Lightboard Tips and Techniques

UConn instructors can learn tips and techniques when using Lightboard.

Lesson Timing

Plan your talk so you know where you are going to be drawing on the lightboard. If you need to erase frequently or add another board, it is probably too long.
Pause before starting, and look at the camera. This gives you a clean cut point to edit out your walk-on.
If people are going to watch several videos, they do not want an intro on each one.
Dark clothing works best so your writing is readable in front of your clothing. Deep blue is really nice. No text on clothing.
Expectations for videos are higher than for classroom lectures, but you do not need to strive for perfection. Good enough is good enough.

When writing on the board, look at what you are writing. When talking about something on the board, point at it and look at it.
When you are not writing or pointing, look at the camera. It may be helpful to seat someone under the camera.
Leave yourself a window, or at least try not to draw horizontal lines through your eyes or mouth.
When pointing, try to point from the side and not from the back, so that your fingers stand out
against the black background.
Do not hold the marker when you are gesturing or pointing. Put it down or hold it in your other hand.
Put the marker caps somewhere else altogether. The markers will be okay without their caps for the duration of a video.
Dry-erase and wet-erase markers squeak. To reduce squeak, use fresh markers and do not push so hard against the glass. Liquid chalk markers do not squeak, but they need more care to keep the tip fully saturated.
Markers are slow to erase. To avoid smearing, erase with a dry cloth first and then remove any residue with glass cleaner.

The five-minute rule still applies.
Set the slide background to black and the page aspect ratio to 16x9 before you start.
PowerPoint is not good with page layout changes made later; it will stretch your slide content.
Leave space for you. You become a character inside your PowerPoint slide. (You can also put all your content in a traditional corner inset, but that is way less cool.)
Try something other than the usual "bullet point talk." How about adding hand-written items interspersed with just a few powerpoint bullets, hand-written check marks, or cartoon sketches but no text.
You can use a second monitor for notes, or even as a teleprompter.
You can make secret dots in advance in dry-erase black on the glass, using your PowerPoint. Then you can point straight at those, which is much slicker than the "weatherman wave".
You can run a movie in powerpoint, and even point to things in a movie as it runs.

When using the black screen, images and text will appear in front of the speaker.
Walking behind pictures or text will cause the user to disappear.
Color contrast and image sharpness is better than the green screen.
Examples of the black screen can be accessed on the Lightboard home page, cases 1 and 4.