Using digital photography and image processing for the creation of notes from the blackboard

Abstract

This paper describes a teaching experiment involving the use of a combination of traditional chalkboard and digital photography in order to produce lecture notes from the blackboard. During lecturing the blackboard is used instead of transparencies or PowerPoint presentations. This reduces the speed of presentation and leaves room for improvisations during the lecturing but hand‐outs of slides are not readily available. As an experiment, the blackboards were photographed after each lecture and notes were prepared from the photos. An investigation of the students' response to this approach indicated that it was very well received and it provides a useful alternative to PowerPoint with hand‐outs. It is a low‐cost alternative to advanced interactive whiteboards which are in most cases not available in university lecture rooms.

Keywords:

• lecture notes
• media in education
• PowerPoint
• multimedia

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the students attending the course for numerous discussions on how to improve the notes from the blackboard and to improve the teaching in general. Also, colleagues are acknowledged for suggestions on how to improve the technical quality of the notes from the blackboard.