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USC professor’s DIY online teaching hack to engage students goes viral (2020)
- gnicholas 5y agoHuh it looks like she horizontally mirrors the camera so that the writing appears forwards not backwards. At first I thought she might have been writing in reverse, which would be doable on simple graphs but harder with more words. Later shots show her writing on-camera, forwards from her perspective.
- boulos 5y agoYeah, she uses OBS to flip the recording (she mentions “in software” in the video in the tweet, and the interview mentions OBS)
- animal531 5y agoFor a minute I was wondering how did she teach herself to write so well in reverse (and so fast), until I realised that it's trivial to flip the output.
- guard0g 5y agoIt's a functionallity in zoom, I believe.
- evanb 5y agoThat only mirrors what you see when you look at yourself---it doesn't flip what everybody else sees.
- guard0g 5y agoThere's a "mirror my video" setting. https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2020/04/how-to-reverse-mirroring-effect-in-zoom.html https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2020/04/how-to-reverse-mir...
- evanb 5y agoAgreed that the setting exists; disagree about what it does. What that option toggles what you see when you look at yourself. The audience always sees the unmirrored video. This is not clearly explained in the documentation. However, it is mentioned here https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/204065759-Zoom-Rooms-camera-controls https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/204065759-Zoom-Roo... for example, where they say of the option "Note: You can tap the Enable video mirroring option if you want a mirror effect for your own video display (where the display of your own Zoom Room looks like a mirror)."
- stavros 5y agoYeah, I agree with you, this feature always does the same thing in everything (every video conferencing app uses it to show you yourself). The reason is that you're used to seeing yourself in the mirror, and your image would look weird to you if it weren't mirrored. It would also look weird to everyone else if it were, so they see your normal image.
- ComodoHacker 5y agoIn the past century, glass chalkboards and reverse writing were actually used in the military, mainly in air defense. Specially trained writers were putting objects scanned by radars on the board with coordinates and related info, while officers were reading them from the other side.
- chasingthewind 5y agoMy late grandfather was a Radarman in WWII and learned to do this.
- mlok 5y agoLeonardo Da Vinci used to write backwards in his notebooks, in order for his ideas and secrets not to be stolen.
- ryantgtg 5y agoAs a left handed person, it’s pretty easy for me to write backwards. It feels like something in my brain wants the letters and words to go that way, even though I never practice.
- dmurray 5y agoA right handed person can write in reverse with their left hand without much practice, by holding a pen in each hand, pretending to write with their right and mirroring the hand movements. It's even easier if you just "write" with your finger, eg on a foggy mirror, rather than holding a pen. The scripts we use are definitely optimized for right handed writing.
- reactspa 5y agoThis is not new. It's been around for a while. E.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5t6BTQYRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5t6BTQYRU
- shkkmo 5y agoNeither She nor the article claims it is new. The nifty part is the DIY aspect that makes this decade old technology potentially widwly accessible for teachers. Even that isn't new, but spreading the knowledge of the tool and how to make is accessible is still highly valuable.
- yftsui 5y agoNot sure why this title has "goes viral", it is nothing new. Almost 8 years ago, Dr. Jules White explained a simpler setup(at least IMO as less software) in very detail with a Mirror: Building a Low-cost Lightboard for Video Lectures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYwXOLU4TKk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYwXOLU4TKk
- Hydraulix989 5y agoI would consider top 10 on HN front page to be "going viral."
- ZephyrBlu 5y agoThat seems like a pretty low bar. When I think viral I don't think, "gets to the top 10 submissions of a niche forum".
- iamben 5y agoI suppose it depends on what you're used to? From my own (and other people's) experiences, you can have a project with a few hundred site visits - get towards the top of HN, and you can have 100k visits over the next few days. A good enough project on HN tends to get coverage elsewhere, a lot of Tweets etc etc.
- saagarjha 5y agoTIL I've gone viral!
- yftsui 5y agoWhat made to top 10 is the article claims the event is going viral, NOT the event itself. The exaggeration on news articles with this type of title has become a pattern.
- asdff 5y agoThere were rooms you could rent at my undergrad in the library that had a built in light board specifically for recording these sorts of lecture videos.
