BLACKBOARDS—The first blackboard used in a school was in Philadelphia in 1809. Early blackboards were made from pine lumber and covered with a mixture of egg white and carbon from charred potatoes. Teachers & students wrote with chunks of chalk and erased with cloth rags. When slate boards became available, teachers used cylinders or white, soft chalk and a felt eraser. These blackboards and slate boards were laborious apparatuses, and the accompanying chalk dust was the bane of all teachers. The blackboard was an important instructional device, allowing the teacher to illustrate lessons by directing the attention of the entire class. Today, the black board is still common, but is slowly being replaced by the whiteboard, a plastic composite of the same size and shape. The teacher writes on the board using color,