The success of distance learning often hinges on recreating the experience of being in the presence of the instructor, whose grasp of the material and confident explanations help guide students through the learning process. However, flipping the classroom typically entails screen using capture tools such as Camtasia, or recording lectures in which instructors alternate between talking to the camera and working out problems on the board behind them. Unfortunately, screen-capture technologies can isolate the instructor from the viewer, and recorded lectures too often feature the back of the instructor’s head. Gestures, body language, and other important visual cues are lost in the process. 

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The GlassBoard enables instructors to lecture and write on the board without ever turning their backs toward the student, so that their expressions and body language help create a connection with both the viewers and the material. Lectures are recorded through a glass pane which the instructor uses as writing surface, and specialized software inverts the image so that the instructor’s text is legible to the viewer. The system is particularly useful in working through sample problems.