The face of education is changing with the ever-growing resource of technology. However, there is often a rift between the technology training pre-service teachers receive and the technology available once on the job. Pre-service teachers may learn cutting edge technology on campus, but often find that due to financial reasons, schools cannot provide the same resources. Faced with this dilemma, Dr. Joe Lubig and the Northern Michigan University (NMU) Teacher Education Program in Marquette, MI searched for a practical technology he could train students to use that has the potential of being utilized in most school settings.

According to the NMU School of Education Conceptual Framework: Technology is rapidly and constantly changing opportunities for educators to improve and expand their pedagogical knowledge and practice. Familiarity with technologies can promote ethical and collaborative work, engage users in critical and creative thinking and problem solving, and support the construction of meaning. Use of technologies must take into account student diversity, cultural differences, social justice, and equity of access and opportunity. The increasing presence and power of technologies that can transform society and schools mandates that educators develop critical skills and habits of technological literacy. Unit faculty are therefore committed to provide candidates access to and knowledge of technologies that will assist them to reach their goals as students and as teachers. Additionally, faculty promote and model habits of criticism regarding ethical uses of technologies while engaging candidates in professional practices that appropriately apply technologies to enhance the teaching/learning process (http://www.nmu.edu/education).

According to Dr. Lubig and the NMU program, it is the responsibility of teacher educators to research and model the use of current technology as it relates to the teaching of subject matter and student needs. Current entry level teaching standards for the profession require that pre-service teachers have authentically used technology to positively impact student learning. Today's classrooms have the opportunity to reach well beyond the local community through the use of technological advances.

A concern of many teacher educators when modeling the use of technology at the university is that pre-service teachers will not have access to the same technology when they student teach in the public schools. The speed with which the public university and the public schools obtain technology to advance student learning often vary greatly, whether for budgetary reasons, or understanding what is available. Therefore, when teacher educators make decisions on what type of technology to utilize in the classroom they should consider the ease of use and the mobility of that technology. Our student teachers often comment on the disconnect between the hardware used in university and public school programs. Student teachers often cite the lack of flexibility provided by a stationary or mobile computer lab and the accompanying presentation station. Stationary labs are often set up for 30 students where teachers and students compete for available time slots thus limiting their use. The mobile labs often suffer from poor Internet connectivity and added hardware and software bumps and bruises as hundreds of students each week handle each piece of equipment. Lost teaching and learning time is a frequent occurrence as students are escorted to and from a stationary lab or as laptops are distributed and collected from mobile labs. These occurrences are typically limited in the undergraduate university experience as the student to computer ratio is one to one. In addition, connectivity, software, and hardware issues are resolved quickly as there is an entire department whose primary goal is to deal with such issues. Public schools often lack the funding to initiate and support such technology.

Keeping these thoughts in mind, Dr. Lubig started to consider how he could connect his pre-service teachers to technology that was effective, affordable, and mobile in a classroom setting. His students at NMU, a laptop university, are knowledgeable in the use of technology. University classrooms are equipped with LCD projectors and presentation stations including document cameras to support lecture and lab courses. While researching appropriate technologies for his program, Dr. Lubig viewed a demonstration of an AVer AVerVision300AF Portable Document Camera at a regional conference held on campus. Dr. Lubig quickly saw the advantage the compact and mobile AVerVision300AF could provide to his students.

Dr. Lubig was excited to plan the real-time critique and reflection this type of technology could provide. Prior to the use of the AVerVision300AF deconstructing lesson plans and student work samples would require the entire class to leave the field and reconvene back in the university classroom. The energy and excitement of the lesson was often lost when the debriefing sessions were postponed by a day or two. In addition, pre-service teachers were often required to scan student work into their laptops to project and share with their peers. With the use of the AVerVision300AF students could immediately post, annotate, copy, and save student work from the field as opposed to spending valuable planning time on this task. Furthermore, Dr. Lubig could develop, capture, and e-mail real-time visuals to the class through the innovations provided by the AVerVision300AF.

Dr. Lubig and his students saw immediate benefits to the AVerVision300AF as it related to their teaching practice. Pre-service teachers are required to develop, implement, and critique lesson plans in the local schools. A key component to their teaching and learning are structured discussions where students reflect on their practice. This has traditionally been done in written narratives supported with scanned images of the graphic organizers used in their teaching and the resulting student work samples. This process was cumbersome and typically took on the form of a mini-lecture as pre-service teachers shared their reflections off of a prepared written script. Interaction among their peers was limited. Since employing the use of the AVerVision300AF students have been able to present engaging reflections to the whole class. The ability to present paper copy work samples from public school students that can be easily annotated through the use of the provided software has allowed for pre-service teachers to tell the story of their teaching to their peers.

