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[eumaios]

You know that wonderful sound you can make by dragging your fingernails across an honest-to-goodness slate blackboard? You can't make that sound on a whiteboard. So, to produce an equivalent level of discomfort in my students, I have to make them chew on aluminum foil. Passing out the pieces of foil wastes time, whereas dragging my fingernails across a chalkboard takes only a second. A chalkboard, then, makes for more efficient pedagogy.

I wish our school had chalkboards instead of whiteboards. If I missed the fumes from the markers, I could easily replicate the effect by sniffing model-airplane glue or having an open can of lacquer in my office.

[pedanterast]

One vote here for dry-erase boards.  Chalk is too noisy and too hard to read and I keep snapping it.

[present_mirth]

I have learned to love the dry erase boards.  For one thing, they're a lot easier for the students in the back row to see, and writing on them is less hand-cramp-inducing for me.  Besides, pretty colors!  I can write in green when we're discussing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight!  What's not to love?

My board writing is appalling no matter which writing implement I use (I have never mastered the art of writing in cursive on a vertical surface, and my printing sucks), but at least it's marginally neater with the markers.

[voxprincipalis]

Whiteboards forever! The ability to use different colors is *so* useful when marking up a musical example.

Also, if you have crappy chalk, the kind that can't be seen from further back than the second row no matter how hard you press when writing, well, that's just worse than useless.

And I agree with Pry -- it's the markers that make the difference. I actually carry around my own, partially because I wanted every color imaginable available to me at all times (because I'm just like that) and partially because I got tired of playing Marker Lottery and seeing which if any of the markers lying on the rail actually worked.

VP

[cc_alan]

And I agree with Pry -- it's the markers that make the difference. I actually carry around my own, partially because I wanted every color imaginable available to me at all times (because I'm just like that) and partially because I got tired of playing Marker Lottery and seeing which if any of the markers lying on the rail actually worked.

Grr! Darn right.

I know this really belongs in the venting thread, but...

THROW THE EFFING DEAD MARKERS AWAY WHEN THEY DON'T WORK AND DON'T PLACE THEM BACK ON THE RAIL.

(not directed at you, vp)

Alan

[chemystery]

I hate teaching in rooms with chalk boards.  I hate the hard-to-erase chalk.  I hate the hard-to-see chalk.  I hate the hard-to-write-on chalk boards.  My students hate the way my fingernails seem magnetically attracted to the chalkboard.  (I am fortunate that I am not bothered by this).  Mostly I hate the chalk dust that settles on my clothes and covers my hands.  I hate having students point out chalk spots on my clothes.  I hate that the first thing I have to do after class is wash my hands and use hand lotion. 

I love dry erase boards, but like to carry my own markers.

I had a traumatic experience with a chalkboard during my advancement exams, so I may be biased.  I wore black, and kept reminding myself not to wipe my chalky hands on my clothing.  That would have been fine, but 15 minutes into the 2 hour oral exam, I fumbled the eraser onto my black shirt.  Damn.

[scheherazade]

I am horribly bothered by the nails-on-chalkboard sound, as well as the feel if mine come into contact accidentally.  Sometimes the chalk accidentally makes the sound, too.  It gives me the willies for hours.

I do actually like chalkboards.  But the risk of chalk-screech is intimidating, so I prefer the dry erase boards.

[tuxedo_cat]

I was told at one institution that chalk dust also gets into computer equipment, which is why any room with a full technology set-up was stripped of the chalkboard.

Personally, I like to have both around.

[sciencephd]

Does anyone else here miss their chalkboard?

Definitely not.
And, dry erase markers smell good.

[homelessscientist]

See A.A. Bartlett, "A Cautionary Tale,"  The Physics Teacher, December 2006, Volume 44, Issue 9, pp. 568-569.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.2396767

[tuxedo_cat]

See A.A. Bartlett, "A Cautionary Tale,"  The Physics Teacher, December 2006, Volume 44, Issue 9, pp. 568-569.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.2396767

Sadly, not all of us have the magical password to access this publication. Perhaps you might give us the gist of this cautionary tale.  I'm terribly curious (and we all know where that leads).

[homelessscientist]

Sadly, not all of us have the magical password to access this publication. Perhaps you might give us the gist of this cautionary tale.  I'm terribly curious (and we all know where that leads).

He seems to have posted the article on his Web site, too:

http://www.jclahr.com/bartlett/B2.%20Whiteboards.doc

The concluding sentence is

This replacement of the logical chalkboards by the illogical whiteboards is a triumph of business, as was explained by the director of General Motors’ Research Laboratories, Charles Kettering, who is said to have observed that the mission of business is “the organized creation of dissatisfaction.”

[sciencephd]

That article is pretty weak.

[john_proctor]

Sadly, not all of us have the magical password to access this publication. Perhaps you might give us the gist of this cautionary tale.  I'm terribly curious (and we all know where that leads).

He seems to have posted the article on his Web site, too:

http://www.jclahr.com/bartlett/B2.%20Whiteboards.doc

The concluding sentence is

This replacement of the logical chalkboards by the illogical whiteboards is a triumph of business, as was explained by the director of General Motors’ Research Laboratories, Charles Kettering, who is said to have observed that the mission of business is “the organized creation of dissatisfaction.”

Hey!?!

I thought that was our job.

[systeme_d_]

Yes, I am one of those black-wearing humanities types, and I love blackboards.   One of my classrooms this semester has a whiteboard and I hate it.

With a blackboard, I am in my element.  The subtle scent, the sudden clouds of dust, the unintended (but somehow effective) moments when the chalk breaks as I repeatedly underline for emphasis, and chalk bits fly.  I can gesture with chalk.  I can throw chalk.  With chalk, I dance.

Dry erase markers are just that -- dry.  Despite their vulgar display, their beckoning rainbow of color, they are barren.  When used, they mock.  They make salient points and dfficult terms look like a trip to Candyland.  Although tempted mightily, I cannot, will not, throw a dry-erase marker.  Dry erase markers are thick and inelegant.  Their apparent smoothness is a deceit.  One draws -- nay,  colors! with a dry erase marker.  One can never dance.