David Watkins (@MrDavidWatkins) talks us through the impact that the HUE HD Pro visualiser has had on the engagement levels and outcomes of his geography students…
About me
Name: David Watkins Job role: Head of Geography and DofE Award Manager School: St Joseph’s College, Reading Favourite feature: “The camera is well priced and works well, straight out of the box”
One of our departmental aims is to embed excellence. Our approach is based on Ron Bergers’s 2003 book, An Ethic of Excellence, which suggests adopting the following principles:
- Assign work that matters
- Study examples of excellence
- Build a culture of critique
- Require multiple revisions
- Provide opportunities for public presentation
Using the HUE HD Pro visualiser has made our quest for excellence much easier. It allows us to display examples of excellence either modelled by the teacher or produced by the pupil, ensuring that pupils are aware of the success criteria before commencing their work.
Integral to our approach has been building a culture of critique. In order for pupils to feel confident when their work is displayed to the class, we have worked on teaching pupils how to be constructive to one another, as well as ensuring a healthy dose of praise.
Once this culture is embedded, more work naturally finds itself under the visualiser – in fact, usually everyone wants to have their moment!
This allows immediate feedback from the class and the teacher, and is a great example of live marking, which provides support and guidance to help all learners attain excellence.
Geographers need to develop a broad toolkit of methods and techniques in order to understand the world around us.
When teaching how to construct a graph for the first time, we now model it using the visualiser with the pupils following along. They confidently match the steps and listen as I describe the process, leading to fewer errors and saving time once support is withdrawn.
As I complete the task, I’m thinking out loud and instinctively informing them of the next task, and why I’m completing it in that order. This helps develop metacognition, and a more conscientious and questioning approach when they then do it themselves.
I often now display handouts on the board without having to reel off photocopies for every pupil.
Geography textbooks suffer from going out of date very quickly as the world rapidly changes around us. I use the visualiser to show contemporary articles from magazines, newspapers and wider texts.
Using the visualiser, rather than photocopying, is much better for the environment and saves money at the same time. It also plugs and plays into my school computer, without any need to install drivers or hassle the IT department.
Will it work for you?
- Flexible and portable – the lightweight HUE HD Pro camera has a range of uses.
- Plug & Play – the HUE HD Pro camera can be used instantly with any application that recognises USB cameras
- Affordable – priced at only £49.95 + VAT, including a two-year warranty with full technical support
- Easy-to-use – Comes supplied with a single user licence for HUE Intuition software (site licenses also available)
The HUE HD Pro is one of a range of colourful, creative and affordable products for school, home and work available from huehd.com; find out more and follow us at @HUEcameras for news, giveaways and fun ideas.
