with a "do not photograph" order. When we had Teachers' TV in filming a class, we had to get parental consent for every pupil.

 

We do have CCTV but nobody is recognisable on that.

[dhicks]

One of my heads wants to try this out but without having to spend £8k !

 

The Raspberry Pi camera module should be available soon:

 

Camera board – first demo of the final hardware! | Raspberry Pi

 

3 or 4 of those (depending on field-of-view) would cover 360 degrees, but you'd need some software to stick it all together.

[plexer]

What's the legal position on this? A good number of our classrooms contain pupils with a "do not photograph" order. When we had Teachers' TV in filming a class, we had to get parental consent for every pupil.

 

We do have CCTV but nobody is recognisable on that.

 

The school would probably need to have a policy to cover this if the system was used as general cctv for the security of staff, students and equipment then that would be fine.

 

Teachers TV footage or other published pictures would be available to 3rd parties school cctv type footage is not apart from under certain conditions such as for police evidence.

 

Ben

[dhicks]

3 or 4 of those (depending on field-of-view) would cover 360 degrees, but you'd need some software to stick it all together.

 

Actually, investigating this it looks as though a camera pointing at a catadioptric mirror is a better bet - you can just record a video as a standard video file and un-warp it at playback time. Quite remarkably, it seems that this is now possible to do in real time with HTML5 and a bit of Javascript - you create two canvas elements, place a video element on one of them (which you hide) and have a Javascript event handler called for every frame update that applies a transform and copies the content to the second canvas element (which you actually make visible).

[sjatkn]

We have just bought in to the IRIS system, and I am of a similar mind to others, in that it is expensive and could be done much more cheaply. However is it much simpler to use than setting up all the required components separately and getting them to work every time. Whilst we as technical folk will find it simple enough, this system is simple enough for most teachers to use. I and my team are busy enough and we really don't have the time to be recording numerous lesson observations so I appreciate the money has been fairly well spent.

 

Next week I will take a look at our system to see if there is anything on the microphones to identify the manufacturer. Good quality sound is as important as the pictures, no point recording the lesson if can't hear it.

[S.C.]

What's the problem with the mic? We only use the standard one, but I'm sure I remember something about being able to add more.

[Templar]

Have you any visualisers in school? The Genee range have models with CCD camera's (same type as in CCTV) and can record directly to SD card - would that work?

[SchTechGuy]

Why not use a visualiser. We use the the Genee Vision 3100. It has a flexible neck to its easy to point in any direction and it can record direct to SD card or if we want record it on the computer. We often use the a visualiser with a response system to get direct feedback from the lesson and use the footage shot on the visualiser in future lessons as part of the lesson plan.

[fullller1]

Why not use a visualiser. We use the the Genee Vision 3100. It has a flexible neck to its easy to point in any direction and it can record direct to SD card or if we want record it on the computer. We often use the a visualiser with a response system to get direct feedback from the lesson and use the footage shot on the visualiser in future lessons as part of the lesson plan.

Many thanks ordered one today from Tracy at IE for £425 and even got some freebies

[S.C.]

What's the legal position on this? A good number of our classrooms contain pupils with a "do not photograph" order. When we had Teachers' TV in filming a class, we had to get parental consent for every pupil.

 

We do have CCTV but nobody is recognisable on that.

 

In terms of Iris, all the videos are held on a secure server and there's a blurring output option when sharing the video