- aarchi 5y ago(2020)
- dang 5y agoAdded. Thanks!
- forrestthewoods 5y agoWhoa this is awesome. I would like to buy/build one of these for my home office? What's the best guide or best pre-built? Honestly I'd rather just throw money at someone whose built one for me. But either way is fine.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- adinisom 5y agoLots of info here: https://lightboard.info/ https://lightboard.info/ Also lots of places to buy them. Here's one: https://www.desktoplightboard.com/product/desktop-lightboard/ https://www.desktoplightboard.com/product/desktop-lightboard...
- rozab 5y agoThe lightboard.info site has instructions for building an $8k professional setup, using tempered glass etc. It does explain the mechanism of the lightboard (frustrated total internal reflection), but otherwise doesn't seem very useful for DIYers. Instructables is the goto site for this sort of thing, I found these instructions for building a small one for under $100: https://www.instructables.com/DIY-Lightboard/ https://www.instructables.com/DIY-Lightboard/
- legostormtroopr 5y agoWhat she did is really cool - the article though sucks. I want to know how she did this. But apart from the video talking about "a few LEDs" there isn't much to go on.
- ryantgtg 5y agoI think it’s simply a piece of glass with an LED strip along the bottom edge (and a frame). So the light shines up through the glass and illuminates the markers.
- Doxin 5y agoFairly sure it's a piece of plexiglass with a LED strip around the edges. Normally the light would more or less bounce around inside the glass or escape to light up the environment. If you write on it the light hits the writing instead, giving it this cool-looking glow.
- ComodoHacker 5y agohttps://lightboard.info/ https://lightboard.info/
- stavros 5y agoPut a piece of Plexiglas between you and the camera, put a LED strip on the edges of the Plexiglas, and mirror the outgoing video stream so writing looks the right way (unfortunately your face won't), done!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoAnd the title is click-bait. Hint, for it to not be a click-bait, it should state what the hack is (in this case: "lightboard"), not make people have to read the damned article to find out what it is. In this case it should be something like: "USC professor's DIY lightboard for online teaching to engage students goes viral" The article writer has a a degree in (print) journalism, do they teach this sort of crap in journalism school nowadays? > Eric Lindberg is the associate editor for features at USC University Communications. He is a USC graduate with a degree in print journalism.
- ianbooker 5y agoOBS is really the big enabler in (my) online teaching at the moment. I use an IPad with a drawing app, I draw on a predefined colored canvas and overlay it in OBS with a chromakey filter. If that is available to you, it is even cheaper. But then again, I am looking slightly down while writing..
- technics256 5y agoWhich drawing app do you use?
- ianbooker 5y agoProcreate. With the Pencil it is quite smooth and can mimic ballpens or pencil drawings.
- evanb 5y agoWere you using Zoom? I had a lot of trouble using either the OBS virtual camera or sharing the composition window---what was transmitted was either potato quality or the video lagged very far behind. After a LOT of debugging, I'm convinced it was due to Zoom bandwidth throttling, which I was unable to get waived.
- Tepix 5y agoUsing Zoom with OBS (virtual camera) works fine for me.
- ta988 5y agoIn some cases it looked fine for me but for the other persons it looked really ugly. Make sure you use the v"2nd camera mode" in screen sharing options of zoom. Do not do it as your own camera or it will look really bad. On Linux, I have to start zoom after Obs and the virtual camera for all that to work properly.
- ianbooker 5y agoYes. Zoom is fine, you can either up the resolution for the "speaker view" in your account preferences (maybe just in the paid version), or even better: Use the screen share feature and under "advanced" you can share a second camera, or in this case: the virtual OBS camera. This will usually not be compressed as hard as the speaker views.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- spoonjim 5y agoFYI: This is a good article about a DIY hack that can be made at low cost and with minimal effort. If you want extremely detailed information about the state of the art in this space, it's here: https://lightboard.info/ https://lightboard.info/
- ClearAndPresent 5y agoMatt Anderson in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwreHReBH2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwreHReBH2A
- mrfusion 5y agoDo you have to write backwards though?
