Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Chalkboards

For some bizarre reason (maybe because they are paying me well) I have traveled to a provincial place that proudly presents its very own engineering college to give a talk on knitting baskets.

I was given lunch in a cafeteria that reminded me of the one we had in grade school. The food was edible.

We then went to the Big Computer Room for the talk. There were 20 ancient computers attached to 20 tiny screens, all of them glued and bolted to the tables.

There was a video projector for my laptop and a chalkboard. I wrote the URL to my fancy basket knitting site in chalk on the board. Amazingly, I was able to remember how to write, and was again struck by my very bad handwriting.

My question (does this count as a Thirsty?): How many of you still use chalkboards? And how many of those that do are mathematicians?

39 comments:

  1. I do. I'm a mathematician.

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  2. I teach wordy things in a building that houses the mathemeticians who seem to be the only ones using the chalk boards. I try to bring my laptop and projector because when I write on the board, I always manage to rub my body up against it during the class...

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  3. I use a chalkboard when I'm teaching Greek, and occasionally for lecture classes. The lecture is much more spontaneous when I'm writing on the board than when I'm just standing there pressing the forward button on my Powerpoint.

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  4. I don't think I've written on a chalkboard in 5 years, and haven't used one regularly for the last decade. I hated the way the dust got under my nails and cuticles and into creases in my hands. On the other hand, I suspect they were more eco-friendly than white boards; slate is extremely durable, and chalk is, I believe, a natural substance (though heaven knows how it's mined) and, unlike markers, produces very little waste. Still, whiteboards are much neater, and I like the fact that you can project a text on one and then mark it up (of course, you can do that with an overhead projector or document camera, too). And I'm not feeling too guilty on the eco-front, since my use (and waste) of photocopy paper has shrunk from copious to nonexistent in the same time period (though I'm sure my and my studetns' use of electricity has grown).

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  5. I still use a chalkboard for lecture outlines and hastily drawn maps. When I have access in some classrooms to a computer and projector, I'll happily show fancy pictures from the internets, but the chalkboard remains my mainstay. (And I'm no mathematician, although the mathematicians at our school use the chalkboards, too!)

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  6. I strongly suspect that most faculty in fields where integrals, derivatives, or other notation are used still make heavy use of chalk or marker boards. When I teach in a room that was previously used by a non-mathy type there might be two words on the board, the lectern is in my way, and screen is pulled down so far that you can't get it back up again.

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  7. I love the survey. Proves what I've been saying about the traffic this page gets. You MIGHT have 28 people on a good day. That stat counter in the sidebar is complete bullshit. Why the charade?

    I just want the truth; that's all I'm asking for. And I used the semi-colin correctly above, so quite speculating about whether I'm a professor or not. I'm a Medieval literary guy from a top 10 university.

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  8. "semi-colin."

    You can't make this shit up.

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  9. I prefer chalkboards to whiteboards - markers are unreliable, and all too often someone leaves Sharpie-mistakes behind. I don't want to have to cart around alcohol to clean that up!

    (Hmmm....maybe I do...)

    Even when I have PowerPoint capabilities, I still use the chalk/whiteboard. It's helpful for noting significant points during a discussion, or drawing a diagram if students are struggling.

    My particular gripe is that often the projector screen covers the entire board's writing surface, forcing me to choose which to use. I often choose the writing surface.

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  10. Several of my professors have used the chalk board. The projectors for the PowerPoints are too unreliable, I guess.

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  11. Why not project right onto the whiteboard and cut out the middleman completely? I love being able to draw arrows and make notes on my slides. I can make points on my slide, then erase quickly and move on.

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  12. @anonymous Clint
    "so quite speculating"
    Literary guy from a top 10? Really?

    @Suzy
    I still use the whiteboard a lot, but have noticed that this past year, I rely more and more on the SmartBoard.

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  13. I teach physics, and use the whiteboards all the time. Everyone in my physics department wishes we could have our chalkboards back: they were taken from us above our objections, by well-meaning educational technologists who claimed that the other technology in our "smart classrooms" couldn't co-exist with the dust from chalkboards. (Funny, it appeared to work just fine when we did have them.)

    Whiteboards aren't as good as chalkboards. They're not as durable, for starters, since they're not even four years old now, and all are scratched, blemished, dented, and almost worn out. Chalk always works, too: the markers that are there are almost always dried out, so I have to supply my own, yet another thing I have to do. Chalk works better, too: there's more friction, which makes it easier to write and make small erasures quickly. Whiteboard markers have a kind of dust that's just as obnoxious as chalk dust, and even the ones marked "low odor" smell bad, unlike chalk.

    We need to stop complaining out loud about whiteboards, though. They're been around for a long time now, and our students are sick to the teeth of hearing us complain about them.

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  14. P.S. to Dean Suzy: I find it increasingly unnecessary to write URLs for anything, unless they're short and snappy, e.g. seti.org or nasa.gov or collegemisery.com. For class web pages, I tell my students just to type the name of the class into an Internet search engine such as Google or Bing, and it normally takes them right there.

