The Future of eLearning at Butler & How to Get There with a Lightboard.
In order to take eLearning at Butler to the next level and make our online course content even more engaging, we propose the creation of a new kind of video production space – a Lightboard Studio. With the growing number of eLearning courses at Butler, an Innovation Fund Grant would allow the Center for Academic Technology (CAT) to build a Lightboard Studio in the basement of Irwin Library (Room 006) to enhance the eLearning efforts at Butler. The Lightboard, developed in 2013 by Michael Peshkin of Northwestern University allows the user to face the camera and write on a glass board and annotate images or PowerPoint slides, or demonstrate physical concepts, just as you would in the face-to-face classroom. Moreover, users do not have to learn to write backwards, the technology flips the image! This proposed space will also have the potential be flexible enough to be a video production studio that could create high quality videos using a green screen.
The Innovation Fund
The Innovation Fund is supported solely by donors. Since the Fund was launched in 2012, 38 innovative ideas from Butler faculty and students have been funded. The Center for Academic Technology was awarded a 2015 Innovation Fund grant for the Promotion of eLearning through the Creation of a Lightboard Studio. Jeana Rogers and Heather Hazelwood (Center for Academic Technology) are the project leads. Larry Darling, Information Systems Analyst from IT along with student workers will build the Lighboard. The Information Commons will assist staff from the Center for Academic Technology in managing the Lightboard Studio.