SIX NOVEL APPROACHES TO USING YOUR CLASSROOM DRY ERASE WALL

If you’re a teacher who has a premium dry erase painted wall in your classroom, you’ve undoubtedly been in front of it many times taking notes during a problem-based learning (PBL) session, drawing a diagram to supplement a verbal explanation, or simply listing the main points presented in a lesson. In such cases, your dry erase wall serves as an invaluable tool for recording and communicating ideas and images to your students in a large, easy-to-see format.

Regrettably, however, the ways in which dry erase walls are used in the classroom are often not especially original or creative. Generating mind maps, writing lists and outlines, and making drawings and graphs are the go-to dry erase wall activities for most teachers and students during the typical school day. However, it’s possible to use this classroom staple in much more imaginative and unusual ways to enhance the process of teaching and learning. Here are six novel dry erase wall strategies for your consideration that can add variety to your standard set of teaching techniques and hopefully increase your students’ excitement and engagement in learning.

1. Switching Note-taking Roles can Re-energize a Group Brainstorming Session

Instead of giving all of the responsibility to yourself or the designated note-taker during classroom brainstorming sessions, why not try exchanging roles throughout the class period? Having students hand over their dry erase marker to a fellow student can be an effortless way to liven up the course of a brainstorming activity and introduce new perspectives to a mind map or a starburst diagram being created on your dry erase wall. This technique also teaches students to adjust and get used to other people’s learning processes, thus improving their skills at partnership building and teamwork.

2. Turning the Tables Offers Students a Chance to Collaborate More Powerfully

As an alternative to continuously turning your back to students when writing information on your dry erase wall in class, it’s more productive to “turn the tables” and engage everyone in the teaching and learning process. Premium dry erase paint can transform any smooth flat surface in your classroom, such as a table, your desk, or students’ desks, into a blank canvas for writing and drawing.

When a number of dry erase painted surfaces are available throughout the room, your students can gather around to collaborate and become part of the teaching and note-taking process by writing down their ideas, adding comments, and discussing lesson material as a group. In this way, student-to-student relationships will be fostered, and brainstorming sessions will become more dynamic, engaging, and interactive, leading to productive teaching outcomes in any subject from math to language arts to history.

3. Make Note-taking a More Inclusive Experience for Students with Post-its

When acting as a note-taker during a brainstorming session, it can be exhausting and frustrating for a teacher to have to deal with the steady flood of ideas and questions coming from eager students. However, by combining a mind map that’s generated on your dry erase wall with personally written and edited post-it notes from the whole class, the activity of note-taking can become more wide-ranging and democratic, as all of the students have a chance to express their ideas and participate on an equal basis. In addition, by using this approach, everyone in the class gets the opportunity to be part of the note-taking activity while you still function as the central note-taker to guide the process along.

This technique works well to enhance student understanding, as it may often be challenging for a class to assimilate and respond to all the ideas being recorded on a complex, multi-tiered mind map. But using multi-colored post-it notes allows for students to add their own color-coded ideas to the wall and thus more quickly orient themselves to the complex thought processes and layers involved in a large mind map.

4. Turn the Use of Your Dry Erase Wall into a Digital Experience

Technology has always had a great deal to offer for the field of education, and these days many teachers are embracing electronic whiteboards in place of traditional framed whiteboards as go-to classroom teaching tools. However, not every facility or school system has the kind of budget that can handle purchasing expensive high-tech equipment such as interactive whiteboards. Also, electronic whiteboards can be hard to operate for teachers who lack strong technology skills or have not been trained in how to use these devices. Another problem is that in some classroom situations, it may be difficult for students to see and use interactive whiteboards effectively due to glare and other factors.
But a unique and less complicated way to digitize the whiteboard experience for your students is available for little cost, namely, the use of a dry erase painted wall in conjunction with a video projector as an instructional tool.

By using your video projector to project images onto your dry erase wall instead of a conventional projector screen, you can construct an exciting interactive learning environment in the classroom where visuals become supplements to your regular note-taking activities. In this way, your verbal explanations during lessons will become clearer and more engaging, and a new dimension will be added to your daily presentations that students are sure to appreciate and enjoy.

Focusing the class projector on the part of the dry erase wall you’re using to present lesson material will provide you with plenty of opportunity to create mixed media presentations and teach complex ideas in various subject areas through a blend of notes, videos, and even statistical data when appropriate. The low-gloss sheen of premium dry erase painted walls allows them to serve as excellent projection screens, so that clear visibility is always ensured for your students during lessons.

5. Spelling Bees and other Games for Younger Students Provide Variety

Dry erase walls are ideal to use with younger students with whom you can hold games and contests such as spelling bees and scrabble. Students are more likely to retain information like the proper spelling of English words when they write them down by hand, especially on a vertical surface such as a Dry Erase Painted wall. Writing and drawing on vertical surfaces has been shown to enhance students’ learning ability and psychomotor development in a number of ways.

To hold a spelling bee, divide your class into groups of three or four, call out words that you’re currently studying, and allow the students to take turns spelling out the words on your dry erase wall. Turn the activity into a friendly competition by offering the winning group bonus points or a small reward for their efforts.

6. Capturing the Contents of a Day’s Lesson is a Great Way to Preserve Notes

While leaving at the end of the day or at lunchtime, many students use their phones to take pictures of the classroom dry erase wall as a reminder of the topics discussed or to provide them with notes when studying for tests. In such cases, readability can be an issue, but as always, there are apps to address this problem. Multiple scanning apps are now on the market that can turn your students’ dry erase wall photos into easy-to-read PDF files to make life a lot easier and more organized for everyone.

These are just a few ways to use whiteboards in the classroom. Not only are whiteboards a great way to engage students, but they’re cost-effective and better for the environment.

Capture it
Students often leave the classroom taking pictures of the whiteboard as a reminder of the discussed topics during readings or for an overview when studying for the exam. Readability is an issue, though. But, as always, there is an app for that! There are now multiple scanning apps available that will turn your whiteboard pictures into easy-to-read PDFs that will make life a bit more organized.