A key element to effective reading instruction is to incorporate written, oral, and visual text. The ability of the AVerVision300AF to present crystal clear images from printed text while being read was exceptional. Pre-service teachers were able to support learning by encouraging their peers to come to the front of the classroom to annotate text or visuals. To have this instantaneous check for understanding allowed pre-service teachers to see if material and ideas were being understood correctly. The ability of the AVerVision300AF to record the image and voice of the presentation proved to be a key component for authentic reflection. This video recording capability allowed pre-service teachers to add key evidence of authentic reflection to their electronic portfolios.

Fellow pre-service teachers are able to engage the presenter with authentic ideas to enhance the visual components and graphic organizers used in the lesson. The presenters utilize the image capture and video recording features to save the plethora of ideas contributed by their peers to their laptops. Every pre-service teacher is able to contribute to the improvement of the lesson and its parts. The annotated images and the recordings that accompany them are easily uploaded to the class Web site for students to reference throughout their teaching experiences. Pre-service teachers complimented the camera on its ability to support the creation of a storyboard for their teaching. They commented on the value this would have in supporting the development of their electronic portfolios which are used to apply for student teaching and eventually for a professional position.

Dr. Lubig and his students have expanded their use of the camera to include a variety of teaching strategies across subject areas. Pre-service teachers have used the ability of the camera to effectively capture 3-D images to rehearse lessons in industrial technology. A teacher candidate placed a scale model of a racing buggy under the camera. He was able to role play with his peers how the drawing features could be used to redesign the model to make it stronger and lighter based on input from cooperative groups. The redesigned images from each group were captured and posted to the Web where cooperative teams could synthesize them to develop a final plan for the scale model rebuilding of the racing buggy. Through the use of the multiple adapter options, NMU pre-service teachers are now able to couple the AVerVision300AF with the already available LCD projectors, laptops, and TV stations to demonstrate student learning. This ability reinforces good teaching practice. Allowing students to see and hear what is being taught is critical if we are to increase understanding of content.

Having access to the types of innovations the AVerVision300AF provides will allow Dr. Lubig and his pre-service teachers to extend their use of this technology into the public school classrooms in which they work. The video capture and recording features have the potential to allow pre-service teachers to communicate a timeline of their teaching to students who are absent from class. Since the files have the ability to be saved they can also provide an electronic record of key anchor points for critical pieces of content area curriculum. Posting this type of information to the Web will allow their students the opportunity to revisit their own learning thus extending the classroom well beyond the confines of the traditional school day. We have already begun imagining the potential of the annotation and capture features as they relate to parent teacher conferences. Imagine the power of providing immediate written feedback to students through the annotation feature on the AVerVision300AF. Students respond positively to feedback the sooner it is given. Now imagine utilizing the image capture feature to record the student work and teacher comments and saving them in an electronic file and pulling that document up during parent-teacher conferences. Having actual student work with teacher comments can do nothing but enhance the conference about the strengths and needs of each individual student.

Realizing the value of the AVerVision300AF as it relates to program goals, the pre-service teachers and their professors have taken it upon themselves to apply for academic service learning and technology grants to support the purchase of additional AVerVision300AF units for use in their teaching. Students have cited the convenience and portability of the technology as their main reason for their grant request. They clearly understand that their public school students will more easily be able to share and demonstrate their learning through the use of such technology.

About Dr. Joe Lubig:
Dr. Joe Lubig is a 1991 graduate of Northern Michigan University's Teacher Education Program. He holds a secondary teaching certificate in the areas of social studies and English. He completed his Master's from NMU in 1997 and his doctorate from Central Michigan University in 2006. Dr. Lubig was an adjunct instructor for eight years with the NMU School of Education. In 2004 he took a full-time position with the School of Education where he currently teaches secondary reading methods and classroom management in a field-based program. He and his students collaborate with 11 local educators and 1,200 high school students in an extensive field-based teacher education program. The direct connection between course content and the secondary teaching classroom is strong. NMU pre-service teachers are expected to incorporate their content knowledge, technology, and pedagogical knowledge into their teaching. This is done through reflective practice with peers, public school teachers, university faculty, and public school students.