We Built a Lightboard!

Over the spring semester, your EdTech team designed and built a lightboard.  What's a lightboard, you ask?  Basically, you write on it like a whiteboard, but it's transparent and lit from the edges by LEDs.  The visual effect is easier to grok with a picture:

A Lightboard, just like it says on the lightboard...

 The idea here is for an instructor to be able to see and interact with students while writing on the lightboard.  The image is flipped 180 degrees and projected above the teacher's head in glorious visually appealing fashion.  We got the idea based on a similar design put together by some good folks at San Diego State University.



They call their original device "Learning Glass."  As described on their website, "Learning Glass was developed by SDSU Physics professor Matt Anderson to make learning a more engaging experience for both on campus and online students.
Dr. Anderson has utilized the Learning Glass to create over 450 online videos, stream synchronous lessons, and incorporate this technology into face-to-face and hybrid courses for thousands of STEM students on his YouTube Channel – professormattanderson.com." Check out the link for cool-futuristic-learning-fun.  

We received the bulk of funding for this project through a grant from the Library/EdTech committee.  The total was a few hundred dollars, not counting a few days' hard labor. (Who knew cutting acrylic glass could be so much fun!)  We'd like to especially thank Steve Attinasi from the Physics workshop for lending his time, tools and expertise.

To pilot test our Lightboard, EdTech has solicited the help of faculty in Math/Computer Science and Economics.  We'll be rolling it into classrooms starting fall semester 2017.  Check back for updates on the project, and hopefully we'll have videos of our Lightboard in action.