I've been teaching online throughout the pandemic and time will tell but I think it's possible that
online learning could be here to stay. What I do think is a certainty is that when this
pandemic is over there's probably going to be a lot of Plexiglas waste. I'm giving you a
tour of my virtual classroom today because I have utilized a piece of acrylic glass
to make a low-cost light board. So today I'm going to be showing you an overview of how to make this
and giving you a tour of my virtual classroom. So this video is 'How to Make a Low-Cost Lightboard.'
How to Make a Low Cost Lightboard
So my basic setup is that I am standing in front of a piece of acrylic glass writing on it.
On the other side there's a camera pointed at me
So this is me writing on a piece of acrylic glass and looking through it at a camera on a tripod.
Basic components that you need for this would be either acrylic glass or normal glass.
So acrylic
glass or glass.
You also need LED strip lights.
LED strip lights.
I have LED strip lights around the perimeter of my acrylic glass pointed inward. These are necessary
to light up the text. So this is the reason it's a lightboard. I have light around my acrylic glass.
If I turn this light off you can see that the text doesn't show up very well at all.
So if you are trying to reuse plexiglass when the pandemic is over
you might not be sure if the piece you have is acrylic glass or polycarbonate.
One way you can tell is to get that piece of plexiglass into a dark room illuminate it with
LED strip lights and write on it with the neon dry erase markers. If it is lighting up well that
means it's acrylic and you can use it for a lightboard. The problem with polycarbonate glass is that
this light doesn't travel through it very well and it's going to be it's going to appear pretty dark.
So the markers that I'm using are the Expo Neon Dry Erase Markers.
Expo Neon Dry Erase Markers.
Sometimes they're called window markers. But if I use a normal blue dry erase marker
it doesn't show up very well. I'm writing the word 'blue' with a normal blue dry erase marker.
You do need neon dry erase markers for this to really show up and pop.
I also have black muslin fabric behind me, just cheap black photographic backdrop.
So Black Muslin Fabric.
and I am utilizing some free software called Streamlabs OBS.
Streamlabs OBS. OBS is open broadcast software.
No, I did not learn how to write everything as a mirror image. I am using Streamlabs OBS,
It's connected to both the camera and to either WebEx, Zoom, or whatever software you'd be using
to communicate with your students. And in the software it's flipping my image to a mirror image.
I can write normally. Students can still see my text normally. I'm going to switch cameras
and give you a tour where I'm carrying a camera around and showing you my setup.
I am standing next to the camera that's pointed at my lightboard. You can see from this
perspective the text is all backwards and needs to be turned into a mirror image in the software, but
I have a frame built out of 2x2 wood. Acrylic glass is clamped onto it with some utility clamps.
I also have three utility lights used to illuminate my face. You see black fabric
hanging in the background. Going around to the other side, I also have some black fabric hanging
over the back of my chair so that you can't see it when it's in the back of shots. This is
a close-up of the corner of my board. You can see my led strip lights around the edge pointed inward.
These are the markers that I'm using. The five expo neon markers
are the ones that illuminate well on this board.
And here is my computer setup: Laptop on the left has a second monitor attached to it.
The second monitor is the monitor on the right. This is Streamlabs OBS software
that's up. The top of the screen gives a sample of what I would be broadcasting to my students.
The bottom of the screen is where I control what camera what view I'm sending to the students.
So if I'm sharing my screen I'm actually only sharing the left screen and not the right screen.
You might also notice a gap on the right side of my right monitor. Generally I use WebEx and
I have WebEx behind Streamlabs OBS and that gap on the right is where chat messages appear
in WebEx. So I can have Streamlabs OBS in front of it and still see everything.
And on the right I have an old cell phone pointed downward. It is being used as a document camera.
So I have both cameras connected to Streamlabs OBS software so I can change between them.
Now, I'm at my computer giving a demonstration of Streamlabs OBS software using the screen share
mode. You saw earlier that I have two monitors and when I'm sharing my screen, only the left
monitor is being shared. I'm using the laptop's built-in camera to put a picture of myself in the
top right corner within Streamlabs OBS. This is all customizable so I can change size or location
of my image just by dragging it around. I can also turn it off entirely.
What I'm going to do now is I'm going to drag Streamlabs OBS software onto my shared screen.
This is something that students would not normally see
which means you would not normally have a problem with the infinity windows. I'm going
to make the preview at the top a lot smaller so that the infinity window isn't distracting.
This column on the left: These are my different camera sources. So right now I'm within screen share.
The middle column: These are all of the different components that can be turned off or on
when I'm in screen share. So, for example, when I wanted to turn my webcam off click the little eye
and turns it off. My picture should disappear from the corner. Combined overlay: That's off right now.
When I turn that on a logo for the school and the name of the course appears at the bottom.
Lapel mic: When I turn this off you won't be able to hear me. This is how I would mute. Within the
desktop audio output, say I want to show a YouTube video to my class: Turning this off or on controls
whether or not I'm sending students the audio that's coming out of my computer speakers.
And these two, PowerPoint and laptop screen: If I didn't want to share everything on my screen and
instead just wanted to share PowerPoint, I can turn PowerPoint on and laptop screen off.
Any of these sources: Just by clicking something on the left column I can change cameras.
'Starting soon:' This is my default starting soon message "class is starting soon." My microphone
is automatically off and I can change the text maybe making announcements for the day.
