The document discusses various teaching aids, focusing on traditional blackboards, whiteboards, and smart boards, detailing their characteristics, advantages, and ideal uses. It emphasizes the importance of effective planning and execution of blackboard use in classrooms, including how to incorporate student views and experiences. It also highlights common pitfalls in blackboard use, such as lack of preparation and poor visibility.

1. The Blackboard
Anup K Singh

2. The Old Blackboard
• It has been the oldest teaching aid
• It visually represents a point that a teacher wishes to
makes
• Later it also represents the views and thoughts of
students
• Wide variations in the use of the blackboard by the
instructors
• The visual richness of a blackboard can be increased by
the use of different colours of chalk
• It can be supplemented by flip charts, screens and TVs

3. The Whiteboard
• Smaller than the blackboard
• Easier to use
• Good for syndicate and small class
• Colour variation
• Can be used as a screen
• No chalk dust

4. The Smart board
• The modern version of the blackboard; looks
more like a whiteboard
• The board is connected with a computer and
projector; hence, it is intelligent
• The whiteboard acts as the computer monitor
• It can have multiple pages. One can flip them
• An experiment or an exercise can be
programmed

5. The Ideal Blackboard
• Big enough to contain the views and thoughts of
the teacher and students without erasing them in
a class
• Easy to use and erase
• High visibility of text and visual from different
places in a classroom
• Lighted from the top for superior visibility
• Appropriately fixed to be used by people of
different heights
• Can be supplemented by other visual aids

6. Planning for Blackboard Use
• Using a wide sheet of paper to represent the blackboard
• Writing down the learning outcomes of the session
• Developing content and pedagogy to achieve the learning
outcomes
• Creating spaces on the paper sheet to represent the experiences
from the exercise (pedagogy), students’ views and the teacher’s
points
• Writing down possible experiences, students’ views and the
teacher’s contents
• Leaving 20% space for unplanned activities
• Planning the use of other visual aids
• Visualising how the blackboard would look like at the end of the
session
• Matching the teaching strategy with blackboard plan

7. Using the Blackboard
• Stick to the blackboard plan as much as possible
• Be fair and prompt in writing students’ views
• Use full board; don’t clutter
• Balance between the use of blackboard and
interaction with the students
• Be legible and be visible to the last row
• Use different chalk colours to differentiate
spaces
• Take a snap of your final blackboard from time to
time to reflect and review

8. Problems in Blackboard Use
• Lack of preparation for blackboard use
• Sudden shift from blackboard use to LCD use
• Ignoring students’ views on the blackboard
• Poor balance between chalk and talk
• Not facing the audience and sticking too
much with the blackboard
• Bad chalk
• Only text no visual