DRY ERASE WALLS CONTRIBUTE TO PRODUCTIVE LEARNING ZONES

Nowadays, devising well-defined learning zones within classrooms and throughout school buildings are viewed as a key to fostering 21st-century high-impact learning, where students are actively engaged in the educational process, and learning extends beyond the classroom to outdoor areas and even the workplace. For teachers and designers, this approach creates both challenges and new opportunities to come up with creative solutions.

High-impact learning has caused an increased demand in education for flexible spaces that address the individual needs of students who have diverse intelligence and learning styles. Children, adolescents, and adults acquire knowledge in a variety of ways beyond traditional “cells and bells” classroom settings, and learning zones are designed to address this diversity.

Learning Zones Empower Students to Help Educate Themselves

Recent decades have seen a sharp increase in the drive to support collaborative learning and other project-based instructional methods by developing classroom learning zones. These areas, both inside and outside a school building, give students the power to become active participants in their own education and personal growth.

Today’s learners are connected with one another and with the world through electronic media and possess a strong desire for instant access to information through various means. They’re at ease in both real-life and virtual settings, and seek out interactive and communal activities where they have the power to express their voice freely. They are also competent at self-directed activities and can swiftly adapt to new technological advances. This type of quick thinking ability is valuable because most of the careers that young people will be exposed to in the future have not yet been created.

Learning Zones Provide Ideal Places for Spontaneous Learning

From the standpoint of educational space planning, designers and architects have responded to the needs of today’s students by increasing the development of learning zones, which can exist at any location in a school and its surroundings, including outdoor areas. Nowadays, education is taking a more flexible approach, and interest in encouraging spontaneous interactions among learners is on the rise. Thus, today’s educational space designs don’t tell students that “food is available here and learning happens here.” Technological advances, especially Wi-Fi, are redefining the nature of learning environments.

Even tiny areas and hallways are now viewed by designers and educators as effective learning zones, as long as supervision is present to monitor student activity. Zoned spaces allow for the maximum adaptability and serviceability of the existing environment within school buildings, which contain both zones and sub-group zones. Within a given educational facility, it’s possible to find geographical areas that are ideal for active, collaborative learning, such as the media center, computer lab, woodshop, social gathering space, and tutoring center. Within the classrooms, both independent learning and group learning zones can be found.

Dry Erase Paint is Ideal for Application in Learning Zones

Since learning zones throughout a school building are designed to foster spontaneous learning activities, top-quality dry erase paint is ideally suited for application in these areas. When students have ready access to the large open expanse of a dry erase painted wall, they can give free rein to their imaginations in impromptu group brainstorming sessions for class projects, in solving problems for math assignments, and countless other activities.

Dry erase painted walls stimulate student engagement and enthusiasm by offering large spaces to express ideas in learning zones anywhere in a school building. When students experience the great height and width of a dry erase wall, they feel empowered to free associate and brainstorm for as long as they like, and then erase and start all over again.

This sense of freedom to explore and express ideas supports the goal of designers creating learning zones for today’s evolving school culture. Education in the 21st century has become a much more complex process than it was in decades past. We have advanced from a manufacturing-based to an information-based global society, and the need for learning environments that promote creativity and higher-order thinking skills has expanded accordingly. Analysis, evaluation, and the creation of new inventions, along with advanced entrepreneurial skills, have become essential to the educational goals of today’s teachers and students.

Educators now want to make deep-level research and collaboration easier for students, and one of the most straightforward and trouble-free ways to help do so is by applying and using dry erase painted walls in our schools’ ever-expanding learning zones. The large dry erase surfaces encourage collaboration and the practice of intensive research by allowing multiple students to work on topics and questions at the same time and engage in dynamic give-and-take that can lead to a deeper understanding of the most complex issues.

Dry Erase Paint May be Applied in Learning Zones for All Grade Levels

Elementary schools generally have the most significant number of zoned spaces. Here students rotate through various learning centers throughout the day, mostly in the classroom or library. In middle school/junior high and high school, learning zones are being created within the classroom where students break away for active and collaborative learning activities.

The concept of learning zones or centers is being increasingly used in the primary grades. At this level, students stay in one or two classrooms throughout the school day, so the rooms tend to need these kinds of distinct zones. In these grades, dry erase walls constantly come in handy, as young learners study in the same area and have easy access to the walls for various class-related tasks.

Here again, dry erase painted walls are perfect for installing because they offer students a fun and exciting way to write, draw and doodle as much as they like for as long as they like and learn their course content at the same time. Research has shown that young children benefit significantly from doing school work on vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNSs) like dry erase walls, which enhance both their cognitive and psychomotor development.

Students in Higher Grades can also Profit from Dry Erase Walls

As students get older, learning becomes more about attentive listening and less about exploring and discovering. Zones designed for students of upper-grade levels, such as the small group space and the demonstration space, are set up in classrooms or areas devoted to particular academic subjects. In these grades, where more flexibility of movement is possible, learning zones also exist in other parts of a school building outside of classrooms. And all such areas are excellent candidates for the application of premium dry erase paint.

Creating Learning Zones Involves Arranging Furniture

Designing and delineating specialized learning spaces in a school building ultimately comes down to the appropriate use of furniture. The furniture in various parts of a school needs to be easily rearranged to create settings for one-on-one, large-group, small-group, and project-based learning activities, along with performances, presentations, and lectures. In other words, classrooms must allow for easy transitions from learner-led to teacher-guided types of lessons and school activities.

Tables that feature a height adjustment function and can be merged together are common choices, as is lightweight furniture on wheels for easy moving. In addition, classroom chairs should allow for body movement to help students keep their minds focused during lessons. A learning zone’s overall arrangement is also essential, with the teacher’s desk and chair being generally in the middle of the space, not in front all the time. The surfaces of all the furnishings in a learning zone can easily be coated with top-quality Dry Erase Paint to add greater functionality and more opportunities for communication during teacher-student interactions.

