Visualisers and Q-Review

Many of you will have noticed Visualisers appearing in more and more lecture theatres around campus. They’re, in my opinion at least, a fantastic technolgy. They are extremely simple to use and have the potential to open up a whole new array of materials to a lecturer. They’re also very much under-utilized. (As a brief tanget – we do have an example of one being used very well in QMUL – there’s a link at the bottom of this article).

A visualiser is essentially a more modern over-head projector (OHP). Only instead of a very basic light projection, a visualiser uses a high-quality video camera.

This has a very straightfoward immediate use and a more engaging and exciting one:

1. You can use all of those old OHP slides again
2. But, more excitingly, you can use anything you want to

The visualiser looks like this:

Visualiser being used in a classroom - image sourced from ghwpix on Flickr

There’s one in most of the larger theatres around QMUL (e.g. Skeel, Perrin, Fogg, CMLT, etc.) and, at first glance it’s either just for dusty OHP’s or it’s a new piece of technology that you don’t have the time to learn. But… it’s easy to use. You just put something (anything) under it. Turn it on. Select the source for the projector (in the same way you would for a laptop).

Now, what I find exciting about it is that you can use pretty much anything as a learning object. If you teach biosciences – show your students how to use a pippette. If you teach anatomy – disect a heart. If you teach electronics – explain a circuit board. English and poetry – bring in a first edition. Or if you teach anything at all – just write and draw and annotate – it might be more engaging than PowerPoint for you and your students.

Here we can see two examples from Flickr – one of a heart being dissected live from the podium in a theatre and one of a circuit board being explained.

Visualiser being used to show a live heart dissection - image sourced from dannynic on Flickr

Visualiser being used to display a circuit board - image sourced from Annak on Flickr

Here in QMUL, they’re starting to be used here and there. Computer scientists and engineers, displines who have always had difficulty with PowerPoint’s inability to easily render mathematical notations, have seen a clear immediate application of the technology. Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, in the School of Business and Management, has also used a visualiser to deliver clear and engaging imagery in his class. He didn’t have to spend hours scanning materials – he just brought some books. Q-Review recorded his lecture.

You can see his lecture by clicking here.

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