What method did your teachers use to present information when you were in school?
Was it a chalk board, white board, smart board, other?
ArishMell · 70-79, M
Chalk on blackboard, and standard text-books, mainly, throughout my school career, but from my First Year (aged 11) in Grammar School, also:
A six-foot long demonstration model of a simple slide-rule hung from the blackboard frame, when we were taught how to use a slide-rule.*
Physical demonstrations by the teachers, and experiments by us, in the laboratories. Similarly for specific skills in PE.
Physical demonstrations in practical arts and crafts (the latter; Domestic Science for the girls, Woodwork or Metalwork for the boys).
Epidiascopes: in later years a science teacher told me these were useful for showing small objects as well as documents or transparencies.
Very occasionally, films - though most of those we saw were documentaries shown in an after-school, voluntary "Science Club".
Language-laboratory, although I don't recall our French lessons ever using it more than a couple of times. The school also taught German and Latin but I don't know if the lab. had tapes for those.
Sometimes, BBC Radio or TV schools-services programmes: the last I saw supported a peculiar pilot maths syllabus called the "School Mathematics Project", alongside the conventional syllabus leading to GCE O-Level.
Very occasional visits to local industries or research establishments.
.....
*The company who made that slide-rule, Blundell-Harling, also made standard slide-rules for general use, plus some basic pocket-size ones bought by schools for issuing to pupils, I have lost my specimen of that but still own the "proper" one, about a foot long, I bought in later years. And I can still use it.
Blundell-Harling still trades from its Weymouth factory, surviving because when the conventional slide-rule was displaced by the electronic calculator the company switched to making special slide-rules for specific trades, and drawing-boards.
A six-foot long demonstration model of a simple slide-rule hung from the blackboard frame, when we were taught how to use a slide-rule.*
Physical demonstrations by the teachers, and experiments by us, in the laboratories. Similarly for specific skills in PE.
Physical demonstrations in practical arts and crafts (the latter; Domestic Science for the girls, Woodwork or Metalwork for the boys).
Epidiascopes: in later years a science teacher told me these were useful for showing small objects as well as documents or transparencies.
Very occasionally, films - though most of those we saw were documentaries shown in an after-school, voluntary "Science Club".
Language-laboratory, although I don't recall our French lessons ever using it more than a couple of times. The school also taught German and Latin but I don't know if the lab. had tapes for those.
Sometimes, BBC Radio or TV schools-services programmes: the last I saw supported a peculiar pilot maths syllabus called the "School Mathematics Project", alongside the conventional syllabus leading to GCE O-Level.
Very occasional visits to local industries or research establishments.
.....
*The company who made that slide-rule, Blundell-Harling, also made standard slide-rules for general use, plus some basic pocket-size ones bought by schools for issuing to pupils, I have lost my specimen of that but still own the "proper" one, about a foot long, I bought in later years. And I can still use it.
Blundell-Harling still trades from its Weymouth factory, surviving because when the conventional slide-rule was displaced by the electronic calculator the company switched to making special slide-rules for specific trades, and drawing-boards.
peterlee · M
Slate
And we had inkwells and quills
Later we were allowed to use a fountain pen.
Never a biro though, we were told it would spoil your writing.
At our posh new grammar school, the teachers used a black board.
I suspect this is all politically incorrect now.
And we had inkwells and quills
Later we were allowed to use a fountain pen.
Never a biro though, we were told it would spoil your writing.
At our posh new grammar school, the teachers used a black board.
I suspect this is all politically incorrect now.
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
@FreddieUK My Primary School used desks with ink-wells but certainly in the Fourth (so last) Year there we all used fountain-pens. Once in senior school we had to provide our own ink.
Our form-teacher called the new-fangled ball-point pen "Pigs'-Grease" and bad for our handwriting, but my writing was always ropey so I don't suppose my choice of pen affected it much. (We learnt hand-writing - or "joined-up writing" - in that same Year.)
Our form-teacher called the new-fangled ball-point pen "Pigs'-Grease" and bad for our handwriting, but my writing was always ropey so I don't suppose my choice of pen affected it much. (We learnt hand-writing - or "joined-up writing" - in that same Year.)
FreddieUK · 70-79, M
@ArishMell The contempt for the ball point pen was, I think, pretty universal. I used a fountain pen for everything formal (including marking, with red ink) well into my 30s. I suspect the advent of word processing was the final factor in seeing off my fountain pen. My handwriting is now very poor compared with what it was.
CrazyMusicLover · 31-35
Chalk board
Overhead projector with Powerpoint presentations.
Posters, maps, models, books
At the time we got interactive smart board in high school, I remember exactly one teacher who was prepared to use it, so it just stood there for whole 4 years basically unused. 😅
Strangely, I don't remember whiteboards being used much.
Overhead projector with Powerpoint presentations.
Posters, maps, models, books
At the time we got interactive smart board in high school, I remember exactly one teacher who was prepared to use it, so it just stood there for whole 4 years basically unused. 😅
Strangely, I don't remember whiteboards being used much.
ElwoodBlues · M
ElwoodBlues · M
@peterlee I'm pretty sure "Our Mr. Sun" was one of them. I loved them! I didn't encounter Latin until I signed up for it in 9th grade. Big mistake!!
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FreddieUK · 70-79, M
A chalkboard (which was called a blackboard before green boards became a 'thing') and chalk which was skillfully used to write script and draw neat diagrams. Board work was something a teacher could be proud of. The chalk made a useful missile to attract the attention of those with limited concentration.
@HootyTheNightOwl I don’t think I have seen these before.
SethGreene531 · M
Chalkboards, blackboard, film reels and projectors, and later overhead projectors.
We finished with VHS and 1 or 2 dry erase boards.
We finished with VHS and 1 or 2 dry erase boards.
WandererTony · 56-60, M
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
@SunshineGirl Or as my employer did.... Use a large room of ordinary ceiling height so what bits of the display were not eclipsed by the intervening heads, were too far away to read anyway.
I have never used Powerpoint fully but have played with it, and found that if you use its basic tools and default setiings you can produce a smart slide-show without gimmicks. It's what you are showing that counts, and that excludes you showing off your ability to lard the show with silly distractions from PP's more arcane / less-useful tools.
No amount of clutter will compensate for dreary facts and figures or spreadsheet-graphs with questionable scaling!
I have never used Powerpoint fully but have played with it, and found that if you use its basic tools and default setiings you can produce a smart slide-show without gimmicks. It's what you are showing that counts, and that excludes you showing off your ability to lard the show with silly distractions from PP's more arcane / less-useful tools.
No amount of clutter will compensate for dreary facts and figures or spreadsheet-graphs with questionable scaling!
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
@ArishMell Yes, important to remember that it is a tool for communication and no amount of visual distraction redeem fundamentally dull material!
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@SunshineGirl Indeed! It's even more useless when you can't see it at the far end of a long room!
Fundamentally dull... but another mistake is too much information, and much of that couched in terms many of the audience would naturally not know or need anyway. That can be from presentations made for specific audiences like the finance department or customers, shown to everyone without editing it first.
Fundamentally dull... but another mistake is too much information, and much of that couched in terms many of the audience would naturally not know or need anyway. That can be from presentations made for specific audiences like the finance department or customers, shown to everyone without editing it first.
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
ShenaniganFoodie · 36-40, M
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