Goodbye Blackboard

Going… going…

As a grade partner of mine left their room on Friday afternoon, they said goodbye to me (as we friendly people in Year 4 do), but then also to her chalkboard.

It was a realisation that when we walked back into our rooms on Monday morning, the first and very obvious step towards a very different classroom would have already been taken.  The chalkboard … gone.

Yes, we’ll retain the smaller (and formerly sliding) whiteboard, but the interactive whiteboard (due for installation very soon) will provide a never-before-seen opportunity at St. Michael’s to really change the way we teach and learn through the new tools available at our fingertips.

The shock of a missing chalkboard was a little more brutal in our Year 1 rooms almost a week ago.  As one teacher put it, “… there were 5 minutes there when I was in stand-still shock, but then it was okay…”  The missing chalkboards revealed an unpainted wall – yes, their boards were built in to the classroom when it was built in the 1970’s!  Come this Monday, the should have a pleasant surprise – new feature walls painted this weekend before the new IWBs get installed.

My colleague and I reflected on all the things we were led to believe would happen in the year 2000 when we were kids.  The 21st Century was going to be a world where your house was up in the air, you drove hover cars that would fold up into a briefcase, and we’d all have a robot at home to do the housekeeping!  Yes, the makers of The Jetsons have a lot to answer for today.  But, with 21st Century technology in our classrooms, perhaps we’ll be able to inspire and challenge the learner that will one day build that fold-up hover car…