Using a Visualiser in the English Classroom

Almost ten years ago I wrote a post about using a visualiser in English secondary teaching. This simple piece of technology (also called a document camera) has had a resurgence recently, partly in the COVID-19 classroom in which teachers are 'stuck' at the front, and safety concerns mean that paper- and book-handling are more limited. Also, it’s extremely helpful for ‘remote teaching’ if you have to do that. So here's an update (much of which applies to other subjects, too).

Visualisers are relatively inexpensive (see Ed Finch’s cheap-as-chips homemade solution). I can recommend my recent upgrade, the Jourist DC80, which works slickly and is light (easy to carry around, especially handy if now you have to move between classrooms). It takes power from your PC via USB, so no extra plug. And it covers an entire A3 document/book.

Technical developments may have superseded some of the original points. My default presentation mode is now on an iPad via a wireless connection using the app Notability (which has a new excellent Presentation Mode) and an Apple Pencil. Notability makes it easy to incorporate a file, or the photo of a page, and then annotate it. This can be pulled up again in a later class, and also shared with pupils (if you don’t have a wi-fi connection for an iPad, you can still display it by putting it under the visualiser - decent quality though not as sharp as paper). But a visualiser is still a super-fast handy tool, and a lot cheaper than an iPad/Apple Pencil.

Visualisers are easy to use and versatile:

• they make modelling easy. We've always been able to model writing on a board (black, then white), but with this, you are facing the class. It’s all the easier to talk through your writing (the latest jargon is ‘metacognition’. Use one notebook per class, and then easily refer back to material weeks or months later (so you’re not losing ‘boardwork’ any more when the board is wiped).

• you can easily capture, save and later distribute material (some models also have microphones for recording demonstration voiceovers).

• if you need to teach remotely, they are extremely useful (particularly to show books and documents which your remote pupils can’t access, and again to handwrite notes).

• they are handy for whole-class feedback (display 3/4 good examples of work).

• sometimes you want just to show a page out of a book: a quick comment, no photocopying.

A scatter of other ideas:

• Pupils have their own books open, but also show the text of play/poem/novel on the screen, and annotations/highlighting on this. This helps pupils stay on track on the page, and the teacher to point out things on the board.

• Very helpful for getting the class to focus together on a point (especially if some pupils have different editions of texts).

• Model how to write Cornell Notes.

• Quick look-ups: I’m keen on modelling ‘looking at the dictionary’ especially since so few pupils do, nowadays. Display the entry you’ve found.

• Text displayed for pupils missing a textbook.

• Text annotation demonstration. Have a store of different coloured highlighters and pens for underlining. A big saver on photocopying.

• You can also remove the screen and annotate directly on the whiteboard (there may be some glare).

• Large focus on a small part of text - line, stanza, phrase: ‘every small book becomes a big book’.

• Use the highlight function (if your device/software has this) to select/reveal parts of the text. Or just cover and uncover it with a sheet of paper.

• Display good work by pupils - a paragraph, an opening, a piece particularly well presented, quotations list, well-organised notes.

• Art is so important in English too: show paintings that connect with/prompt thoughts about a text (like images of Ophelia, paintings from the Romantic era, etc).

• Easy to show something from a newspaper/magazine.

• Mark ‘live’ (preferably with pupils’ consent).

• Use a smartphone app/watch/stopwatch to time a class test, or to time a discussion/conversation, divide class into sections.

• Media Studies: close-up look at packaging, advertising brochure, magazine etc.

• Cartoons.

• Postcards as stimulus for writing.

• Postcards of author photos/portraits.

• Old photographs are fascinating: lots of writing prompts - and the camera quality allows close zoom (check out W.G. Sebald’s haunting use of photos in his strange and beautiful books).

• Shuffling lines of poetry (cut up into strips). Pupils can then try to rearrange, discuss. How is a sonnet structured?

• Discuss book covers (try different covers for the same book). What expectations are raised by different covers?

• Objects for texts: pupils bring in image or small object as symbol of character, idea, etc.

• Answers to a test/self-test, revealed by (un)masking.

• Display an illustrated book / storybook / graphic novel / comic.

• Display past papers.

• Hand out sticky Post-It notes for some exercise/answer/ideas, and display the returns (they can see these at a distance on a whiteboard).

• Pupils find a favourite poem, bring it in, display and talk about it.

• Have an image/postcard/words projected on screen as pupils come in for them to think about / write on, if the class is only slowly arriving. Or indeed if they’re all there at the same time at the start.

• Flash cards: pupils can make their own, demonstrate the question/answer.

• Project Story Cubes on the screen and then construct narratives.

Some helpful links:

• Douglas Wise: 9 ways to use a visualiser.

• Simon Baddeley: ‘How I use a visualiser in my classroom’.

• Sarah Larsen: ‘Visualisers: how they can be used to live model and give immediate verbal feedback’.

• Tim Dolan has a YouTube video on ‘20 Ideas for How to Use a Visualiser’.

• Ed Finch with a cheap-as-chips homemade solution to create your own visualiser.

• Ben Newmark on How to teach using a booklet and visualiser.

Any more ideas? Do stick them in the Comments.