20 Apr 2021

User’s Story: The Benefits of Using OKIOCAM as a Remote Student

My name is Tina Le. I am a college student studying Electrical Engineering (ENEE) at the University of New Orleans (UNO). During the Spring 2020 semester, UNO decided to conduct all in-person classes on March 12, 2020 remotely to test the university’s readiness to deliver courses online, which was a first for the Engineering department. Since that day, UNO has had to offer more classes completely online or in a blended (hybrid) format so that the university could meet CDC guidelines for social distancing during the pandemic. A major component for all online classes is Zoom lectures, which require a good webcam. Sometimes it is hard to get a good angle with the built-in front-facing webcam on a laptop or a conventional USB webcam. After doing research I discovered OKIOCAM. In the following sections, I explain how I use my OKIOCAM T for online classes and how I can use it for on-campus classes when the university returns to in-person teaching.

Tina Le, an Electrical Engineering student from
University of New Orleans (UNO), uses her OKIOCAM.

Using OKIOCAM for Online Classes

During Zoom class lectures, our teacher often asks us to work on a problem and then share our completed work with our classmates. With conventional front-facing webcams, this is a challenge because it is awkward to share your work by holding your notebook up while making sure it is readable. However, I can easily share my work, without any issues, by using the adjustable arm on my OKIOCAM to change the camera from showing my face to showing my work, as shown in the pictures below. Also, I can show my face with my front-facing webcam and use screen sharing to show my work using the OKIOCAM.

Using OKIOCAM T to show my hands and paper on Zoom
My OKIOCAM T setup adjusted to show my hands, paper, and face on Zoom

For online assignments, our teacher requires us to submit digital copies of our completed work by scanning the pages or using our phone to take pictures of them and then uploading a single file containing all the digitized pages. Using a scanner or phone to digitize your written work can lead to pages with work that is skewed, cut off, or illegible. However, I can use my OKIOCAM with OKIOCAM Snapshot and Recorder to take pictures of my work, as shown below.

Using OKIOCAM and OKIOCAM Snapshot and Recorder to take pictures of my work

Using OKIOCAM for On-Campus Classes

Since OKIOCAM is portable and folds up compactly as shown below, I can easily take it between my home and school.

My OKIOCAM T folded up

Thus, my friends and I can easily exchange notes at school by using my OKIOCAM to take pictures of them so we can fill in any gaps in our notes. I can also use it to record my ENEE lab experiments, so that I can review the work that we did in the lab to help me when writing my report.

Conclusion

My OKIOCAM T has been very helpful in my online Zoom class meetings. Recently, I’ve been heavily focused on my studies, so I have not really had much time to use all the features and applications of my OKIOCAM T. However, I am excited to experiment and discover new ways to use my OKIOCAM T to enhance my electrical engineering class learning experience. To conclude, I am very pleased with my OKIOCAM experience so far and would recommend it to any of my classmates looking for a good webcam/doc cam for their classes. I see a lot of OKIOCAM experiments in my future.