- archi42 5y agoYou can mirror the video feed ;-)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nojito 5y agoHanselman made a cool video about using OBS to get a similar effect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oaikJCR6ec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oaikJCR6ec
- ryanmonroe 5y ago“It was under $60 at the hardware store” So this isn’t actually any cheaper than what I would think of as the standard solution, which is to buy A drawing tablet (which also conveniently doesn’t take up a ton of space in your living area) Name brand (Wacom) drawing tablet for $60: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07S1RR3FR/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_Q89WZHMD71EFRK6CMDEJ https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07S1RR3FR/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_gl...
- IshKebab 5y agoA Wacom tablet is nowhere near as good as this. Harder to draw on, you can't easily point to things, more tedious to select different colours etc. I think the actual easy solution is an overhead camera and pens and paper. Doesn't look as cool obviously.
- float4 5y agoMost people will want visual feedback on the thing they write on, e.g. tablet or whiteboard.
- nyc 5y agoThe principle behind why the writing glows (i.e., totally internally reflected light from the LEDs in the plexiglass getting scattered by the ink) is also how some of the earlier multi-touch systems worked (like the one in Jeff Han's 2006 TED talk). So, with the right software, it might be possible to convert one of these DIY lightboards to support input (maybe to change slides or something).
- mncharity 5y agoPerhaps use hand tracking[1] to get candidate finger-tip positions, to simplify using the FTIR touch blobs for contact detection and precision position? [1] https://viz.mediapipe.dev/demo/hand_tracking https://viz.mediapipe.dev/demo/hand_tracking Web demo - run button is top right.
- oauea 5y agoOr just add a few special purpose physical buttons to the side.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- qznc 5y agoI find Kellerman‘s setup more impressive but it surely is more complex and costly as well: https://youtu.be/2LaTamAIinc https://youtu.be/2LaTamAIinc
- HumblyTossed 5y agoSeveral of the comments here are of the "that's not so special" variety. Let us remember, she's an Economic major, not an engineer. Let us also remember, she actually built AND shipped.
- jedimastert 5y ago> Let us also remember, she actually built AND shipped. It's funny how much further this is than the side projects of so many here (myself included) For me this is one of those 10,000 things. We can either dismiss it, or share in the joy of learning something new and sharing our own lessons. Teachers learning OBS will be as much of a game changer as teachers moving from overheads to powerpoint, I think. Also, I feel like this is super indicative of the gate-keeping mentality a lot of IT and tech people have around "not-cutting-edge" technology. Even if it is nothing new, let's be the resource
- indigochill 5y ago>Even if it is nothing new, let's be the resource Talking with non-engineers (particularly friends of mine who work in non-profits), I see incomprehensible amounts of potential value in just increasing the uptake of "not-so-special" tech among people who consider themselves "non-technical". That's the point of technology, after all: not being fancy unto itself, but actually doing stuff that people need, whether that's wheels enabling long-distance transportation or lightboards enabling better long-distance education. I'm reminded of this brief but profound interaction in the pilot episode of "Halt and Catch Fire": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQLbi4VXYcA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQLbi4VXYcA
- FoldMorePaper 5y agoI know it's a bit corny but this scene gives me chills and this reference is perfect!
- failwhaleshark 5y agoThere's too many office people who have no interest / refuse to learn any new skills. Many can't cook to save their lives. I doubt 0.1% of them can solder, 0.03% could troubleshoot something electrical, and I'm doubtful of their ability to handle and finish drywall. It's very sad when people think everything else is beyond their reach or they don't even look to see what could be there.
- tralarpa 5y agoDo people like lightboards? You have to be careful what you wear, how you stand, how you move etc. so that you don't cover what you have written (see the video by the inexperienced USC professor where she wears a white shirt). As a result, most of the time you can only use a small part of the screen, like here: https://youtu.be/6I48J7Lf4_Y?t=173 https://youtu.be/6I48J7Lf4_Y?t=173 Bad for people who are watching your videos on a small screen (phone, old tablet,...). Or you use low lighting and then walk behind the board, like here: https://youtu.be/6I48J7Lf4_Y?t=266 https://youtu.be/6I48J7Lf4_Y?t=266 Which is a bit annoying because then you have things (i.e. you) moving in the background all the time. Not good for visually impaired audience members and people with low-bandwidth connections. I will keep my $50 drawing tablet, although I have to admit that it's much easier with a lightboard to point to things (on the other hand, with a drawing tablet, you can just circle the word that you want to draw the audience's attention to and then undo it when you continue).
