This is the 6th installment in this series examining different approaches to creating flipped or blended lesson content. So far in this series, we’ve explored screencasting, narrating over Powerpoint slides, using ed.ted.com, the “FIZZ Method”, and mysimpleshow. In this post we check out using a “light board”.
Using a light board seems like a super hi-tech way to create content for flipped learning, but it can actually be less expensive and much more efficient to use that other high tech alternatives.
Here’s are three major benefits of using a light board to create digital lesson content:
- Ease of use: Using a light board gives you a much simpler and more organic, natural way to create digital lessons than many other digital alternatives. You don’t have to find or create lots of digital assets, toil away at typing, sizing, dragging, dropping, etc. Just roll the camera and do what you do naturally!
- Highly personal – it’s all you! One of the important lessons I hope is coming across in this series of articles is how important it is that flipped or blended lesson materials capture your ‘voice’ whenever possible. Now this doesn’t have to mean your voice in a literal sense, although that really is best, but at a minimum, students should be able to tell that you made the content your own … it should contain language and ideas specific to your classroom. Otherwise some students will think that you are cheating and not putting much effort in. With a light board, well … it’s clearly all you! You lecture and illustrate what you are explaining right there on the light board.
- More affordable than you might think: They don’t have to be expensive (this video explains how to make one for under $100). Contrast this with paying around US $200 for Camtasia, for example (which, by the way, will likely suck much more of your time into the void than creating videos with your light board).
How to Create and Use Your Lightboard
We’ve had quite a few posts here in the last few months that demonstrate how to make an affordable white board.
- How to Make a Lightboard for Less Than $100 (Step-by-Step, With Illustrations) by Steve Griffiths
- Building a Lightboard by Kevin Hogendorp
- How to Build a Lightboard on a Budget by Joel Sperenza
- Spice Up Your Flipped Class Videos with a Lightboard by Jon Bergmann
So what are you waiting for? Make that shopping list and plan your lightboard project! How cool will it be to be the tech savvy lightboard teacher in your school?
