online-classroom

Gear

You probably don’t need all of this. Good gear doesn’t make you a better instructor. First use the tools you already have in your toolbox and expand if you feel like you can improve in some area.

Some gear to make your virtual classroom experience a little better. Check out the workspace inspiration page and the resources page for more gear recommendations.

• Gear
  • Camera
  • Microphones
  • Lighting
  • Additional Gear

Camera

The camera on your iPhone or iPad is leagues ahead of any webcam on the market. You should try to use your iPhone wherever you can. There are tons of tools to use you smartphone camera as a webcam, like Camo, OBS camera or Iriun.

If you want to go even fancier and you have a DSLR camera you can also use that as a webcam. At CMD Amsterdam we have a few Elgato Cam Links. A cheap HDMI capture card from AliExpress also works wonders.

Microphones

Transistor wrote a good guide on some of the entry level Microphones. tl;dr get an USB microphone when you are starting out. Upgrade to an XLR microphone with audio interface if you do a ton of screencasting.

• ‘Devine’ USB microphones (bax-music own brand)
• Blue Yeti’s are a good USB starting point

Lighting

• Use natural lighting from your windows.
• Hue Lights (or cheaper alternative). I personally have two play lights mounted to my monitor which bounce of the wall behind it.
• Many people start out with a Selfie Ring Light that they put around their webcam.
• Elgato Makes Key Lights which you can put on stands.

Additional Gear

• Elgato Stream deck. Basically a macropad (or numpad) with customizable keys. Great for switching scenes in OBS, making a soundboard or controlling your lighting.

Elgato also makes some good video’s about how to set-up all their gear and improve the quality of your webcam.