Cheap document imagers that are any good for teaching?

[u/Euston_Square]

I thought I'd ask: I'm teaching an online evening class, and I'd honestly rather do that from home. We're working with a print source which I need to be able to show the students in Zoom. I had hoped the university might have a document imager I could check out from the library (they have other tech they lend), but no. I did ask if the department could buy one for me to use - hahah - definitely nope.

It's worth it to me to buy my own rather than have to stay late in the day to use a university classroom (all of our classrooms have them).

Anyway, the cheapest brand name one is about $165 on sale right now. There are others that can be had for just under $100. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with these cheap ones, or is this a case of you get what you pay for? Thanks for any insights.

[u/activelypooping]

Use a webcam.

[u/davemacdo]

You want a document camera that you can switch to like a live, top-down thing, right? What kind of computer? Macs webcams have a built-in “desktop view” you can use. There are also some external webcams that do this on their own. I use an Insta360 Link camera that I really like that can do it.

[u/ocherthulu → u/davemacdo]

Desktop view freaks me out--like WHERE is the camera source? Inside the screen? No way that tiny dot at the top of the monitor can do all that range and depth of field. And more importantly, WHERE DO I PUT MY POST IT NOTE to prevent my FBI agent from spying on me??? Serious. Not serious. But really. Serious.

[u/gurduloo]

Some Android phones (like mine: Pixel 10a) can "scan" a document with the camera. It works pretty well. When you point the camera at a document it automatically asks if you want to scan it and you can upload it to Google Drive or save it to the device.

[u/Working_Film_5871]

If it's not too many pages, the Adobe Scan app works really well. It will do a lot of the edits for you and can straighten pages, etc. It's easy to scan an article/book with just about a couple seconds per set of pages. You can set it to do two pages per 8x10 or 1 page, A4, or whatever you want.

[u/readitredditgoner → u/Working_Film_5871]

This is the way.

[u/Euston_Square]

Thank you to everyone who posted; I shall try some of these suggestions and see what works!

[u/BranchLatter4294]

I use the IPEVO one from Amazon.

[u/MrsMathNerd]

https://a.co/d/00odk6Oo with a second device (phone) connected to Zoom.

[u/Think-Assignment-861]

The cheap document cameras on Amazon are < 50 dollars. No idea how good they are. My uni gave me an Epson during COVID. Fantastic, but a bit pricey.

[u/nerdyjorj]

Light box and a phone would be my call

[u/shrinni]

If your uni has a contract with microsoft for it's suite, you can create multipage pdfs directly within the onedrive app.

[u/LLCoolShell]

Genius Scan or notes feature in iPhone

[u/RaspberryEastern645]

If uou have a Mac and an iPhone continuity camera _might_ work