Collaborative learning and individualized learning are creating the need for many of the zoned areas that are emerging in today’s schools, and both of these instructional strategies are well served by having premium dry erase painted surfaces available throughout a school for all students to use.

HOSTING AN EFFECTIVE MEETING WITH A WHITEBOARD WALL

Hosting an Effective Meeting with a Whiteboard Wall
Holding a successful business meeting is a bit like landing a space module on the planet Mars. Keeping track of the seemingly infinite variables involved in the process appears hopeless, and conducting the perfect team gathering never seems to work out quite as you had planned. But unproductive company meetings aren’t as inevitable as they may seem. With the right communication tools and a touch of inspiration, you can conduct the meeting of your dreams every time you and your team members get together. One such communication tool is the premium whiteboard wall, which offers a highly durable and virtually endless space for presenting facts, expressing opinions, and coming up with creative ideas for product launches, marketing schemes, and the like.

Make meetings a team activity

To have your meetings become more than personal lectures by you, the organizer, it’s a good idea to take regular advantage of the distinctive viewpoints, experiences, and skillsets of your team members at all of your business get-togethers. Doing so can provide you with great opportunities to make your meetings more efficient, collaborative, and worthwhile, thus enhancing your company’s creativity, productivity, and bottom line.

Organize a Discussion

With the appropriate organization and guidance, collective dialog can bring about a more engaging meeting and generate more new and unique solutions to problems than a traditional lecture, even when a question-and-answer session is included. Devoting a specific segment of your meeting schedule to a brainstorming session is an excellent way to stimulate such group dialog. As the meeting coordinator, your job is to outline the goals of the session and to work in conjunction with your team to expand on ideas they come up with during the brainstorming process. With small groups, it’s easy to encourage free conversation among all the members present, but with large groups, it’s difficult. Thus, it’s more effective to separate the participants in a large meeting into smaller clusters then reunite them after a specific time period to discuss everyone’s ideas in the large group context.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall to Practice “Brainwriting”

Brainstorming is a key part of meetings where top-quality whiteboard-coated walls come into play. For both small and large gatherings, the quality of group discussions can be optimized by using the vast canvas of a whiteboard wall. In smaller meetings, a massive whiteboard wall provides ample room for everyone in attendance to brainstorm together through the use of mind maps, free association, and a host of other methods. In large meetings, however, it’s best to make use of the ample writing area of a whiteboard wall by first dividing the participants into small groups then asking them to use different segments of the wall to record their individual brainstorming ideas.

One novel brainstorming approach that’s popular today is known as “brainwriting.” In this partially nonverbal method, the participants use pieces of paper to write down three original ideas related to the session’s topic. Then after a designated number of minutes, the team members pass their ideas to the individuals on their right, who build from these ideas, adding bullet points, new creative approaches, etc. Next, after another several minutes, all the participants pass the pieces of paper again until the papers have gone all the way around the group. Once the ideas have made it completely around the circle, the participants deliberate and choose which ones are best suited for further discussion.

By ensuring that everyone has a chance to contribute and by removing the common bias favoring the first idea presented, this strategy helps alleviate two of brainstorming’s most significant drawbacks — lop-sided conversations and the anchoring effect, whereby people rely too much on the first piece of information presented to draw subsequent conclusions during the decision making process.

Brainwriting can be even more effectively performed on the vast open surface of a whiteboard wall. Instead of using small pieces of paper to write down ideas related to the session’s topic, participants can write their thoughts on separate sections of the whiteboard wall in large lettering for all to see. Then after a set number of minutes, each team member can move to a different part of the wall and build on the ideas written by the previous writer, adding as much creative input as they want. Next, after another few minutes, the participants move again until they’ve given their input on all the sections of the wall written on by the group. Finally, now that the initial three ideas and subsequent contributions of all the participants have been posted on the wall, the group can review one another’s thoughts and choose those that are the most interesting and worthy of further discussion.

In such an exercise, compared to the cramped writing spaces of notepaper, the vast area of a whiteboard wall promotes more intensive levels of creative thought. Individuals tend to feel freer to express their novel ideas when confronted by the large open-ended surface of a whiteboard wall. Also, using a smooth-flowing dry erase marker as opposed to a small pen also tends to stimulate people to freely bring forth whatever is on their minds. These qualities can be of great benefit in practicing brainwriting because having much more space to write on in much larger letters tends to trigger ideas that might not arise when a person is confined to using 8 ½” by 11” notepaper as a writing surface.

Make Use of Free Association aka Rapid Ideation

In rapid ideation, meeting participants write down all the ideas that come to mind in a designated amount of time before anything is discussed, analyzed, or expanded upon. When practicing this brainstorming technique, you’ll have to establish a time limit, or else you’ll risk losing the feeling of urgency among your team members.

This brainstorming technique can be helpful in avoiding the common problem of having an idea shelved before it has a chance to grow and develop. By letting all meeting attendees bring forth their thoughts before any critiquing begins, rapid ideation eliminates the premature quashing of potentially great ideas and lets them flow out without constraints. The time limit can also help to prevent people from talking themselves out of an idea before they even begin sharing it with others—a frequent brainstorming mistake.

Use Your Whiteboard Wall as a Medium for Visual Aids

Including finely crafted visual components in your meeting presentations can enhance communications with team members, making them feel more engaged and interested in the content you present. Employing well-produced slides and other high-quality visual media such as films and diagrams can help participants to better comprehend and feel involved with your material, and a whiteboard wall is an ideal surface on which to perform such visual work. Designing and conducting graphic presentations are becoming increasingly essential tasks for doing business in today’s high-tech world of telecommuting and virtual communications.

