Ever wondered how chalkboards became a staple in schools across the country? According to Jerry Wojenski’s illustrated timeline, students originally used individual slabs of slate (i.e. the old school equivalent of personal lap-sized chalkboards) and the teacher had to write out the problems and questions for the day’s lesson on each one. As you can guess, the work was tedious, and by 1801, military schools like West Point started using large slabs of slate so teachers only had to write once for the class to see and follow the lesson. The growth of railroads made these larger chalkboards more accessible to schools and the new mass communication revolution spread to institutions across the nation.
By the 1980s, businesses started using whiteboards and marker boards to eliminate potentially harmful chalk dust from the air. Schools soon followed suit, and now more business and educational institutions are using interactive whiteboards to present lessons in classrooms and conference rooms around the world. So what’s next? Who knows - maybe one day, we’ll be able to draw advanced text and graphics in the air with our fingers and collaborate in real-time with our friends and colleagues. Until then, it’ll be interesting to witness the evolution of the visual communication board in the years and decades to come.
Posted by Taeho Lim
