Whiteboards had been available for decades before educators embraced them. In the 1960s, catalogs for hardware retailers advertised the wet-erase Plasti-Slate, an “always-fresh writing board for home or office.” The corporate world got on board when dry erase markers became available in the 1970s.

But whiteboards didn’t start appearing in schools until the 1990s. The reason for their adoption? Computers. Late-century articles heralding the advent of the classroom whiteboard all cited the effect of chalk dust on computers as the impetus for eliminating chalkboards. Chalk dust was a rising concern as the average number of computers in public schools increased from a ratio of one computer for every 30 students in 1988 to one for every five in 1999. By that year, chalkboards were scarce enough that the Chicago Tribune interviewed fifth graders who had never seen one in real life.

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Enthusiastic adopters appreciated the whiteboard’s smooth surface and the contrast between dark-colored markers and white background. They said good riddance to dust on their clothes and the squeaky sound of chalk against chalkboard. Other educators held onto their chalk. My mother, who became a teacher in 1971, was a chalkboard devotee. When the middle school where she taught was renovated in 2001, teachers were asked to choose between chalkboards and whiteboards. My mom opted for a chalkboard and used it until she retired in 2012, at which point the district installed a whiteboard.

For teachers like my mother, the chalkboard’s appeal is largely aesthetic. My mom found chalkboards easier to clean and considered their green color more calming than white. (This perceived calming benefit is among the reasons chalkboards remain popular in Japan, where they are still present in 75 percent of K-12 classrooms.) Likewise, my mother enjoyed the feel of the chalk in her hand and liked how her handwriting looked on the chalkboard.

Of course, handwriting itself is disappearing from school curriculums, made less relevant by the same digital technologies that have rendered the chalkboard obsolete. As author Anne Trubek observes in The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, handwriting is increasingly valued more as an art than a practical skill. Brides hire calligraphers to address their wedding invitations, graphic designers study lettering books, and restaurants display hand-lettered menus—typically written on chalkboards. These days, most chalkboards are sold to restaurants, not to schools.

The link between whiteboards and digital culture helped many U.S. schools adopt smartboards. By 2014, 60 percent of K-12 classrooms had interactive whiteboards, a figure that’s expected to increase to 73 percent by 2019. Interactive whiteboards, or IWBs, are a topic of debate in education journals and among teachers. Proponents cite their potential to engage tech-savvy kids, encourage class-wide participation via remote clickers, and expand access to lesson materials. For example, my daughter’s fourth-grade teacher delivered a geography lesson that would have astounded James Pillans. Projecting a Google Map of the state of Washington onto the whiteboard, he zoomed in on various regions and alternated between map and satellite views. He used Street View to conduct virtual tours of points of interest, like the State Capitol, in Olympia, and the University of Washington campus.