Shoot 'n Share in the Classroom

Image used with permission from
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/vsharma5/

This morning I was watching the Ellen DeGeneres Show as I was getting ready for the day. She gave each member of her studio audience a  3M Camcorder Projector Shoot 'n Share.
I thought this tech gadget was unique from other camcorders like the flip camcorder because you can instantly project the video you created on any flat surface. I started to think about how this time saving feature could be especially useful in the classroom and I came up with  a few great ideas.

Image used with permission from
http://www.flickr.com/photos/trainor/

The Shoot 'n Share could be great for lots of group work opportunities. Say you assign each group to come up with a skit in short amount of time over a broad history event you have been reading about. Assign each group a small part of the time period and send them off. I don't know about other kids, but I would have definitely been more comfortable acting out a skit without a large audience in front of me and instead have it play back in front of the class later. It also gives them a chance to see the skit for themselves! Assign each group to quite parts of the school and then have the whole group come back together for a video session of all the skits. I am confident students would come up with some great ideas while learning the material at the same time.

Image used with permission from
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitkaphotogirl/

This tool would be awesome to use in science as well. When doing scientific experiments, observations are a large part of the process. Sometimes it can be difficult to write down everything that you are witnessing at once. If students could record their experiment and have a chance to look back at the video within seconds their observations would become more accurate. Another advantage would be if something exciting happened while doing their testing (explosion), the whole class could witness it later on! If you were working with insects or some other type of wild life the Shoot 'n Share would be great to record the creature and then later make observations instead of trying to rush and write observations with pen and paper.

Teachers could record their lessons if they knew a student was gone and students the next day could project the lesson on their own desk. The teacher would not have to deal with uploading the video to the internet from the device, saving him or her a few minutes out of their busy schedules.

During individual work time, the teacher could go around the classroom looking for students who came up with a new math strategy or thought of a great idea that should be shared with the class. Instead of putting the student on the spot in front of the whole class, the teacher could simply record the student, their work, and perhaps ask them a question or two about what they're doing. The teacher could then share the student's new thinking with the class instantly.

The possibilities are endless with the 3M Shoot 'n Share in the classroom.