Converging Digital Cameras
The overlapping functions of digital still cameras and video cameras continues to blur the lines between these two kinds of devices. There is a pretty good article on this topic today at USA Today. The truth is that no camera does both well - they either take better still images than video, or better video than still images. However, the quality of the video captured by a still camera (or the quality of stills captured by video cameras) continues to improve to the point that for many users, the quality is good enough to trade for the simplicity of carrying around one device instead of two.
Looking at educational purposes, if the point of a video is to capture a student sharing thoughts about their work to put into an electronic portfolio, many of the newer digital still cameras will do an acceptable job. It may not be good enough for the evening news, but it captures the content you need quite efficiently. And as time goes on, this quality will continue to improve. (I have seen few electronic technologies improve faster than digital photography.)
Heck, my new Palm not only keeps track of my calendar and contacts, it also takes digital pictures and video. It’s not great quality, but it’s passable. In two or three years the equivalent models will be as good as a standalone camera is today. In essence, the camera will be free!