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

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.