There was standing room only for those downstairs in the Learning Resource Center as professors and community members anticipated the ribbon cutting that officially opened the renovated Studio 102.

NMU President Fritz Erickson declared the new studio open by erasing a ribbon drawn on the new lightboard sitting in the middle of the small room. The board, made out of glass with lights into the frame is meant to allow more eye contact between professors and students in online classes, a concept that came from NMU math instructor Amy Barnsley and trying to improve the feeling of an online class.

As for what tools like the studio and lightboard will be able to do for students in the future, Erickson is optimistic for what the next step will be.

“Students are looking at the board with their laptops and they see what’s going on. It

gives them an advantage,” Erickson said, “It’ll be interesting to see.”

The studio is entirely soundproof and equipped with the proper lighting for professors to record the best quality video of their lesson, a process of renovation that started in late summer.

Stacey DeLoose, an instructional technologist with the Center for Teaching and Learning, sees the process of taping lectures as
beneficial.

“They record through the board and write on the other side of the glass. Then we produce the video and flip it around so the writing is the right way,” Deloose said.

On a small monitor, a demonstration of the lightboard being used runs on a loop, featuring Barnsley, who sees this change for professors as a way to bring a face to face classroom with an online course.

“What you get in a face to face versus an online classroom is me—that instructor personality—the person that makes you laugh,” Barnsley said. “It helps them focus on what part of the problem is
important.”