This Guest post was written by Paul Woodward, Curriculum Trainer, Design & Technology Association.

How to demonstrate a close-up practical skill such as drawing or making in detail has long been a problem for teachers, especially in a large class and, while there were some visualisers on the market, they were often low quality in terms of build, or the image produced.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything in this regard as students were no longer able to go into schools, so teachers had to find some way of demonstrating these skills but also do it online to a group of students relying very much on the quality of the equipment available.

This inevitably led to increased demand for visualisers to use for remote teaching, but I am sure many teachers, like me, realised the benefit of having a high quality, portable and affordable visualiser in the classroom even when we were able to return.

I have since left the classroom, but I still keep a HUE HD Pro visualiser at hand and that has proven to be a real asset in my new role as a Curriculum Developer and Trainer for the Design and Technology Association in the UK. This role involves training teachers face to face and via e-learning courses, but it is in the live digital training we are developing that the visualiser has become a must have accessory.

One new course is a 60-minute CPD session on traditional sketching and rendering so you can imagine how difficult it could be to demonstrate this live, be that to a group of students or a group of online participants eager to watch you demonstrate processes in order to improve their own skills.
The HUE visualiser is small and portable which means it is easy to move around the office or to a venue. Its gooseneck allows for the viewing position to be changed easily and it doesn’t get in the way of the task you are filming or streaming. Finally, the built-in light and HD camera makes it easy to set up the perfect environment for demonstration.

Additionally, I found the HUE Camera Viewer app (for Chrome) to be a great way of adjusting the contrast and brightness as well as mirroring and flipping the camera, so the viewers see the experience exactly as I do. Add to this the ability to quickly take screenshots or record the entire presentation and you have an amazing little device that doesn’t even need a separate power supply.

A relatively new development for the Association is delivering D&T specific training for ‘in school’ trainee teachers and here again the HUE HD Pro is invaluable for both the face-to-face sessions and the live digital training. It just lets the viewer watch the same process you see through your own eyes and it is really opening up new possibilities for teaching and learning. We have many more ‘hands on’ training activities to deliver and the HUE camera has certainly made it possible for us to deliver vital training effectively and without compromise.

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