Lightboard is a presentation and video-creation technology that allows the user to create videos while writing on a whiteboard-like glass surface and in such a way that allows an audience to see the writing illuminated in front of the presenter. It uses a specialized glass and built-in LED lighting, set up in front of a black backdrop, to ensure the person presenting is clearly visible to their audience. 

The studio, like all EDvolution® Center resources, is open to any student, staff or faculty member on campus. Reservations are preferred but can be used any time by walk-ins if the studio is available.

To see the Lightboard used in person is different than it appears digitally, as the user’s writing appears backward to anyone facing the presenter. However, the Lightboard’s technology flips the orientation as the video is recorded, so the finished product appears correctly.

While presenting, users can also bring into the frame live websites, graphics, presentation materials and other visual aids which they can operate and annotate while using the Lightboard.

Southeast’s Lightboard Studio is set up with an adjustable desk for flexibility in video creation. The studio can be used seamlessly with Zoom for distance learning that mimics a real classroom environment.

But a Lightboard is more than a video tool. It can also be brought into classrooms that offer hybrid learning, said Jana Gerard, coordinator of the University’s EDvolution® Center. If the need arose among professors who teach in Scully Building, for example, the EDvolution® Center’s Lightboard could be transported to classrooms upon request.

“Imagine you’ve got seated students,” she said. “You connect it to the projector so the seated students are seeing the writing flipped around as well.”

At the same time, she said, the students who attend class remotely will see the presentation just as students in class do.

Thanks to the generous gift of a donor, the Center acquired the Lightboard in the early fall, Gerard said. So far, it’s been a popular tool among students.

“I’m hoping to see more faculty use,” she said. “We’ve done demonstrations with math, with science, with social studies, with English, and with family consumer science. It is really, really cool what you can do with it.”

The EDvolution® Center will be available all summer, Gerard said, so any faculty or staff who wish to get better acquainted with the Lightboard Studio are welcome to visit the Center and receive guidance on how to operate the technology.

“It is an amazing tool for video creation that will allow you unlimited possibilities,” Gerard said.

The Lightboard Studio is open to students, faculty and staff on a first-come, first-served basis. While reservations are not required, they are recommended. Reservations can be made online at semo.edu/edvolution/our-spaces/reservations, by emailing edvolution@semo.edu, or by calling the EDvolution® Center at (573) 986-6881.