- BossingAround 5y agoAs a consumer, I love lightboards. They are much more engaging than someone drawing in something like xournal. That said, as a creator, I'm not shelling out thousands of dollars for it. I have my trusty Wacom tablet right here.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y agoI'm too ugly for a lightboard. I wanna draw on my ipad and have that sent.
- ape4 5y agoDon't forget to tie your hair when using powertools (I'm referring to the video)
- bernardv 5y agoThis is great. I can see myself building this for work - quicker and more satisfying than buying an over-priced set-up.
- maerF0x0 5y agoIt's a fantastic ingenious hack for, IMO, a model that needs to die. There is no reason to reteach the same class every semester . The best minds need to get together and put in N (say 10) semesters worth of effort into creating the highest production value lectures that all can use until the material fundamentally changes. Most of these kinds of lectures have little to no interaction which can come at other times and the need to "do it live" leads to subpar teaching production.
- bachmeier 5y ago> the need to "do it live" leads to subpar teaching production That heavily depends on the subject and the students. The goal of teaching is to teach, not to achieve a high production value of a performance in the Hollywood sense.
- avs733 5y agoWhat really needs to die is lectures themselves. They are a TERRIBLE method of creating learning. However they are very good at creating the perception of learning. That contradiction is not surprising, it speaks to how we actually learn, by engaging with our reflection and metacognition about attempts at things that end in errors.
- tapatio 5y agoYes, ideally each student would have their own teacher/tutor and learn by trial and error. In fact, that's what the very wealthy do.
- avs733 5y agoEh...peer learning is nearly as effective, especially when the choice is between a peer and a teacher who holds beliefs about education based in a transmission model of education
- mcguire 5y agoBack in about 1988, I took a required history class from a local community college. (To help make up for the fact that it took me four semesters to get through the two semester calculus course.) The course consisted of... 1. A high-production-value TV program transmitted on the local PBS channel. 2. In-person mid-term and final tests. 3. "Teaching assistants" (it was a local community college; I'm not sure what their exact status was) with office hours for questions. It...worked. I learned the material, such as it was. As such, it was somewhat better than the worst in-person classes I experienced. On the other hand, there was no engagement with the material. You read the textbook, watched the TV, and went in to take the tests. End of story. There were no asides---having a teacher take part of a class to look at some current event from the viewpoint of the class, having the teacher answer a completely off-the-wall question that leads to a good discussion. There were no discussions, in fact. I'm sure some of the students who knew the material got together to review for the test or something, but honestly, I don't see why. The whole experience was aimed at the lowest common denominator with no way for the teacher to dial it up for some or all students. It worked, but it was a worse learning experience than many 500 students classes that I had from enthusiastic, engaged teachers. I suspect that's why the model hasn't caught on, at least at the level of decent schools---people have been saying (and attempting) that video would take over from lectures literally since Edison invented the movie. (I'm sure it's more appropriate for the degree-mills of the world, though.)
- mixmastamyk 5y agoThe “hack” is buried for some reason. She built a light board, which can show the instructor and “whiteboard” lecture in the same video frame. Reversed, so writing is forwards.
- marcind 5y agoIf I may be so bold and share a relevant plug... As teachers (and parents of children affected by various versions of remote education last year), our team came up with https://sharetheboard.com https://sharetheboard.com The idea is simple: our app identifies and digitizes handwritten content in real time, ignoring any obstacles in the way (like people). The result: $0 light board that you can use anywhere (e.g., with a piece of paper). Digital annotations by viewers are coming in July, so it's as close to shared remote whiteboarding as you can get. And again, no new/dedicated hardware needed: not fancy cameras, not LED strips, not even whiteboards; just a laptop (and soon, a smartphone). Looks like there are a lot of folks on this thread looking to solve similar problems. Would love some feedback; thanks in advance.