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  15. This mathematician prefers chalk, but I haven't had access to a chalkboard in many years. All of the rooms in my modernized building have white boards and video projectors, and I'm slowly adapting. I am now in a room with limited white board space and a beautiful new Elmo system, and I'm starting to like the freedom of writing on a sheet of paper projected up to the screen. This way I still face the students for our mathy conversations, and I still have the freedom of writing whatever symbols, diagrams and notes that I need. I just can't erase mistakes.

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  16. I love me a document camera.

    But puh-leeze,"anonymous." It's semi-COLON, not "semi-colin." It's "quit," not "quite." You may be a "Medieval guy from a top 10 university," as in college sophomore at Yale who lurves his Chaucer class. But we lit profs proofread, and often slink back to correct our typos. Rarely do we make more than one in a post.

    I'm NOT at a "top 10" university (and dude, "Big 10" and "top 10" are not the same). But even I fit the bill I've drawn up here. And Medievalists do not waste their time worrying about numbers posting to a blog. They have archives to visit, and shit.

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  17. If I have to use a chalkboard, I start the class by scraping my fingernails across the board like the shark guy in "Jaws."

    That gets the snowflakes' attention.

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  18. This mathematician also prefers chalk. It allows you to develop things in a slower time frame. You can adapt right there and do other problems on-the-spot or do a side problem that relates. You can correct your errors immediately. Making errors can often be a good learning experience as well. Students catch them, letting you know that they really are paying attention. And seeing something done WRONG sometimes helps to see how it should be done right. Plus, it makes them feel spatial (spelling error intentional).

    This is like the difference between a cooking show and a nice, glossy, picture-perfect recipe book. Seeing something made in real time, warts and all, is much more interactive, instructive and interesting (i^3).

    Having said all that, I have an allergy to chalk! However, I never gave in to the whiteboards unless there was NO other option. I actually had a chalkboard re-instated in a classroom after "they" replaced everything with whiteboards. Folks called me loco. I had the last wheeze.

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  19. One can use chalkboards to get the students’ attention in a much more pleasant way than Bubba is advocating. Early in the semester, bring a straight piece of plain white peppermint candy, such as the bottom of a plain, white candy cane. Don't call any attention to it. Teach the class normally, and while making a point, tap the piece of candy against the chalkboard a couple or three times. Then pop it into your mouth, chew it loudly, and swallow it. Your students will be staring goggle-eyed at you, because they will think you have eaten your chalk. If their attention wanders at any time for the rest of the term, just pick up a piece of chalk, look at it, and lick your lips. All eyes will be on you.

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  20. @ froderick frankenstein

    ...and now my 5:34am coffee is on the computer screen and coming out out my nose.

    Damned funny...

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  21. My department has a brand-new building with nary a chalkboard in sight. And we use integrals and shit. Although, the math department did manage to get chalkboards installed in their recently-built building.

    My SO teaches at a satellite campus that shares facilities. She has her first chalkboard in years this semester, and is finding it aggravates some allergies in very unpleasant ways.

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  22. Apparently white boards 'look better' in classrooms. I enjoyed chalkboards but as a plus-sized middle-aged academic female I wear a lot of black, and by the end of the day looked like I'd been rolling in chalk, so whiteboards cut down in laundry bills.

    I love me the digital projector (Elmo?) - I can face the class, AND I can scan the notes we made together and post them to eBridge if necessary...

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  23. There aren't any chalkboards at my current institution but at my last one it depended on the age of the building. That is not to say that there were old chalkboards but rather the older buildings to maintain their character had new or very well maintained chalk boards. The newer buildings all had white boards.

    The one exception I knew of was the geology building which had white boards because it is much easier to draw geological diagrams with several colors and different color chalk is not different enough. It is not uncommon to see structural geology notebooks with diagrams in six or more colors of ink.

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  24. I prefer blackboards, and yes, I'm a mathematician. At least in training. Whiteboards can be nice especially when different colors are preferable, but the downside of marker confusion (both over type and whether it has any ink left in it or not) has me prefer blackboards.

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  25. @junebug:

    I'm on the job market now, and they always ask about my experience with "technology in the classroom," as if it's just clear as day that projectors, smartboards, and doc-cams are better than chalk. Ugh.

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  26. I'm a historian who teaches at a school known for its engineering programs and that prides itself on small class sizes (18 or fewer) and daily recitation for students.

    I have four walls of chalkboards in my classroom, and video/powerpoint projection capabilities. Both are used on an almost-daily basis.

    We (my students and I) draw maps, write lists, create timelines, draft thesis statements, make outlines, spell other-than-English words, etc.

    I use the projector for images and video.

    I carry lecturers chalk in different colors - it erases more cleanly than the crap the school buys.

    we have a bucket of water and a sponge in each room. the custodial staff empty and refill the buckets.

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  27. Chalkboard using mathematician.

    Does the subject make a difference? I'd have thought whiteboards are less preferable whatever you're teaching.

    And I consider preprepared pages (however they're projected) to be far less engaging.