Record All Significant Ideas and Input for Current and Future Reference

When you do a virtual meeting presentation, you should make a habit of writing down all the significant ideas and data put forward by the attendees on your whiteboard coated wall for all your team members to view and provide feedback on as the meeting progresses. Then you can erase and add more textual content and visuals whenever fresh ideas and information come up. The large dimensions and easy visibility of the content on your whiteboard wall will enhance the quality of your presentations, your communications with team members, and your team’s note-taking during virtual meetings, thus helping you to develop your individual brand and professional persona and boost your company’s productivity and profits. Then, after your virtual meetings are finished, you can take pictures of the results that you and the team members produced on the whiteboard wall and send them to the participants and other relevant parties for future reference and input.

Dry Erase Paint

Whiteboard Paint Reduces the Need for Electronic Devices

Whiteboard Paint Reduces the Need for Electronic Devices

Of the many environmental benefits of applying ReMarkable dry erase paint, one of the greatest is that it reduces the use of electronic products such as tablets and laptops, which generate an enormous quantity of waste that has devastating effects on Earth’s environment. As the amount of e-waste dramatically increases year by year, solutions for its proper recycling have lagged far behind. Although it is essential to give e-waste items to a certified recycling company that meets strict requirements for handling these materials, many individuals and businesses fail to do so. Their old electronics end up in landfills, producing toxic results for our air, water, and soil. The main hazardous substances to be found in discarded electronic products are lead, mercury, cadmium, zinc, yttrium, chromium, beryllium, nickel, brominated flame retardants, antimony trioxide, halogenated flame retardants, tin, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and phthalates. The presence of these and other toxins in our planet’s ecosystem can be greatly reduced through the use of whiteboard-painted walls in place of electronic devices.

Huge amounts of electronic scrap

poses a great risk both to the environment and to public health. Shortages in raw materials needed to make electronics have brought forth a new industry called “urban mining.”

The start of the 21st century has witnessed the generation of huge amounts of electronic scrap, whose careless recycling in both developed and developing nations poses a great risk both to the environment and to public health. As more people buy electronic gadgets, manufacturers are starting to experience shortages of the raw materials needed to make their products, so reclaiming and reusing the constituents of discarded e-products, called “urban mining,” makes good financial sense. A recent study conducted in China revealed that traditional mining of copper, gold, silver, and aluminum from ore is 13 times more costly than recovering these metals through the urban mining of electronic waste.

E-waste recycling involves taking old electronic devices apart

making it an expensive undertaking. Many companies illegally export e-waste to 3rd world nations where recycling is much cheaper but more destructive to the planet.

Proper or formal e-waste recycling typically involves taking old electronic devices apart, separating and categorizing their contents by material, and then cleaning them. Items are then mechanically shredded for further sorting through the use of advanced separation equipment. Companies that perform this service must adhere to strict health and safety guidelines and use pollution-control technologies that reduce the environmental and public health hazards of handling e-waste. All these procedures make formal recycling an expensive undertaking. As a result, many companies and countries illegally export their e-waste to developing nations where recycling methods are more cost-effective but also much more destructive to the planet.

In the unindustrialized nations where much of this illegal e-waste processing occurs, air pollution levels and concentrations of heavy metals are especially high around so-called “recycling plants,” as compared to other regions. These sites are typically backyard operations where impoverished local residents process the obsolete electronics by hand, separating them into parts to extract valuable metals such as gold, silver, and copper before disposing of the rest in landfills. Some metals and plastics are melted down, and those materials that can’t be feasibly processed accumulate in massive dumps near inhabited places and waterways. Sometimes, toxic fumes are inhaled directly as metals from the parts are burned in open bonfires.

Air-quality in e-scrap yards have highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins known

due to its e-waste industry. Dioxins are a group of chemically related compounds that are considered persistent environmental pollutants (POPs).

A typical site where these crude e-waste recycling methods are used is a cluster of villages in southeastern China known as the world’s largest dumping ground for electronic scrap from the United States. There local villagers remove solder from circuit boards over coal-fired grills, burn plastic casings from wires to extract the copper, silver, and mine gold by soaking computer chips in pools of hydrochloric acid. An air-quality study conducted in the area found that it had some of the highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins in the world due to its e-waste industry. Dioxins are a group of chemically related compounds that are considered persistent environmental pollutants (POPs).

Dioxins are found around the globe in local ecosystems, where they accumulate in the food chain, mainly in the fatty tissue of animals. These chemicals are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental issues, damage the immune system, interfere with the action of hormones, and cause cancer. Due to their potentially lethal nature, prevention or reduction of human exposure is best accomplished through direct measures, such as strict control of e-waste recycling processes to reduce the production of dioxins. Another approach is the application of ReMARKable whiteboard painted walls in schools, offices, and other facilities to reduce the use of electronic devices, which are some of their main sources.

E-waste recycling is detrimental to the health of the workers

Chronic exposure to the pollution emitted from e-waste dumpsites causes high concentrations of heavy metals like lead, copper, zinc, nickel, barium, and chromium to be present in human blood.

For the above-mentioned reasons, the current global recycling system is detrimental to the health of the workers who improperly handle e-waste without protection from dangerous materials and is also a direct cause of contamination in the surrounding environment. Chronic exposure to the atmospheric pollution emitted from e-waste dumpsites causes high concentrations of heavy metals such as lead, copper, zinc, nickel, barium, and chromium to be present in human blood and may be related to hypertension, abnormally low levels of blood oxygen, and other conditions in people working in or living near the sites. The trigger for the air-polluting effect of e-waste is the fact that when the material is heated by overexposure to the sun, for instance, these metals along with other toxic chemicals are released into the atmosphere, causing one of e-waste’s most harmful effects.

Lead is found in almost all Electronic devices

which are becoming obsolete at an astounding rate. When lead is released into the environment near these dumpsites, it can damage the blood, kidneys, and nervous systems of people in the area.