"Lightboard:" If I click here it would switch cameras and show my lightboard. "Screen shares:"
Where I am now. "Phone Camera:" This is my old cell phone that I'm using as a document camera. So I'm
going to switch to this now. So I teach chemistry. Sometimes I might want to show molecular models.
Also there are a couple of specific subjects within chemistry, like chirality,
where I don't want students to see a mirror image of me. These two molecules are mirror images of
each other but not the same thing. A simpler way to say that would be sometimes I want to be able
to say that this is my right hand and have it actually look like my right hand. My lightboard
text looks normal when it's a mirror image but they are still seeing a mirror image.
So there might be some specific topics I want to teach from this camera view.
And going back to my shared screen:
Other options I have: "Periodic table:" That would just show an image of the periodic table as my
shared screen. I teach chemistry. "Five minute break:" This is not something I have made use
of but it's a timer that counts down from five minutes. "Offline:" This is similar setup
to my starting screen. It's just a message that says "class has ended" and turns my microphone off.
So next I am going to go back to my lightboard and talk a little bit more about my lightboard.
Overall, I love using this lightboard for online teaching.
It brings an in-person feeling into an online class that can be really hard to achieve.
I'm also noticing that I'm getting a lot of student interaction when I use the lightboard.
So imagine you're in an in-person class and you give students something to calculate.
As people start finishing the calculation, you start seeing hands go up.
Once you call on someone who has the right answer you don't necessarily get feedback from the entire
class. But here, if I've instructed students to send their answer through private chat on WebEx or Zoom,
then I'm getting pretty much everyone trying to answer these questions. This is eliminating that
embarrassment or apprehension that some students have about not wanting to get an answer wrong in
front of a lot of people. They have the ability to only send their answer to me so I am seeing
virtually everyone answer example problems in class. I do really like that aspect of it.
My hope is that when the pandemic is over people can reuse acrylic glass.
You might need to be kind of picky about the pieces of acrylic glass you're using.
What I have is one tenth of an inch thick, cheap acrylic glass. There's nothing special about it. I do
notice there are a couple of imperfections in the acrylic glass. In the middle of this circle you see
a spot that's lit up all the time. That is a little bubble in the acrylic glass so, I am guessing, but I
have a feeling that if you had a piece of acrylic glass that was scratched, it would probably be lit
up all the time. So when the pandemic is over, if you want to reuse acrylic glass for this purpose
I recommend getting some neon dry erase markers and an LED strip light, going into a dark room.
If you have acrylic glass and not polycarbonate glass you should see the text light up.
If you have polycarbonate glass the LED strip lights won't travel very far into the glass
and the text will be dark. That would be how you know that it's a piece of Plexiglas you can't use.
Just look it over make sure there aren't any major scratches that would make it unusable.
That would tell you that you have a piece of acrylic glass that you can use for this purpose.
This does take a little bit longer to erase than a normal dry erase board. I think it has
to do with the neon dry erase markers because this is true of normal glass. I used neon dry
erase markers on a window in my house and it was just as hard to erase as on the acrylic glass.
So for example if I'm using a microfiber cloth:
What I just did is how I would normally erase a normal dry erase board.
I have to push a little harder so it takes maybe an extra 25 percent longer to erase.
I also have the option of Windex and a paper towel. It doesn't take very much Windex at all. Just make
it moist. At first it will smear, but with a second pass with microfiber cloth, it looks nice.
So rather than making my students watch me erase the board, that does take a little
bit longer. I generally have a PowerPoint presentation that coincides with my lectures.
So when it comes time for me to erase, I will switch to PowerPoint.
It has example problems and they start answering in chat working on problems and answering them
while I'm erasing. So once I finish a certain topic they are working on an example problem
while I'm erasing, so they do not actually need to spend the time watching me erase.
But as you can see, this does take a little bit longer than a standard dry erase board.
Overall I still highly recommend it and
hope that people come up with other good uses for Plexiglas when the pandemic is over.
You've reached the bonus section of this video called "Purposeful Outtakes."
So, when I was building the lightboard it took a lot of attention to detail to get
the video quality to be good. And right now I've changed some of those details to show
you how it takes away from the quality of the video. First: Don't wear clothes with text.
Students are going to be seeing a mirror image so if you are wearing something with
text it's going to look mirror imaged when the text looks normal. It's probably distracting.
Don't wear clothes with text.
Second: Be careful where you write. When want to make a good quality video I'm typically standing
at the side and making a note to myself to not write where my face is. I might be standing here
momentarily to write something when I go to talk, I make sure I'm looking through a clear
part of the board. If I keep writing directly in front of my face, depending on the color of
marker that I'm using, it might be hard to see the text. So, don't cover your face with text.
Don't cover your face with text.
Third: You need a dark room. So from the acrylic glass and behind me, this part of the room is
very bright. I have three utility lights all illuminating this area. But what I did in these
'purposeful outtakes' that I didn't previously do is I have one light on in this room on the opposite
side of my Plexiglas. Behind my camera there's a lamp on and it probably is making an annoying
glare. So you want a dark room, at least as far as from the Plexiglas towards the camera goes. So use
a dark room. Use a dark room. I am in my basement and I covered the basement windows in black paper.
It's dark enough as long as I don't leave a light on. Fourth: I always wear dark colors when I teach.
I generally wear black, dark blue, or dark gray. If I'm wearing something bright and want to use
the bottom part of the board and I go to walk in front of it it's probably also hard to see.
So wear dark colors. You can then use a larger portion of the board.
Wear dark colors.
And the point of this was just pay close attention to detail
so that you can get the best quality videos that you can on a low budget.