NationStates Jolt Archive

Yes, I do. I realize that some of you who grew up in the era when they were standard issue may disagree ;)

I grew up at a point in time when chalkboards were being phased out. Most of Elementary School was spent with chalkboards, because whiteboards were big and expensive and had smelly markers and so forth.
Around Middle School most of the chalkboards were being replaced, regardless of what the teacher wanted ;)
Im in High School now, and I havent seen a chalkboard for two years. I HAVE seen the newest and best in classroom teacher/student confusion aids (writing boards), its a sort of electronic whiteboard with a reader in it that determines where your writing. For now, it sucks, but Im sure in a few years it will be standard.
Back to chalkboards.
Theres something respectable about a chalkboard, I mean, its been the standard for information conveiance (discounting paper :P) for more than two hundred years, nearly every major invetion from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was conceived on a blackboard (or a napkin ;)).
Sure, they produce lots of dust and possibly cause cancer, and more often than not contribute to the premature deafness of students when an inept sub comes along.
But chalk dust is good for you, it teaches you to appreciate clean air, comments about cancer might get me crucified, and most students are well along to premature deafness thanks to CD players at max volume. (BMG's investment tips: Buy lots of stocks in hearing aid companies)

Basicaly this is a pointless nostalgia thread, enjoy :P

*shudders*I hate them. One of my weird OCD things is that I can't stand the feel of chalk, or writing on chalkboards, so I loved it when dry erase boards were more widely available.

I live in Canada, and where I go to school they have chalkboards. The only whiteboards are in the programming classes.

I miss them too. All the boards in our Junior High had whiteboards. A few in the middle school and a few in the elementary school. Just in the newer sections though. At the High school(which I go into this september) they have blackboards as far as I know. Probably quite a few whiteys in the newly renovated parts. Hey! Whiteboarding is racist! lol

I am also from the era when white-boards were just coming into the schools. Every single one always seemed to have several words scrawled across it in permanent marker that just wouldn't ever go away. I don't seem to recall that trouble with chalkboards.

I won't miss them. I personally prefer whiteboards because it's easier to do mathematical proofs on them than chalkboards; plus, they require less effort to write on.

My phsyics class had the ultimate in board technology. Besides a massive whiteboard, there was also a screen which could display a lot of things, including movies, but was usually used to display the computer. It had these special markers which could be used to draw on it. They didn't actually draw on the screen, however. The markers were stored in special wells, and the computer could tell when you picked one up. The screen also had pressure sensors, and it felt where the marker was a made a digital mark there.

It looked like a marker drawing, but you could erase everything with one click.

However, except for the science rooms and the rooms in the newest wing of my school, the classes use chalkboards.

i too miss the chalkboards, there was just something satisfying about completing a problem on a chalkboard that you just dont get with a dry erase board. (i hate being a freshman)

maybe it's just my school but i don't think my middle school had anything but chalkboards

I graduated HS 20 years ago, but I now work for that school board and I can tell you Toronto has nothing but chalkboards in all its schools, even the roly kind.

I have had the privilage of having whiteboards and chalkboards in highschool. My school has two campases. The older one has chalk, and the newer one has markers. Through my experience, the chalkkboard is superior to the whiteboard. The markers for the whiteboards have caused many problems in teaching, because the teacher cannot continually write a message on the board without half the class complaining about the smell. The chalkboard also quite clean, as long as you use a little water. Markers take many minutes washing up with water AND soap.

GO CHALKBOARDS!

In the classes that I did have whiteboards in, I didn't notice any smell. Well, until the cleaning solution came out every few weeks. For the most part they were easy to clean, just one swipe with the eraser, whereas chalkboards often just spread the chalk dust and made the new words hard to read. And I can remember in fifth grade a few kids would always be chosen to stay after class and clean the chalkboard. I always hated that.

That said, I prefer chalkboards. They're just traditional. Except in math classes, which is where I have whiteboards any way. Different color markers work better than different colored chalk when separating the parts of an equation.

