Lightboards @ Ara #2

Two years ago, I blogged about the lightboard, installed at our Sullivan Avenue campus where our traditional trades training are based. 

This year, some modifications to now allow the lightboard to be 'synched' to the institute's 'video lecture capture' platform Panopto. This makes it easier to edit the lightboard video and to link it into Moodle.

As part of work on another book focused on TEL and its role in VET, especially to support 'distance learning' I did a search to see if there has been more work being done on looking at the efficacy of the lightboard for teaching and learning.

Two articles come up. 

1) Lubrick, M., Zhou, G., & Zhang, J. (2019). Is the future bright? The potential of lightboard videos for student achievement and engagement in learning. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 15(8), em 1735. accessed via this link.

2) Rogers, Peter D. and Botnaru, Diana T. (2019) "Shedding Light on Student Learning Through the Use of Lightboard Videos," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 13: No. 3, Article 6. Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2019.130306

Both are positive on the contribution of lightboards to student learning. I have had misgivings about lightboards promoting the 'sage on the stage' teaching and learning model. However, used in a planned way, lightboards provide an ideal way to engage students with complex ideas. Disciplines like engineering, many trades, maths, sciences etc. have a visual language through the use of equations, formulae and drawing, Using the lightboard allows 'thinking to be made visible' while the teacher works through difficult and long calculations or explains difficult to grasp concepts using 'chalk and talk'.

As with all technologies, it is not what technology is used, but HOW the learning is extended, augmented, reinforced AFTER learners view the resource. So the lightboard helps produce an authentic resource for later deconstruction and discussion. It is the connection during and after the teacher expounds on the 'lightboard' captured visual, which is the key to ensuring learners are helped to grasp the principles being articulated. Students respond best to resources customised to their learning context and a lightboard provides the opportunity to replicate 'chalk and talk' without the chalk.