Academic Poll: Black or White?

I chose whiteboard, but I am torn between which mess I dislike more: whiteboard marker gunk, or chalk gunk all over my hands after lecture ...

I suppose I should be a little less excited and walk to the end of the board with the eraser in either case, but I tend to erase any immediately-noticed mistakes with my hand without thinking.

Blackboard. This is mostly because at whiteboards I seem to have a knack for picking up whichever marker doesn't work. Chalk doesn't fail unexpectedly. Also, it doesn't smell bad.

Blackboard. I'm in mathematics, and when I teach geometry and need to draw diagrams, I find that there's just not enough friction on a whiteboard to get decently straight lines.

Some terrorists over in our admin building stole all of our blackboards and replaced them with ghost boards that get written on with semi-permanent markers. Sidewalks work better, but are hard to erase.

I was originally a computer scientist. 'Nuf said. Only mathematicians and losers use blackboards. :)

I put down the White board, because I like being able to use the different colors easily. But I hate hate HATE the staff lines stuck on my whiteboards right now. I'm a music theorist, so I draw lots of notes on the board. For some reason when our new building was built, and whiteboards were installed in our brand new classrooms, they didn't include staff lines. Then they stuck the equivalent of stickers on, which peel off very quickly and cause the markers to fray when drawing lines across them. I never had that problem with chalkboards. But I hate the chalk dust getting on my pants, and it makes me sneeze.

Whiteboard. That said I don't mind blackboards...in fact most of the classes I had, in Math and in Theology, used blackboards instead of whiteboards, and that worked just fine. I just prefer whiteboards for being something I feel I can write on more easily, and just as clear--if not clearer--than blackboards for being able to tell what's being written.

I like the big sheets of paper on an easel --- the kind with Post-it type stickum on the back so they can be lined up along the walls as you tear them off, then taken away and word processed just in case they contain immortal truths.

I like to hand out the printed copies of my presentation notes... It wastes the paper but there is no fiddling with a projector. Questions/answers are done in front of the whiteboard.

Erm...okay, so I'd never admit to this if I didn't know that Queen Emmy would read and understand, 'coz it's kind of embarrasing but here goes...

It has to be whiteboard, so I'm not distracted. The smell of chalk erm...makes me want a snack. Of chalk.

Maybe I need to start taking a calcium supplement...

Haven't actually taught seriously, but I think I prefer blackboard - even if it does dry out my hands.

Overhead projector where you write along with the students. You always go the right pace and never have to stop and erase (you just get a new sheet)

Blackboard. Not terribly good, because I tend to wear black, but at least I don't get high from the smell of the markers.

White by a little bit. Blackboards have nasty chalk that gets all over your hands and clothes. Especially the big chalk that you need in large lecture halls. Whiteboard markers smell bad (and are probably carcinogenic, who knows), and the markers don't always erase all that easily, but at least the little bit of dust doesn't get all over my hands and clothes. But I've taken to using powerpoint (actually keynote) and talking really slowly so that I don't go too fast, which is much too easy to do with powerpoint.

to Scott Spiegelberg,
Get a white board made with porcelain on steel, then you put the staff lines down with a permanent marker(i.e. Sharpie) and the staff lines will stay during erasure of the dry erase marker. The permanent marker can be removed with solvent(I use MEK but I suspect acetone would work as well) when desired. These boards are somewhat expensive but are well worth the price. They also allow the use of magnetic stickers.

This was tough. I chose blackboard because I think it makes me a better person. Surprised you didn't have powerpoint as an option (not that I would choose that).

I'm with Mark@3: I find it very hard to draw well on white boards, and my handwriting is worse as well. You just don't get enough friction feedback, and sometimes the friction varies unexpectedly. And when you make a minor mistake? Filthy hands. And have you ever tried to get marker out of fabric if you drop one and it hits clothing?

I think the colors are overrated. Some don't show up very well (what rocket scientist came up with yellow for a white board? and green is not much better) and others don't erase very well.

The one problem with blackboards is that too many of the newer ones are crap and/or get washed regularly. The good ones erase cleanly and the chalk shows up clearly at a distance.

I was interested in the comment about overheads and powerpoint. Unless you have the kind that rolls up, it is very hard for students to keep up when you change sheets ... and who washes them so you don't waste the plastic? The problem I notice with powerpoint is the students don't take notes. They just sit back and watch TV. I've actually seen students put away their notebook when the powerpoint comes on.

Speaking not as a teacher but as a graduate student, the ghosting on the whiteboards around our lab is horrible, so much stuff just sticks on there forever. Blackboards are clearly superior, but my handwriting is best using markers on fumehood sashes.

I'm so old that I remember when the high-tech method was using transparencies and an overhead projector to give conference presentations, or 35 mm slides.

Now, if you don't have at least a laptop and DVD to plug into digital projector, you're treated like a pathetic fossil.

The phase transition was fascinating.

But -- aha! -- my classroom experience with unreliable projectors and the like has allowed me more than once, at international conferences, to revert to great verbal presentations, hand-waving, and focused dialog with audience when others in the session are paralyzed by digital projector failure.

On the dark side, I did once borrow someone else's laptop in a session to show a Word file that I'd painstakingly used to make ASCII graphics that did the trick.

The host laptop has Open Office, and all the formatting was different, and so the equations AND the arrow diagrams were incoherent. So: good verbal presentation, hadnwaving, dialogue, and offer to email the preprint from the Proceedings to anyone interested.

A lot ends up as PDF on arXiv anyway, right?

None of the above is my answer. I'm with Amber - writing in real time on OHP projectors is best, and surely not too high-tech to count here. And we have continuous rolls, so we don't need new sheets. The last few lines of your derivations are always visible. It can be projected large and high up, so even students at the back get a good view, and you face the audience as you write. Perfect!

may this be the most contentious item you have to deal with all semester.

You left out overhead projectors.

As long as you write clearly I don't care if you parade notes pinned to a donkey's ass.

@17: "The one problem with blackboards is that too many of the newer ones are crap." Amen.
I'm a mathematician; I need at least four 7'x4' blackboards (two above and two below, sliding) but my favorite number is nine.
I used to be very unhappy about overhaed projectos and their slides (I'm old, yes) but now when I have a computer presentation to give I just do it easily - by showing photos of my blackboard :-).

As an undergraduate, I got very good at arriving in my introductory calculus lecture just as the prof was starting on the fourth blackboard of four. I could then copy down all the notes in time for him to start back on the first board. And it was a massive lecture theatre so you couldn't hear what he was saying anyway. ;)

(It was an 8:30 class and my residence was right across the street.)

I dislike whiteboards, the pens rarely work properly, the white board is rarely white, lines don't rub off cleanly and the pen dust gets everywhere. I also won't be surprised if the solvent was toxic in some way. The pens are also much more expensive than chalk. As for chalk dust, just get the dustless chalk, its much better. I also find the contrast on blackboards is better. If anyone has watched the MIT online lectures, I've found that the blackboard based courses are invariably better.

I LOVE having the chance to lecture on blackboards. Whenever I'm lucky enough to be giving a research talk or lecture in a hall with 9 blackboards, I tend to get rid of the laptop and use chalk instead. Getting a little dirty makes me feel like I'm earning my keep anyway. Whiteboards are sterile and soulless.