Digital Microscopes

[fibreweb]

This morning our head teacher told me the P & C had asked for a wish list from each faculty for concideration to purchase.

One suggestions from the teachers was for more Senior Microscopes ( we have about 16 of these already), whilst other suggested a Digital Microscope/microscopes as they are supposed to be incorperating technology into there lessons more.

I have no experience in Digital Microscopes, or even exactly how they would propose to use them. As the lab assistant I would see it's benefit in its being able to show on an Interactive White Board ( we're supposed to be getting one of them in each faculty sometime) a slide so they know the kids are seeing what they want them to.

From Googling I have discovered there are small hand held thingies and normal looking microscopes that have facilities to connect to a laptop.

Does anyone have any experience with Digital microscopes and could offer any suggestions or advice. From previous experience with the P & C wishing for something over a $1,000 is not a problem

I had thought maybe of a digital camera that can fit over the eyepiece of an existing microscope and that image can then be shown on a computer screen/smart board or with a data projector.

Any thought or suggestions?

Wendy

[nickyw]

Go to http://www.ausinst.com.au. They have all types of gadgets that you can use on your existing microscopes in order to get a digital image onto you computer. Or alternatively you can buy a digital microscope like we did 2 weeks ago for around $400.00 for a junior one. I rang Australian Instrument Services - 02 9543 5518 and told them what I was after and they were really helpful. Worth a try.

Hope that helps.

[Jen1]

We use a camera that fits over the existing microscope and displays onto the tv. Kids love putting their own slide on to show everyone else and of course the teachers find it great to point out things to the class. Definitely worth getting.
We have had a digital microscope from Mattel called intel play but found the time delay between moving the slide and the image shown on the computer was too long. Mind you, it may have been due to our old ancient computers. I'm sure they have better ones these days that could hook up to a smart board but can't help you there
cheers
jen

[RosalieM]

We have a video flex which just goes over the eye piece of the microscope and shows up on the tv. The Aus. Instrument place has a deal where you buy 2 get 1 free but I don't know if this goes for digital microscopes or not. I have the new brochure (arrived this week) and will be going to town tomorrow morning. I could possibly drop it off to you with the euglena babies if you'd like?

[Ian]

Hi.
We have a little hand held USB microscope called "The SCOPE" by SCALAR. It is excellent for lowish magnification, eg, letters on paper, flower dissections, paramecium in pond water, etc. It is very quick and easy to set up. Just plug it into the USB port on your computer and start up the software. It has a screw hole for a tripod mount, and it is very popular with our staff.

We also have a BIG microscope with a video camera permanently attached to it. It is labelled "Industrial and Scientific Supply.. It has an AV output, and so will not connect to my computer, but will happily connect to the AV input of the Data Projector (or a TV. It is very impressive to see a little microscope slide blown up to 6ft x 4ft on the "Big Screen". It makes it VERY easy to show and point things out to the whole class, that might be more difficult through an ordinary microscope one student at a time.

All the best

Ian

[sunray18]

We bought a Digital Microscope a few years ago - it has seen the light of day maybe 6 times! We also have a video flex - great to use particularly if teachers want to do a dem for dissections... then we bought 2 Proscope and d2 Digital camera from TLI - [The Logical Interface, Sydney] BRILLIANT!!!! the Proscope is like the gear they use in CSI - and the Digital camera fits onto an existing microscope,... well worth the money! The run through a computer and the data projectors.
We have used the 4 units in Chemistry, filming crystallization .. the results were stunning.

[sharonm]

We purchased a Dino-lite through the following online company. Small hand held digital microscope. All the info is online. These people were brilliant to deal with, with prompt delivery.

http://www.expansys.com.au/product.asp? ... O-LITE-USB
Our Price: A$124.95 (113.59 exc.)

Logical Interface has the software "TLI Scope Imaging Software" that we purchased for $77.00 August 06.

This is the web address of the company that makes them.
http://www.anmo.com.tw/

Hope this may be of some benift.