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.
Blackboard
The first classroom uses of large blackboards are difficult to date, but they were used for music education and composition in Europe as far back as the sixteenth century.
The term ‘blackboard’ is attested in English from the mid-eighteenth century; the "Oxford English Dictionary" provides a citation from 1739, to write “with Chalk on a black-Board”.
The first attested use of chalk on blackboard in the United States dates to September 21, 1801, in a lecture course in mathematics given by George Baron. James Pillans has been credited with the invention of coloured chalk (1814): he had a recipe with ground chalk, dyes and porridge.