Regarding lead, almost all electronics contain it, and today these devices are growing in number and becoming obsolete at an astounding rate. When discarded, some of our most advanced technological devices represent rapidly expanding and often unregulated exposure to this highly poisonous metal, which plagued even the ancient Romans. A University of Florida environmental scientist recently studied the ecological impact of the lead found in 12 different types of electronic items commonly discarded in landfills. In a report sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), he presented his finding that the items leached lead at concentrations above the EPA threshold for categorizing a type of waste as hazardous. When released into the environment near these dumpsites, lead can damage the blood, kidneys, and nervous systems of people in the area.

Arsenic is present in circuit boards, LCD displays, and computer chips

In large doses, arsenic is lethal along with being a known carcinogen, cited to trigger skin cancer, liver cancer, and other forms of the disease.

The air around e-waste dumps is also high in arsenic, various acids, and other potentially toxic chemicals, including mercury and brominated flame retardants. Concerning arsenic, the reckless disposal of e-waste constitutes one of the most common sources of the inorganic form of this poison. Arsenic is present in circuit boards, LCD displays, computer chips, and other electronic components, and as these parts accumulate in landfills, the arsenic present seeps into the surrounding land, affecting its soil chemistry and possibly the contents of groundwater as well. The presence of arsenic in groundwater and soil has varying effects on different organisms and may be harmful to both land and sea animals. In humans, ingesting arsenic in low doses causes irritation of the digestive system, and in large doses, it’s lethal. Arsenic is also a known carcinogen, being cited as a trigger for skin cancer, liver cancer, and other forms of the disease.

Health risks with chemicals from e-waste leaching into soil and groundwater also exist

The potential threat to groundwater quality is of special concern in those states that have yet to enact landfill-ban legislation to control such waste.

Another common method of e-waste disposal is to simply burn the unusable parts after sorting. Introducing arsenic into the atmosphere in this way also has serious implications for human and animal health. For example, research by the National Cancer Institute has shown a linear relationship between inhaling arsenic and the development of lung cancer, as well as a wide range of nervous disorders. Although many states in the US have enacted landfill bans for most consumer electronics and appliances, the dangers associated with the chemicals from e-waste leaching into soil and groundwater remain. The potential threat to groundwater quality is of special concern in those states that have yet to enact landfill-ban legislation to control such waste.

Considering the many harmful environmental consequences related to electronic waste disposal, choosing economical, long-lasting, and eco-friendly ReMARKable Whiteboard Paint is a sensible alternative for all types of applications since it minimizes the need for laptops, tablets, and other devices, providing a highly flexible medium for conveying information and ideas in offices, schools, and other settings.

Dry Erase Walls

PROPER SURFACE PREPARATION FOR A DRY ERASE PAINTED WALL

Your Wall Must Be Smooth

One of the most critical parts of achieving a successful dry-erase paint application is providing an absolutely smooth substrate beforehand. Make sure that your wall is as smooth as possible prior to starting your application. This is one of the sometimes overlooked aspects of properly prepping a surface to be covered with premium dry-erase coating. Any holes, cracks, or cuts on the wall must be filled in with spackling paste, otherwise known as spackling compound, a plaster-like substance that resists shrinking and is formulated mainly for use in filling in smaller holes and other imperfections in drywall or plastered walls. If the smoothness is questionable after a thorough inspection, give the wall a quick sanding with some 220-grit sandpaper once you fill in any dents and holes with spackling compound, then wipe it off with a microfiber cloth. This step is so important we’ll say it another way: Make sure your wall’s surface is nice and smooth from top to bottom and from one end to the other.

The smoother and more regular your wall feels before the dry-erase paint application, the more attractive it will look and the easier it will be to write on and erase after the coating cures. To achieve a perfectly smooth surface, besides filling in all holes, cuts, and cracks, you’ll also have to eliminate any raised areas on the surface, such as lumps and divots, no matter how small they may be. Thus, you can guarantee that all writing and drawing you do on the cured dry-erase coated wall will look clear and that you can write and erase without leaving any missed spots. So make sure your surface is as perfectly even as possible because after your base paint and dry-erase paint dry, you won’t want to have high and low areas where dry erase marker ink can collect in the low places. This will cause minute spots to appear on your dry-erase surface that will be hard to erase, thus compromising the surface’s condition and requiring sanding and a new application.

Your Wall Must Be Dry

Make sure that any fresh paint on the wall has dried for at least 24 hours before beginning to apply the premium dry-erase paint. For example, if you have recently applied a fresh coat of ReMARKable Tintable Base Paint to your wall, allow it to dry for a minimum of one day before installing the premium dry-erase coating. Waiting this period of time for the base paint to dry is essential to avoiding problems with your dry-erase paint application, such as bubbling, adverse chemical reactions, and poor adhesion of the topcoat to the base coat.

Another issue that results from applying the dry-erase paint over an insufficiently dry base coat is wrinkling, which results from solvents contained in the wet base paint underneath attacking the topcoat above as they try to pass through, causing the coating to wrinkle and look unsightly. Should this problem occur, you will need to let the wrinkled coating dry thoroughly and then sand the surface with 180- to 220-grit sandpaper, depending on how severe the wrinkling is. Next, a second layer of dry-erase paint should be applied, this time allowing the base paint to dry thoroughly before applying the topcoat.

Besides making sure that your base paint is completely dry, it’s essential to monitor the moisture on the wall and in the room before applying the premium dry-erase coating. This is a vitally important step because next to dust, moisture and humidity are the arch enemies of good adhesion for all types of paints and coatings. If you need to get your surface dry in a hurry, you can use fans or a dehumidifier to accelerate the process. And besides making the surface perfectly moisture-free, it’s important to check for dampness in the air where you’re applying the coating because excessively humid air will also cause the whiteboard coating to adhere poorly to your surface. If the humidity level is high in the room, open the windows and doors to let the air move around freely and, in this way, lower the moisture level before starting the coating application.

