Whiteboard
Albert Stallion invented whiteboards while working at Alliance in the 1960s. Alliance (now known as PolyVision) produced enameled steel for architectural cladding, but Stallion noted it could also potentially be used as a writing surface. Stallion later left Alliance to form his own whiteboard production company, MagiBoards.
Slate (writing)
The exact origins of the writing slate remain unclear. References to its use can be found in the fourteenth century and evidence suggests that it was used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The central time period for the writing slate, however, “appears to begin in the later eighteenth century, when developments in sea and land transport permitted the gradual expansion of slate quarrying in Wales and the growth of a substantial slate workshop industry.” By the nineteenth century, writing slates were used around the world in nearly every school and were a central part of the slate industry. At the dawn of the twentieth century, writing slates were the primary tool in the classroom for students. In the 1930s (or later) writing slates began to be replaced by more modern methods. However, writing slates did not become obsolete. They are still made in the twenty-first century, though in small quantities.