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Re: Untouchables [Andreas J., please read]

From:Garth Wallace <gwalla@...>
Date:Friday, December 5, 2003, 4:59
Tristan McLeay wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Andreas Johansson wrote: > > >>Quoting Roger Mills <romilly@...>: >> >> >>>Andreas Johansson wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Actually, nothing in Roger's post said I had to do it by hand. :P >>>> >>> >>>Actually, I was going to say "You will go to the _[black]board_ and >>>write....." but didn't, as I wasn't sure younger people would recognize the >>>term. At least in many (all?) schools in the US, blackboards are now green. >>>However, I see Tristan used the word, so apparently it persists. > > > Well, that only means it's current in Australia :) > > >>I know the word perfectly, actually. > > > And the English taught as a second language :) > > >>The Swedish form is _svarta tavlan_, which means much the same. It's actually >>a bit of a funny word; it's essentially always used in the definite singular >>(indefinite _svart tavla_ sound like we're speaking of a painting), and felt >>to be a single unit, thus not requiring the preposed extra definite article >>normally used with AN phrases. Most I've seen are indeed dark green; I for one >>don't feel that "blackboard"/"svarta tavlan" says anything of the actual >>_colour_ of the thing. > > > I don't think I've ever seen a dark green one, apart from a small > (slightly larger than an A4 page) magnetic toy thing my brother got. It > struck me as cheap and didn't hold the chalk properly; if I saw a green > one, I'd probably think the same of it, at least initially. Blackboards as > used in classrooms have always been ... well, dark grey, thanks to all the > chalk. > > >>Incidentally, I was unfortunate enough to have to do maths on one today; >>they're quite popular here in Germany. Back in Sweden, we had them in >>elementary school, but in high school and at Uni, they always >>use "whiteboards", whitish things you write on with special pens. They have >>the major advantage of not involving chalk. > > > OTOH, they have the major disadvantage of being so reflective that you > have to move around to read half of them. I'd rather deal with chalk then > a whiteboard (and my yr 11 Maths teacher was the same). And dealing with > chalk isn't that bad: I had to do it for a semester of Maths tutorials > (two different maths subjects, both did it) and will have to do it for > another semester next year.
Whiteboards also have the disadvantage that any ink left on them for too long becomes permanent, or at least leaves a stain. Since a lot of teachers IME leave things written on the whiteboard overnight (and sometimes for weeks), this can become a problem.