Your Wall Must Be Dust Free

If your wall has just a slight bit of texture, you can simply use 220-grit sandpaper to lightly sand the surface until it’s completely smooth. Then thoroughly wipe down the wall with a dampened microfiber cloth followed by a dry microfiber cloth, and you’ll be ready to begin your dry-erase paint application. Using a pole sander, also known as a drywall sander, will make the job of sanding go much more quickly. A drywall sander is a tool with a long handle and a wide sandpaper holder that’s used for sanding plastered walls, hard-to-reach ceilings, and textured walls and for removing bits of paper, dried paint, old coatings, adhesive residue, loose plaster, and the like from walls prior to painting or coating.

After sanding, remember that with all types of paints and coatings, dust is the greatest enemy of proper adhesion, so be extremely careful to remove all dust or debris such as hairs, lint, and wood splinters from your surface before starting to apply the top-quality dry-erase coating. Microfiber cloths or mitts are ideal to use for this purpose because microfiber materials are capable of removing dust and other types of debris on a microscopic level, and due to their exceptionally fine fibers, they leave behind no lint or dust after use. In fact, studies have shown that when fabrics made of microfiber material are used as cleaning tools, 99% of all the bacteria present on a surface are eliminated, and the material’s electrostatic properties give it an amazing capacity to attract and hold onto the tiniest of dirt and dust particles as well.

Whiteboard Wall Paint

WHITEBOARD WALLS BOOST CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY AND ENGAGEMENT

Because whiteboard walls are by nature large, multi-purpose, easy to use, and completely open-ended, they have immense potential for stimulating children’s innate creativity and engagement in homeschool learning. For this reason, they quickly become popular teaching resources for homeschooling parents, who encourage youngsters to use the walls to release their imaginations in independent or collaborative school work and recreational activities.

There’s a great deal that a top-quality open-ended teaching medium like a whiteboard wall can offer to foster free-thinking and inventiveness in young people’s minds. Due to their large, inviting surfaces and unlimited potential uses, children feel inspired to return to whiteboard walls again and again during the school day to doodle, create spontaneous artworks, write poetry, and do other activities. This inspirational quality is not as common with writing and drawing surfaces like notebook paper, flip charts, and traditional whiteboards, whose size limitations restrict the rapid flow of ideas and images coming from children’s minds, thus making these media less exciting to use.

Doodling and drawing on whiteboard walls enhance learning

Drawing on the vast open-ended canvas of a whiteboard wall, even when using a simple technique like doodling, triggers insights and discoveries that aren’t as likely to emerge with note pads, flip charts, or other small surfaces. When children draw an object or just randomly doodle, their minds become deeply attentive and focused. And it is this high level of attention that allows youngsters to become fully conscious of what they’re doing, which in turn helps them develop thinking skills that can be applied to schoolwork and to professional or business careers later in life.

This effect is amplified when children doodle or draw on a top-quality whiteboard-coated wall because studies show that using a large upright surface like a whiteboard wall greatly increases children’s creativity and engagement in school lessons. Working with dry erase markers on the vast open-ended canvas of a whiteboard wall is a lot more fun than writing and drawing using pencil and paper on a desk or tabletop with a limited amount of area to work on. Being horizontal surfaces, desks and tables also limit children’s use of their arm, hand, and back muscles, thus slowing the development of core strength, proper pencil grip, and other motor skills that children need to lead successful lives.

Drawing or doodling with a pencil or pen and paper is thus not only less exciting than working on a whiteboard wall but also less beneficial to children’s physical and mental development. For parents who want their homeschoolers to gain the most benefit for their bodies and brains while doing academic work, having them doodle, draw, and write on a whiteboard wall is an excellent option. And it is the element of fun that prompts young students to become more excited and engaged when working with a marker on a whiteboard wall than they would be working with pencil and paper.

Whiteboard walls make schoolwork more exciting

The freedom, expansiveness, and mobility of using a large area for school work make youngsters more interested in exploring new academic material and creative ideas. In addition, errors can be readily and cleanly erased from whiteboard walls, so there’s no need for kids to be concerned about leaving a messy smudged surface as they would when frequently erasing paper. In contrast to writing in a notebook or on a flip chart, writing with dry-erase markers on a whiteboard wall is more temporary and easily erased, and hence more able to stimulate the free flow of ideas. With a few quick swipes of a microfiber cloth, mistakes or unwanted writings will disappear so that new answers or thoughts can continue to be recorded until the correct solution or the best creative idea emerges.

Drawing, doodling, and writing on whiteboard walls reflects an age-old human tradition

Drawing, sketching, and doodling are time-honored human activities that help children to learn, free associate, and produce creative new ideas. Nowadays, the flood of branded blank sketchbooks, note pads, and journals on the market is helping to generate renewed interest in these pursuits. However, such paper-based materials have to be used while sitting near-horizontal surfaces such as tables, counters, or desks. And this position can hinder aspects of children’s psychomotor development by making them look down, hunch over, sit in a slouched posture, and limit their arm, wrist, and hand movements. By comparison, drawing or doodling on a whiteboard wall requires children to stand upright and use large sweeping motions to make images and write text, thus improving their skills in many important areas of physical and cognitive growth, including bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, and core strength.

It seems that the need to draw and doodle is hardwired into the human brain. In fact, among our early ancestors, the making of graphic markings on walls began long before the use of spoken language, as reflected in the world-famous prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux in southern France. Thus, both random doodling and more methodical free-hand drawing have long been essential to human beings for conveying creative ideas and feelings.

The practice of writing on vertical surfaces like walls, called epigraphy, has also existed since time immemorial, with cases dating back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. So, when children write, draw, or doodle on a whiteboard wall, they’re engaging in a natural human activity that goes back for millennia. Epigraphy serves different functions from writing on horizontal surfaces such as tables, counters, and desks or typing on computers or laptops because wall writing cultivates improved eye-hand coordination, visual attention, and other skills that children need for success in their studies and in daily life.

Whiteboard walls facilitate seeing “the big picture”

Also, on the broad expanse of a whiteboard-coated wall, children can view large writings or drawings at a single glance, thus making it easier for them to “get the big picture” when studying maps in geography, timelines in history, or graphic content in other subject areas. Thus, by far the most effective and engaging epigraphic medium for homeschool use is a large high-quality whiteboard-coated wall.

