Blackboards vs. Whiteboards: A Scientist's Perspective

[metapuff]

Which do you guys prefer, and why? I like blackboards, as I find dry-erase markers tend to run out of ink rather quickly.

 

[wukunlin]

I find them both nasty if I have to use them for long periods of time, but if I have to choose one, then whiteboards are the lesser evil. Chalk powder flying all over the place is just

 

[Enigman]

Whiteboards at home, Black at school. Chalk dust gets too messy to use blackboards at home.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Why no option for Smartboards?

 

[Evo]

Why no option for Smartboards?

Smartboards?

EDIT: Holy Crud! Well, they cost thousands of dollars to begin with! You need hardware and software.

 

[ChiralWaltz]

I prefer whiteboards. The colors are more vibrant and dots are easier to draw. I don't like having to uncap them but it is a small cost for what is gained.

 

[Jozape]

I'm a whiteboard fan and use one at home. I can't imagine using a chalkboard at home. All the dust would kill me. At college, blackboards are okay for short periods.

 

[Monique]

All you need is a magic drawing board:

 

[Psinter]

I prefer whiteboards. The markers smell funny. But the smell is not the point, the point is that I write more beautifully there than in chalkboards. By the way, where I come from I've never seen blackboards. They are green here.

All you need is a magic drawing board:

Ha!... Hahaha. You are funny. Your avatar image is funny too, I like it.

 

[Vanadium 50]

You can get markers with fruit smells. Sort of. "Apple" is more like "really bad appletini".

 

[dipole]

Well if it were't for chalk dust, blackboards all the way. I love the feeling of writing on them, and simplicity of white on black, no extra colors, and the nice even thickeness of the line... can't beat it.

 

[anorlunda]

If you are left handed like me, your hand often drags over what you just wrote. On whiteboards that smears the text, blackens my hand and makes the text near impossible to read. The only remedy for me is write one letter, wait a minute for the ink to dry, then write the next letter. Drives students crazy.

Chalk boards smear less.

I'm an old fart so I can tell you I had the same problem in elementary school when we wrote with a pen dipped in an ink well. My left hand was ink colored every day. I amused myself by dunking the hair of the girl in front of me in the ink.

 

[slider142]

I've used blackboards at home for quite some time without running into any dust problems (I install them near windows). I find the smell of dry erase markers disturbing, even the scented ones.

 

[Intrastellar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=l789l6np-qA
You cannot do that on a whiteboard! Still a fan of whiteboards though.

 

[Nick O]

All you need is a magic drawing board:

Etch-A-Sketch

Seriously, though, I prefer whiteboards in principle. I hate the dust and the awful scratching noises of a chalkboard.

That said, I've been disappointed by markers many, many times.

 

[wukunlin]

By the way, where I come from I've never seen blackboards. They are green here.

When I lived in Taiwan, the boards in our classrooms were green as well, but we still referred them as blackboard (黑板).

 

[Dr Transport]

Smartboards?

EDIT: Holy Crud! Well, they cost thousands of dollars to begin with! You need hardware and software.

The school system spent thousands and thousands of dollars outfitting every classroom with smartboards, i find them annoying, just another way to shove more information down a kids throat without learning the material. Of course, I work for a multibillion dollar corporation, we don't have smartboards, finally converted over to whiteboards in the last few years, I carry my chalk board from area to are when I move projects.

The argument is that they enhance learning, we did just fine in the '70's and '80's with chalk, maybe if you were lucky, the teachers had a couple of colors...

 

[jhae2.718]

Whiteboards, then blackboards.

Smartboards? Absolutely not.

 

[GabDX]

Blackboard by far. I don't think I have ever seen a whiteboard without stuff permanently written on it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=l789l6np-qA
You cannot do that on a whiteboard! Still a fan of whiteboards though.

How the hell is he doing that? All through my school days, including college, it was blackboards, and not one of my teachers ever did anything like this.

I notice the dots get further and further apart the longer the line. I wonder if that's y=x² at work, a kind of dampened bouncing.

 

[Evo]

I'll never forget the time we were in a client's expensive new conference room and they had a whiteboard that was built in flush with their nice fabric covered wall. One of my team members was drawing a diagram and went off the board and onto the fabric and just kept going while the CEO and board of directors gasped. I guess he was just so into drawing that he failed to notice, for about a foot, he was going pretty fast and talking.

It didn't come off the fabric. The more we wiped the more it smeared.

 

[BobG]

In a class I took, they have a whiteboard, plus a white projection screen that can be lowered down in front of the whiteboard for slide presentations.

Seeing as how there were a lot of electrical circuit diagrams in the slide presentation, the plan was to project the diagrams directly onto the whiteboard and make annotations on the board as he discussed the circuit.

