Inexpensive Cameras for Elementary School Student Use

[amypintx]

I'm the technologist for an elementary school and we're looking to buy a mini-kit of 5 cameras for teachers to checkout for student use on projects. Here's what we're hoping to find...

Budget- We'd like to stay around $100 each

Desired Features-
1) most of the projects will be online so we don't need a high megapixel camera (what we do print out will not be big sizes) but we do need a flash (it seems a lot of "cheaper" cameras don't have flash)
2) we already have sd card readers so would like the new cameras to have sd card slots
3) video mode- we would like to be able to create short video clips WITH SOUND that import easily into Windows MovieMaker (so cameras that record video clips with QuickTime aren't an option unless there's something I'm missing there). We would prefer the video mode be 640x480.


I've looked at Nikon (records with QuickTime), Kodak (records with QuickTime), Polaroid (only 320x240 video), Argus (no sound in movie mode) and a DMX model (no flash).

If anyone knows of a "cheap" camera that would meet these specs, I'd love to hear about it!

Thanks in advance!
:-) Amy

[KCook]

The Samsung S73 also ticks most of your boxes. I would find a source with easy return policy. Then get 1 each of this and the Kodak for a hands on evaluation.

Kelly Cook

[bascom]

Canon A560 is good and only $125 these days. What about cost of accessories? SD cards, rechargeable AA batteries and charger, carrying cases.

[tim11]

Canon video format is AVI; will that work for you? I'd stick with Canon or Kodak. What's the budget?