My phsyics class had the ultimate in board technology. Besides a massive whiteboard, there was also a screen which could display a lot of things, including movies, but was usually used to display the computer. It had these special markers which could be used to draw on it. They didn't actually draw on the screen, however. The markers were stored in special wells, and the computer could tell when you picked one up. The screen also had pressure sensors, and it felt where the marker was a made a digital mark there.

It looked like a marker drawing, but you could erase everything with one click.

However, except for the science rooms and the rooms in the newest wing of my school, the classes use chalkboards.

Yeah, we have that too, in science class. In all of our science classrooms, the music rooms I think, and computer rooms we have whiteboards, but everywhere else there are chalkboards. That said I've recently moved to a new area... I think they have chalkboards. I like chalkboards. Chalk is really cool. Whiteboards are nice too, but I like the darker background and brigher writing other than the other way around. It was never a huge thing with me, though.

My phsyics class had the ultimate in board technology. Besides a massive whiteboard, there was also a screen which could display a lot of things, including movies, but was usually used to display the computer. It had these special markers which could be used to draw on it. They didn't actually draw on the screen, however. The markers were stored in special wells, and the computer could tell when you picked one up. The screen also had pressure sensors, and it felt where the marker was a made a digital mark there.

It looked like a marker drawing, but you could erase everything with one click.

However, except for the science rooms and the rooms in the newest wing of my school, the classes use chalkboards.

These are called Smart Boards and are amazing technology! I loved teaching with chalk boards - kids are more able to read print on a chalk board than they are the colored mipe off markers on a white board.

I miss mimeograph machines - purple ink! Ah, the smell of a freshly mimeo-ed quiz....nothing like it!

i love chalk boards!!!!
dry erase boards are nasty....thoses markers are gunna kill someone

Two out of my 7 classes (I had 8 this year, but one was gym for 2nd semester) had white boards. Math, which was convenient for small errors in diagrams and easier to do godawful proofs, and history in which we never used them. I do prefer writing on chalkboards though...And my class found it amusing when our biology teacher (who talks and lectures more than any teacher I've had) would run out of of space on his dinky chalkboard when he used it...and other times, what he left on there would stay up for 1-2 weeks.

I have chalkboards -- the proper, black type that is fused to the wall -- in my classroom. 99% of my writing is done there. I use Crayola's dustless chalk, and have several chalkholders (which I rarely use, but hey).

I use mini whiteboards (hand held), and have a huge "sheet of notebook paper" that I can use dry-erase markers on.

I also use flipcharts.

For special occasions, I can borrow a laser projector, hook it to my laptop, and give a slide show if necessary. :)

I'll be teaching again this fall, and I have no idea what I'll have in my classrooms at the University, but I've used both, and while I appreciate all the cleanliness factors and the easy color flexibility of the white board, I still prefer the old chalkboard, mainly because when I'm scribbling and I mess something up, I tend to use the edge of my hand as the eraser, and while that's great for chalk, it's not so effective for dry-erase marker.

But then again, I don't teach math, so I've never had to deal with the equations situation described above.

Everywhere I’ve went they had over head projectors. Not anything fancy like that one physics room just a sheet of plastic that you write on and it projects it on the wall. I like those; you can have different color pens, they’re realy easy to erase or you can just use a different sheet, and the teacher can face the room. I saw chalk boards in gradeschool though and they do have sort of a respectable air to them.

Personally, I prefer whiteboards. I had to use both last year, and the chalk was forever getting on my hands and clothes. I like being able to have colors without getting the colors stuck onto the chalkboard.

I also like that I can draw and erase quickly with one swipe of my hand or eraser when I want to draw a progression of events.

Also, I give my kids group whiteboards to use frequently, and they tend to work very, very well. :)

Bleah, I hate overhead projectors. Blurry, hard to see, not as big as chalkboards, writing is harder to see...

