October 2005 — Educator's Evaluation

Print this article

Click here to receive your FREE subscription to T.H.E. Journal

Taking Control of Your Digital Imaging Content

Educator Evaluation

By Ronny Richardson

Taking Control of Your Digital Imaging Content
A look at three products that will make every instructor’s life easier when trying to create digital course content.

As more and more courses either move all or part of their content online, instructors are being called on to create an ever-increasing amount of digital imaging content for their courses. So, as a service to fellow educators, I put three tools that are geared at making this task easier to the test: the ViewSonic VA712b LCD monitor, the Wacom Graphire3 6x8 pen tablet, and Adobe Photoshop CS. After reading these reviews, log onto www.thejournal.com to view a simple four-step process of how you can quickly create video content that your students can view online or on a DVD.

LCD or CRT, That is the Question
The ViewSonic (www.viewsonic.com) VA712b is an excellent, very affordable 17-inch LCD monitor that is only 7 inches deep. It has a 350:1 contrast ratio, which makes the LCD’s image as bright as my old CRT monitor. I was afraid that an LCD monitor would not be able to keep up with video that contained a lot of movement, but with a fast 8-millisecond video response time, the VA712b can handle 125 frames per second. The VA712b also has never shown any signs of flickering or ghosting.Needless to say, I find it much easier to work with this LCD monitor all day than with my old CRT monitor.

The bottom of the VA712b has two built-in 1-watt speakers. Although they sound tinny, I appreciate not having the clutter of stand-alone speakers on my desk. The monitor connects to a solid pedestal that lets users angle the monitor up and down, but does not allow for side-to-side movement. Other features of the VA712b include a wall-mount interface and a Kensington security port.

The average price of the LCD monitor online is about $250, while the lowest price I found was $231. At these prices, the ViewSonic VA712b represents an excellent bargain.

Trading in Your Mouse for a Pen
If you’ve ever had to produce diagrams for online courses, you’ve probably found your mouse too limiting and ended up scanning a freehand drawing. There is, however, a better way.

The Wacom (www.wacom.com/education) Graphire3 pen tablet consists of three pieces of hardware: a tablet, a wireless mouse, and a wireless pen. The tablet is about 8 inches x 10 inches (with a working space of 6 inches x 8 inches) and plugs into a USB port. The company also offers a smaller version with a 4-inch x 5-inch working area.

The tablet’s wireless mouse has two buttons and a scroll wheel, and is used exactly like any other mouse; the only difference is that you must use it on the tablet. And although the wireless mouse works just as well as my optical mouse, this is not what makes the Wacom Graphire3 so useful. It is when you use the tablet’s wireless pen that you see the real power of this package.