Problem is, he forgot to raise the projection screen first and wound up making his annotations on the projection screen instead of the whiteboard.

Dry Erase markers don't erase from projection screens.

 

[Evo]

In a class I took, they have a whiteboard, plus a white projection screen that can be lowered down in front of the whiteboard for slide presentations.

Seeing as how there were a lot of electrical circuit diagrams in the slide presentation, the plan was to project the diagrams directly onto the whiteboard and make annotations on the board as he discussed the circuit.

Problem is, he forgot to raise the projection screen first and wound up making his annotations on the projection screen instead of the whiteboard.

Dry Erase markers don't erase from projection screens.

Oh NO! Now I know where my guy went to work!

 

[Student100]

Installing Smartboards in schools was just an exercise in throwing money down the toilet. They're by far the worst, hard to see, hard to read, grainy images, and don't do anything but distract.

 

[Doug Huffman]

Blackboards. Duplicated handouts for extensive drawings.

 

[zoki85]

White Boards

 

[symbolipoint]

Blackboard by far. I don't think I have ever seen a whiteboard without stuff permanently written on it.

Same thing happens on some chalkboards - probably really low quality ones.

 

[Danger]

If you are left handed like me, your hand often drags over what you just wrote. On whiteboards that smears the text, blackens my hand and makes the text near impossible to read.

We didn't have inkwells, but we did use "cartridge pens" which used a plastic vial of liquid ink and a fountain-pen type nib. All southpaws that I knew, including me when I wrote with my left, used the "hook" method wherein you curl your wrist around from the top and actually do the writing from the right side of the line. I've since quit doing that due to better ink technology, but can't match the penmanship that I had with that technique.
Of course, that can't be done on a big board of any colour. By the bye, the only black "blackboard" that I've ever seen was one that I made myself using plywood and blackboard paint. All the others were green.

I tried that and got a "This Video Does Not Exist" message. :(

Generally, I prefer whiteboard for cleanliness purposes. The only time that I've used either is for scorekeeping during darts games, which I can no longer play. Most bars have chalkboards, and my pants were invariably covered with white smears from me subconsciously wiping my hands on them. There was a myth in my public school days that chalk caused warts. While that's not true, I suspect that it might have been based upon the fact that those of us (especially teachers) who used it a lot tended to develop calluses on our fingers. Now, I would expect that my dust allergy and advanced COPD would not appreciate chalk dust.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

There are lots of pluses and minuses for each, I'm kind of torn.

I think blackboards are easier to read from a distance (provided the blackboard is clean so that it is actually black), and less susceptible to glare issues than whiteboards. However, it is smoother to write on whiteboards (especially making things like dots).

It is simple to clean a blackboard, it just requires water and a sponge (and time to dry). However, most places seem too lazy to actually do it. On whiteboards, however, if the markers get old, they may leave permanent marks that cannot be erased (at least, not without special solvents that never seem to be readily available).

Sometimes it actually feels nicer to write on a blackboard, if one has good quality chalk. However, my main tool for doing handwritten work is my Surface 2 Pro, and one time I managed to scratch my screen because a bit of chalk dust got trapped under the pen nib. Luckily the scratch is tiny and close to one corner. I have since learned that I must wash my hands after using a chalkboard; rubbing off the chalk is not sufficient. A whiteboard does not present this issue.

However, whiteboards have a problem with "perceived affordance". This is a notion used in software user interfaces and videogames: that if something on the screen looks like you should be able to interact with it, then you ought to be able to interact with it; otherwise the user experience will be confusing and frustrating. This relates to blackboards and whiteboards as follows:

1. I want to write something on a board in order to share with collaborators. I see a blackboard that has some chalk bits in its tray. I immediately know that I can grab a piece of chalk and begin writing. However,

2. I want to write something on a board and I see a whiteboard with some markers in its tray. Can I write on the whiteboard? I have no idea, because half the time the markers are dead. People are too lazy to replace them (and often don't know where replacement markers are kept); so lazy, in fact, that they often insist on using dead markers for months. A dead marker not only makes marks that are indistinct and hard to read; it also tends to make permanent marks that cannot be erased well, because the marker is too dried out.

I find this aspect of whiteboards supremely annoying: when I see a whiteboard with markers, I have no idea whether it is functional.

 

[Enigman]

On whiteboards, however, if the markers get old, they may leave permanent marks that cannot be erased (at least, not without special solvents that never seem to be readily available).

For small marks-
you can color over the mark with a dry-erase marker and then when you wipe it the mark should be erased.
[Else, nail polish remover (acetone) works. And some deodorants do the job as well.]