I never liked chalk. I much prefer writing with a dry-erase marker. The smell has never bothered me, and the University maintenance department here is simply awesome at keeping everything clean. My last math professor had a problem erasing one section of the whiteboard; one call to Facilities Management and the next day it was perfect. Gotta love that.

When dry-erase markers die is annoying as heck, though. You can never read anything, and there are never enough spare markers. And it seems like the colored markers die much faster than the standard black ones; colored chalk, for all its flaws, still beats whiteboard markers. There's also something special about seeing your professor mess up a problem so many times that the blackboard becomes white even after it's erased :D

My favorite 'board memory comes from my senior year in high school. I was taking BC calculus, which wasn't offered by the school as a standard class at the time. It was me, a friend, and a mutual friend of ours who quickly became a mutual enemy in the back room of a calculus classroom. We didn't have any sort of blackboard or whiteboard, so we just grabbed a dry-erase marker and wrote on the window. That kicked ass.

As for "smart boards," they can go to hell. Technology doesn't make everything better; in my opinion, between the blackboard, whiteboard, and standard projector a classroom has just about everything it needs to be an effective place to teach/learn.

I hate whiteboards. They're so... blaise...

I long for the days of secondary school when we had blackboards, including the rolling kind.

Colour chalk does more for my imagination than dri-erase markers ever did.

I had THE BEST high school bio teacher ever.

He made us buy colored pencils, and every day he filled his boards -- front and side -- at least 2-3 times. I remember one day he went for the gold -- eight passes. Strangely enough, even with all that writing and drawing, the class was interesting and he was funny as hell.

We all had the most amazingly detailed sketches of hearts and circulatory systems, etc. and when it came to the state-wide exam, our class kicked ASS! I swear to God, I had better notes from that class than in the Into to Bio class I had to take in college.

Mr. Esner, whereever you are -- you were the best!

I like my chalkboards.

Whoever said whiteboards are better for mathematical proofs either doesn't wear long-sleeves or has access to much better whiteboards than I have... I always wind up accidentally wiping my sleeve against one part of the board while I am writing somewhere else... and I wipe out some important part of my proof. On my chalkboard, at worst I smudge something a little.

My only complaint about chalkboards is that, when I am teaching and get excited, I have a tendency to break my chalk. I must go through half a dozen pieces of chalk per class!

I didn't even know they'd replaced the blackboards. Shows how long I've been out of school.

Dry Eraser marker can get you high. The Whiteboard is EVIL! It promotes student getting high with its evil markers!

I can barely stand touching chalk, much less writing with it. Thank god for whiteboards.

Oh FFS, don't buy the bloody PC rubbish, they're BLACKBOARDS! :p

I didn't even know they'd replaced the blackboards. Shows how long I've been out of school.
Heh. Some places don't even let you call them blackboards anymore because it's "racist". I'm serious. People HAVE complained about that.

Anyway, I love chalk boards. I love the sounds of chalk hitting the blackboard. And they just... Have more school-like feeling than a whiteboard ever can give.

My logic prfessor in undergrad used the difference in a proof:

If I use chalk, I will die of emphesema <sp>, if I use a whiteboard,k I will die of cancer.

Never said which he preferred...

If you can't call them blackboards anymore for fear of being perceived as racist, what the hell are we supposed to call blackbirds, or blackberries for that matter?

If you can't call them blackboards anymore for fear of being perceived as racist, what the hell are we supposed to call blackbirds, or blackberries for that matter?

Well the PC crowd would want you to replace black with African American. That why I don't even bother being PC anymore.

Oh FFS, don't buy the bloody PC rubbish, they're BLACKBOARDS! :p
Your sure theyre not Slate/Chalk Information Transferance Boards?

(On a secondary note, most modern 'blackboards' are green :P)

I grew in school with blackboards, and only later did I run into them whiteboards. I don't miss the sound of high squealing chalk or fingernails on those blackboards.

Most of the whiteboards in my old school were refitted so they could be information boards i.e. There is a projector connected to the teachers computer and if they want they can use a pen on the touch-screen board to write or they can just type on the computer and its displayed directly on to the board