The Magic of the Blackboard

Handouts and pdf files are poor ways to learn. Copying the blackboard onto paper with a pen as the prof scribbles on it is a much better way.<p>Technology has not improved on the blackboard at all.<p>The best presentation I&#x27;ve ever done was when the scheduled presenter never showed up. I volunteered. Having no slides, no preparation, I was faced with a white board and a dry-erase pen. Somehow, magic ensued.<p>I&#x27;ve never felt that way with prepared slides and a video screen.

You remember something by putting some effort into working with it, and so writing down the content from blackboard is just such work.<p>It is a bit similar to reading a wide-format newspaper than reading text on your smart-phone. larger area lets you see more at the same time, you don&#x27;t have to go back to previous page so often.

I was looking for the chalk v marker on whiteboard shootout, and it was conspicuous in absence.

I have a blackboard in my home office. I was quite surprised to find that a lot of them are available on e-bay and that they are quite cheap: I think, what happens is that, when schools get rid of them, teachers will sometimes take one home for their kids. Then, when the kids grow out of it, the blackboard ends up on e-bay.<p>So, when I moved places, I used the opportunity that I already had a moving van rented and picked one up from someone selling one who was quite nearby, paying €50 for it.<p>When I opened it, I realized that it had chalky deposits all over it that didn&#x27;t go away with normal cleaning products. So I had to use a brush-bit for a power drill to scrub it clean.<p>Then I found that I only have dry walls with hollow spaces beneath that can&#x27;t carry the load (it weighs maybe around 100kg), so I made a technical drawing specifying a stand and went on etsy to look for a metal-worker who could make me that stand.<p>All-in-all, it was just laying in a corner in my office for about a year until I finally finished the project of setting it up.<p>So, it ended up being a lot more hassle than I thought it would be, but now I&#x27;m quite happy that I have it.

I think this is when we know something is in the past: A nice tribute.

Recently I bought a paper notebook and pens to make companion to my ipad+pencil+OneNote combo, for my Rust programming studies and anotations.<p>Before buying the notebook I researched what kind of notebook Einstein used to work on. Spyral x brochure, kind of paper and size were considered.<p>Something was off with the digital solution. I can&#x27;t ellaborate exactly what was&#x2F;is the problem, but I&#x27;m not abandning it. I use it when it feels more up to the task (ex:storing images and coying a big text from the internet).

Everybody has a preferred learning style but I agree that presentation handouts (assuming the slides are well designed&#x2F;done and with enough space) are a great way to highlight and add your notes and pay attention to the oral explanations and reasoning instead of furiously writing&#x2F;scribbling and sometimes deciphering the hieroglyphs the prof wrote scratched on the green blackboard.

I&#x27;ve never really used a blackboard, but there&#x27;s definitely something about physically writing on a surface that can be erased and rewritten at will. All electronic versions I&#x27;ve tried are a joke in comparison.<p>I think the blackboard specifically is just something Hollywood likes and perhaps a few people&#x27;s preference. But whiteboards are better really.

I remember being punished as a child and having to erase the things, then &quot;clean&quot; the erasers by pounding them together . . . surely a recipe for silicosis! ;-)<p>The point is that cleaning the blackboard and the erasers wasn&#x27;t &quot;all you can eat cake.&quot; It was messy (hard one to explain to the parents!), sneezy drudgery.