Lightboards

What is a lightboard?

Lightboards are most commonly constructed as a pane of glass surrounded by a strip of small LED lights that illuminate dry erase markers to make writing highly visible on camera. The presenter stands behind the glass pane and uses a dry erase marker to annotate their lesson on the glass pane in front of them. This is captured with a camera on the opposite side of the glass and the image is mirror-flipped using computer software or a mirror.

A lightboard can be a functional tool to enhance a flipped classroom model. As more faculty and presenters are making the transition to online learning, blended learning, and active learning, the Lightboard can serve as a low-barrier tool for the production of learning and presentation media where the focus is writing or drawing. Given the simplicity of the product, the lightboard may be considered a sans-technology from the lecturer’s perspective (Mccorkle & Whitener, 2020).

With that said, we will explore some of the restrictive considerations that could potentially limit this product from attracting a wider audience of users.

Academic Theory Supporting the use of a Lightboard

According to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2009, 2014a), observing the instructor draw should promote learning because it makes use of basic cognitive principles of multimedia learning, such as the Signalling Principle, Temporal Contiguity Principle and the Segmenting Principle (Mayer, 2009, 2014; Mayer & Fiorella, 2014; Mayer & Pilegard, 2014). The lightboard can further this point by also simultaneously embedding greater capacities of Social Agency.

The Signaling and Temporal Contiguity principle and the Lightboard.

The Signalling and Temporal Contiguity principles aim to reduce extraneous processing (i.e., processing irrelevant to the instructional goal) by directing students’ attention to the most relevant material (signalling) and by allowing learners to process relevant words and their corresponding graphics at the same time in working memory (Temporal Contiguity) (Mayer, 2009, 2014).

The Segmenting Principle aims to manage essential processing (i.e., processing necessary for initially representing the material) by breaking down the material into more manageable parts so that learners can process each part of the lesson individually rather than all at once. (Mayer & Pilegard, 2014)

The act of drawing on a lightboard presumably follows each of these principles inherently by directing attention, synchronizing words and their relevant graphics, and by presenting diagrams one part at a time, thereby promoting student understanding.

Social Agency and the Lightboard

The lightboard positions the educator with the unique capacity to incorporate a greater degree of social agency into a learning resource by allowing the instructor to face their audience, maintain eye contact and ‘speak to’ their learners (Mccorkle & Whitener, 2020).

Fiorella and Mayer's (2016) study explains that Social Agency theory may explain the potential benefits of observing an instructor hand draw diagrams during a lesson. According to the theory, social cues such as viewing the movements associated with human drawing, the visibility of the instructor’s body and face, or the visibility of the instructor’s hand, may help establish a sense of social partnership between the student and the instructor during learning. This sense of partnership then motivates students to invest effort toward making sense of the material—referred to as generative processing by the cognitive theory of multimedia learning.

Mapping The Lightboard on the SAMR model

The SAMR model is a framework designed to evaluate educational technology by mapping it along a spectrum. On one end, technology is used as a one-to-one replacement for traditional tools, and on the other end technology enables learning experiences that were previously impossible without it. The lightboard would sit on the Augmentation category as it improves the function of whiteboards and chalkboards with a significant enhancements to the student experience, but does not change the design of the lesson or its learning outcome.

from Schoolology.com

Restrictive Considerations

Although Revolution Lightboards attempts to capture a wider breadth of their market by offering an assortment of products that cater to a range of budgets, a purchaser must still take several restrictive factors into consideration before being able to utilize any of these products.

Lightboards are low-technology products propelled by high technology peripherals. Although the lightboard itself is a low-technology product that requires the equivalent skills as writing on a whiteboard, a purchaser must understand that several peripheral technologies will be needed to create a video. This includes studio lighting, video switchers, capture cards, camcorders and editing software. More often than not, the presenter will need a technologist to assist with the setup, recording and editing process.

Lightboards requires a considerable amount of dedicated space. Such so, that it is often recommended that a room is dedicated to a permanent setup of a lightboard. Tabletop lightboards, although geared towards easier setup and smaller in footprint, are not easily transportable and often requires the user to compromise heavily on how much space they have to write. Jennifer Peters*, Seneca College's eLearning Librarian who was tasked to implement a lightboard, notes "It was easy to set-up but I immediately realized it was too small to be useful, you could only fit a tiny box of info beside my face."

Mccorkle and Whitener (2020)’s study concludes that a successful deployment of a lightboard would require considerable buy in from the faculty or presenter, often at the cost of formal training. Mccorkle and Whitener (2020) also concludes that Lightboards are most useful for walking through equations, sketching and diagraming, or annotating content written on the board prior to recording. Videos should not be produced on the Lightboard for the sake of novelty or for text-heavy content. Jennifer Peters noted that an unmentioned level of showmanship was required of faculty using the lightboard. "Not everyone is able to look at a camera and speak and teach naturally. Most faculty gave up before mastering the skill."

from Schoolology.com

The complexity of the setup and the technology and space requirements should not be taken likely when considering purchasing a lightboard. - Jennifer Peters

Lightboards and Open Source

Lightboards in themselves are not high-technological devices and can be constructed with relative ease. The movement to create one's own lightboard is supported by active online communities and resources. Such resources includes Revolution Lightboard's founder Dr. Peshkin's open source website.

Below are some resources that can assist in the building of one's own lightboard.

*Consultation

Jennifer Peters is Seneca College's Teaching and Learning's eLearning and Digital Literacies Librarian who supported the implementation of a lightboard. I asked Jennifer to share her experiences with the lightboard and to reflect on the faculty's reaction to using it. Jennifer did not have a hand in the purchase, but was tasked to assist in implementing it.

Fiorella, Logan, & Mayer, Richard E. (2016). Effects of observing the instructor draw diagrams on learning from multimedia messages. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(4), 528–546. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000065

Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511811678

Mayer, R. E. (2014). Cognitive theory of multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (2nd ed., pp. 43–71). New York, NY: Cambridge

Mayer, R. E., & Fiorella, L. (2014). Principles for reducing extraneous processing in multimedia learning: Coherence, signaling, redundancy, spatial contiguity, and temporal contiguity principles. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (2nd ed., pp. 279–315). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139547369.015

Mayer, R. E., & Pilegard, C. C. (2014). Principles for managing essential processing in multimedia learning: Segmenting, pretraining, and modality principles. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (2nd ed., pp. 316–344). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139547369.016

Mccorkle, S., & Whitener, P. (2020). The Lightboard: Expectations and Experiences. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 11(1), 75-84. doi:10.14434/ijdl.v11i1.24642

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