Posted March 12, 2018 by Academic and Institutional Technology
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Classroom Technology
The Lightboard: Changing the Face of Video Lectures
Since August, 13 different faculty members have created over 300 videos with the lightboard. Our lightboard is a glass chalkboard pumped with LED lights, and a feature of the lightboard is the ability to incorporate PowerPoints slides, images, and maps into the presentation. Additionally, you can interact with these images by writing on them: circling, pointing to, or underlining important information.
Dr. Scott Moreau, Dean of the Graduate School, has been using the lightboard in preparation for a hybrid course he will be teaching this summer. He is recording lectures that will be used for the online portion of the course.
Dr. Moreau says, “I think most valuable element of the lightboard is that is has forced me to think in terms of chunks rather than an entire lecture. Splitting every lecture down into smaller components results in more energy given to each component. From my vantage point, the content for each module will be much deeper than it would be with a straight extensive lecture.”
Wheaton College’s Graduate School is moving to provide more low-residency and hybrid courses, and the lightboard is instrumental in the process.
Associate Professor of Business and Economics Dr. Hannah Stolze is using the lightboard to create videos that reinforce the problem-solving tools she teaches in class. This way, students can watch examples, rewind them, and slow it down to their own pace as they review and complete problem sets. Dr. Stolze says the lightboard “enables students to have as much support as possible to prepare for in-class interaction and out of class learning! The classroom shouldn’t be the only space our students are learning in.”
Dr. Stolze sees great value in integrating the lightboard into face-to-face classes. While it’s essential for online teaching, it is also increasingly important for teaching in a way that reaches millennial and next-generation learners. Additionally, Wheaton students are increasingly using technology in their middle and high school education. She says, “As an academic institution, it’s important to strategically develop a philosophy for integrating technology into our pedagogy in a way that engages our students’ critical thinking and analytic skills.
Dr. Alan Seaman, Director of TESOL, has been using the lightboard for two online courses he is teaching. Six students took the course from remote locations in China, Morocco, Turkey, Laos, and Korea. His students have responded very positively to the lightboard lectures, and one student from Thailand said that he felt the format had a professional appearance, and that the material was communicated in a visually-stimulating manner.
Before the lightboard, Dr. Seaman filmed his online classes in the TV studio in front of a live audience of students. He said that “this led to lengthy, rather wordy lectures that required extensive editing to be used online. The lightboard process forces me to condense the lectures into 5-8 minute segments.” Dr. Seaman plans to continue using the lightboard for both his online courses and his on-campus TESOL courses.
Dr. Seaman has also filmed lectures alongside Dr. Cheri Pierson. He said that “by facing the camera and speaking directly to the students with the PowerPoint slides between us, we look like two anchors on a nightly news broadcast. It’s great to interact with a colleague while presenting the material, and I’m sure this makes the experience more dynamic and interesting for the students.
To see the lightboard in action, view this video introduction from Steven Park, Director of Academic and Scholarly Technology at Wheaton College.
If you are interested in using the lightboard, please email ait.service.desk@wheaton.edu or call 630.752.4357 (HELP).