The vast, flexible, and limitless nature of premium whiteboard-coated walls allow them to constantly adapt and grow in step with the needs and skill levels of homeschoolers as they develop physically, academically, and creatively. Thus, both the instructional uses and productive potential of whiteboard walls are never-ending for both parents and children. As such, a whiteboard-coated wall in the homeschool environment can become a highly valued resource that inspires endless amounts of imaginative, engaged, and distinctive work and entertainment.

Creative Work Enhances Self Esteem and Family Bonding

Another significant point to note is that working creatively on a whiteboard wall in the homeschool setting can help to raise children’s self-esteem and improve the quality of family bonds. Expressing their creative images and ideas easily and freely on a whiteboard wall helps children feel good about themselves, and the ongoing encouragement of parents can help in this process. When given challenging art assignments that are appropriate for their level and that they can draw with a reasonable amount of effort, kids will be delighted at their accomplishments. The feat of successfully completing such creative tasks will encourage children to try even more challenging work in the future, and with a parent’s ongoing supervision and support, this can easily be accomplished.

Such activities reinforce the bond between parents and children because they have so many ideas to share that can easily be expressed on a whiteboard-coated wall. Grandparents may also be included in the idea-sharing. Whoever kids choose to interact in this way, working on whiteboard walls will definitely make their creative activities fun and help to improve family relations in the process.

Dry Erase Paint

How Dry-Erase Painted Walls Benefit Teachers

Top-quality ReMARKable Dry-Erase Paint is a natural fit as an instructional tool for teachers from the kindergarten to the university level. The huge open writing and drawing canvas provided by a dry-erase painted wall makes teaching much easier and more enjoyable for students and teachers alike. Some of the many advantages that dry-erase painted surfaces provide for teachers are presented in this article.

Promote Retention of Lesson Material through “Meta-cognitive Modelling”

The real-time creation of text and visual images that occurs when teachers use dry-erase painted walls strengthens information retention among students studying math, science, English, history, and other subjects. Also, when teachers speak while going through a series of steps in a process like solving a math problem or interpreting a story on a dry-erase wall, they engage in “meta-cognitive modeling.” In this approach, teachers talk through the various stages of their thought process with students while writing on the wall, thus demonstrating how to reason in lessons that involve interpreting information, analyzing statements, solving problems, or drawing conclusions. The meta-cognitive modeling or thinking-out-loud technique is especially applicable in math classes, where teachers plan and then explicitly describe their underlying thinking process during problem-solving.

In fact, this activity should be the main focus of so-called “teacher talk” during all types of lessons. Teacher talk includes everything said to students while they’re working in the classroom, and when teachers think out loud, students pay closer attention than they otherwise would. The meta-cognitive modeling strategy can also be practiced in reading classes, as teachers ask rhetorical questions while reading a story or make comments about how to anticipate what’s coming up next in the plot while writing down the key aspects of their thought process on a dry erase wall as they go.

In this way, students can more actively participate in learning by bringing together all of their mental resources and so have more profitable learning experiences. In order to do this, a dry-erase painted wall can function as a centerpiece for the learning process as teachers write out and speak about the sequence of steps involved in solving or understanding given academic material like the math problems or story plots mentioned above. When children “think about thinking” like this, they come to understand how they learn and become conscious of the steps followed and the
means used to gain knowledge, solve problems and perform other academic tasks.

Enhance Collaboration among Students and between Teachers and Students

By promoting lively interaction between teachers and students and among groups of students working together on lessons, dry-erase walls are ideal media for real-time collaborative learning. According to studies by educational psychologists, students using dry-erase boards instead of flip charts or other media are better at collaborating and encouraging others to work with them in sharing ideas.

For instance, in comparing flip charts to dry-erase boards, the researchers found that geometry students who worked out problems on flip charts did most of their talking before any writing or drawing began, possibly because marker ink is not erasable from flip chart paper. Therefore, much of the reasoning about what should be presented on the charts stopped before much content was written down. This occurred even though the students had been told they could start over on a fresh sheet of paper as often as they liked. In addition, the writer was almost always the same student – the one who drew the best, wrote most legibly or was the most aggressive in snatching the marker. This caused the final product that appeared on the flip charts to be the writers’ versions of the groups’ ideas.

However, with dry-erase boards, instead of waiting until the group’s reasoning process was completed, students began writing immediately, then stopped, started, and erased and rewrote constantly, so what appeared on the board evolved as the conversation developed. While some of the students didn’t write anything, it was much more common to have several students writing or drawing on the board at the same time. Additionally, students who avoided writing did occasionally erase what others had written or suggested that what had been done should be erased and redone.

These findings show that dry-erase boards stimulate group collaboration in a much more dynamic and democratic way than do flip charts or other non-erasable media. The students working on dry-erase surfaces avoided stopping to think about what they were going to write down but instead jumped in and started writing and erasing, so their work evolved dynamically as they collaborated during the problem-solving process. And, with the vast surfaces offered by dry-erase painted walls, such collaborative work would have been even more creative and free-flowing, with many students being able to write at the same time and interacting as a group to solve the assigned geometry problem.

Stimulate Interactivity in the Classroom

Who needs the hassle and high price tag of a complicated electronic interactive whiteboard when a dry-erase painted wall can serve the same purpose for a fraction of the cost? A dry-erase-painted surface turns a classroom wall into a giant interactive whiteboard that teachers can use jointly with multiple students throughout the school day for lessons in any subject area and for any length of time needed.

Provide Freedom to Teach with Abandon

Dry-erase painted walls give teachers the freedom to teach without the constraints caused by the limited writing surfaces of traditional framed dry-erase boards, flip charts, tiny computer screens, and other small media used for instructional purposes. Open-ended and vast, dry-erase walls are attractive blank canvases that inspire a sense of freedom and creativity in teachers and students alike.