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  28. I found the document camera to be extremely useful when I taught my 200+ Intro to Everything class. I normally write on the board in order to encourage my students to write in their notebooks, but writing on the board in a huge lecture hall isn't always practical.

    Sans document camera, I go with the whiteboard, and I share the pet peeve of massive screens...

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  29. ps: I am not a mathematician, nor do I do anything faintly math-y.

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  30. Froderick, if we had a physics department, I'd suspect that we are colleagues. Chalkboards were taken away some years ago and the math department had a major freakout, leading to something we actually refer to as "chalkgate" because of the ridiculous amount of correspondence and paperwork it generated. We now have two chalkboard-equipped classrooms remaining on campus, but I don't know if the math faculty are actually fighting to get assigned to those rooms. I think it's just a couple of silverbacks who insist on being assigned to those rooms.

    I'm not even a professor but I still hate the whiteboard. Hate the smell of the markers, the ink all over my fingers, when the 'audience' doesn't 'get it' and I am trapped at the whiteboard for several hours trying to illustrate concepts that really should just be Googled, the fact that markers always get stolen, etc. As a student, I love the whiteboard: easier to see, different color options make some concepts easier to understand. Ultimately, I don't care one way or the other, but I have excellent vision and I might feel differently if I wore glasses.

    I'm defending anonymous Clint, because he obviously meant to type "semi-colon" and "quit speculating." So can we please stop eviscerating commenters for minor typos? If you have a problem with the content or with something that Clint has previously posted, address that directly. Remember, other commenters are not your students. Save the mockery for comments that are rife with typos and spelling errors, or for the content of the comments themselves.

    Okay, now you can proceed with responding that how Clint is a lit professor and must be held to the high standards of his profession, and that typos aren't to be tolerated anywhere, anytime, and this isn't a AOL instant messager, or whatever.

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  31. I use the dreaded ppt, but only in lieu of the slide projector. Indeed, it is a huge improvement in that realm. But for everything else it is chalk for me. Fortunately we still have chalkboards in almost all our rooms. I hate whiteboards for all the reasons mentioned above.

    @Patty:

    I'm much more cynical. Clint is the "page is going to die" guy. I think he deliberately inserted the typos so that he could then mock anyone who pointed out his errors.

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  32. It all depends on the nature of the lecture. When I was in lit mode -- supporting Donne and the Tribe of Ben -- I used chalk and board all the time, except when I would resort to overhead transparencies (brilliant for metric analysis). Now I'm in Comm mode -- and in a new college where PPT is required -- I do PPT, with odd excursions to chalk and board (it's hard to track a discussion with PPT).

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  33. Yeah...the typo business? My friends in the How the Universe Works department tell me that I only care about spelling because my ideas are so pedestrian that spelling IS important. Their ideas are so awesome that they can be expressed in utterly tortured English and formulas.

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  34. That's incredibly obnoxious, but it reminds me of this funny shirt this guy in the army had. He worked in the language department. The Russian department had shirts made up that said "We learned Russian so you don't have to." and they were pretty hot-shit about themselves. This guy was in Arabic. They had shirts made up that said "We learned Arabic because you can't."

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  35. I just don't believe ol' Clint is a high-ranking Medievalist, that's all. He doesn't have ideas like one, treat his colleagues here like one, or spell like one. I've never met a Medievalist who wasn't both interesting and gallant. We're all tired of his Chicken Little act. The sky is still up there.

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  36. Whether Clint is really a hot-shot Ivy-Degreed medievalist, whether two typos immediately invalidate the blog comment in which they are contained, whether Clint is deliberately inserting typos so that he can return later and mock us for being so petty... these are weighty questions. Maybe a philosophy professor could chime in.

    Wombat's joke is quite hilarious, though.

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  37. @Wombat:

    I remember those shirts. They were great. Or I should probably say "are" since I'm sure they are still in use.

    @Patty:

    Nothing weighty about my cynicism. Certainly nothing that requires the intervention of a philosopher. It is simply based on repeated observation of consistent patterns of behavior. I don't really give half a fuck whether in his real life Clint truly thinks the page is dying, truly is a medievalist, truly can spell, or any combination of the above. He could be the resurrected corpse of Ernst Kantorowicz for all I care. He's a tedious bore.

    Actually, now that I think of it, Kantorowicz's corpse would surely be more entertaining. At least he'd go to parties dressed like a Roman emperor.

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  38. @Wombat & AA: I suspect that more of those t-shirts might be coming back in circulation with the end of DADT. Didn't the military in its infinite wisdom spend considerable time and money training a bunch of Arab linguists, only to fire a number of them for sleeping with members of their own sex? Of course, those people may well have already found better-paying or otherwise more satisfactory jobs.

    As for Clint, his attempt to establish ethos (see Natalie Munroe post) fell flat for me, too. It's not so much the typos (I'm guilty of those, too, and I do have a Ph.D., though not one that required the study of several languages, including Latin, as is the case for Medievalists); it's the content (or lack thereof). And, yes, I don't think either "big 10" or "top 10" is the way medievalists talk/write.

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  39. And while we're talking about typos: LECTERN. Not lecturn. Yes, I teach copyediting.

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