Captivate Students and Hold their Attention

The large, open-ended writing and drawing spaces offered by dry-erase painted walls hold kids’ attention extremely well. Children enjoy writing and drawing on vertical surfaces, and with dry-erase painted walls, they have the freedom to cover a vast area in the process. When classwork is done on a dry-erase painted wall, the surface is close to children’s eyes, thus helping them to focus on the task they’re doing, and in turn, improving their ability to concentrate and pay attention. This close proximity, along with the wall’s vertical surface, also allows children to maintain an upright posture, which is another aspect that helps with maintaining attention. Without a chair to rely on for support, children constantly use their back muscles to keep themselves standing straight, so they can easily access the wall’s surface. This helps to foster good posture, which in turn can improve kids’ self-image and desire to learn.

Provide Efficiency in Doing Classroom Teaching

Being large and easy to access at any time throughout the day, dry-erase painted walls are excellent tools for helping teachers to teach efficiently. The fact that dry-erase surfaces are also extremely easy to write on and erase makes changing from math to English to history and other subjects during the day quick and time-saving.

Roominess Provides Enough Space for Multiple Subjects and Users at Once

Dry-erase painted walls allow much more room for teaching lessons than do traditional framed whiteboards or other surfaces, and they also have a lower cost per square foot. The vast open canvas of a dry-erase coated wall lets multiple students write and draw at the same time with the freedom to quickly erase and create something new over and over again. This quality is especially useful in-class brainstorming sessions for essay topics, science project ideas, and the like, as the walls’ roominess encourages students to come up with an endless stream of ideas, record them, and then erase and write again in a continuous flow of creativity. In this way, the walls invite naturalness of thinking and the constant discovery of original concepts in both individual students and groups. Then, after a brainstorming session is over, the results of a team’s collective thinking can be gradually erased and whittled down to those ideas that are most achievable or appropriate for the assignment. Finally, the wall can be used to delineate the steps required to put the ideas obtained through brainstorming into action.

Whiteboard Wall

Dry-Erase Painted Walls Can Enhance the Quality of Every Room in Your School

Premium ReMARKable dry erase paint is commonly used to transform the drab unused walls of elementary, high school, and college classrooms into an attractive, highly functional writing surfaces for teachers and students to use for lessons and other activities. However, other rooms and areas of a school are often overlooked when it comes to applying quality dry-erase paint; in fact, the paint can easily be used to convert an entire school building into an enhanced educational and communications environment. For example, the principal’s office, the teachers’ lounge, the school cafeteria, the nurse’s office, the music classroom, the art room, the computer room, the library, the gym, and students’ and teachers’ lockers can all become places where top-quality dry erase paint is installed. In this way, virtually every part of a school building can become a place that promotes better learning, interaction, and creativity among administrators, teachers, students, staff, and security personnel alike.

The Principal’s Office

In the principal’s office, a dry-erase wall can serve as a handy place to post teachers’ schedules, academic goals for a semester or year, new curriculum ideas, times for student counseling sessions and parent meetings, ideas for managing the school budget, lists of school supplies to be ordered, maintenance workers’ schedules, and much more. Since principals are responsible for ensuring school security for students, teachers, staff, and visitors, the wall may also be used to brainstorm improvements in security procedures and personnel assignments, as well as an endless number of other activities related to school administration.

When principals meet with parents and teachers to discuss students’ behavior and academic progress, a dry erase wall can serve as an easy-to-use canvas for sharing ideas on helping students improve in these areas. In addition, the wall can be used to list current concerns of parents and community members about school academic policies, athletic teams, extracurricular activities, and the like. When conducting professional development programs and workshops for faculty and staff, the wall can be a place to record ideas for scheduling, creative development of teachers, and new classroom activities.

The Faculty Lounge or Break Room

Teachers typically spend a lot of time prepping bulletin boards in their classrooms, so why not give some TLC to the board in their break room? The area where faculty members take breaks and have lunch is ideal for having a dry-erase painted wall act as a bulletin board and general communications hub. There, teachers can leave notes and reminders for one another, plan lessons together, brainstorm ideas for teachers’ meetings, list break room items to be ordered, post motivational quotes, and more. The door to the faculty lounge can even become a dry erase painted surface for writing items like “the quote of the day,” faculty meeting times, and reminders about upcoming school events.

The School Cafeteria

The cafeteria is an ideal place to have a dry erase wall for listing items such as the daily and/or weekly menu, rules on proper lunchroom etiquette, and state health department guidelines. The vast surface area of a dry erase wall makes it easy to write in large letters to better convey to students the importance of following the rules, and also to allow many lunch menu items and other information to be listed at once in large letters for all to see. In addition, students can write down suggestions for new menu items, reviews of meals, and related ideas.

The School Nurse’s Office

The nurse’s office is an area where the focus is on both the physical well-being of the students and staff and the children’s overall success and life-long achievement. There, a dry erase painted wall can serve as a large space for posting school health guidelines, medical supplies to be ordered, students’ immunization status, referrals for health conditions, and other health-related items, as well as ideas on health and safety awareness, wellness training, healthy eating habits, and more.

The Art Room

Whether it’s used to make doodles and artwork, write inspiring messages to spark creativity, or make preliminary sketches for class art projects, a dry-erase painted wall is an exciting way to perk up a school art room. When students make rough sketches before crafting a finished painting, drawing, or sculpture, they typically waste a lot of paper, causing increased expense for the school and harm to the environment. However, if these sketches are done on a dry erase wall, they can be generated quickly with low-odor markers and then easily erased with a microfiber cloth until an acceptable final sketch is created. Using a marker to draw on the vast canvas of a dry erase wall unleashes spontaneous images more easily than drawing with a pencil on a small piece of paper. When students sketch on a dry erase wall, they feel freer to express their artistic ideas and come up with images that can later be used to fashion finished works of art for class assignments.

The Music Classroom

The music classroom is another ideal place for a Dry Erase Painted wall, as it offers an immense area for creating multiple music staves in less than 15 minutes through the use of a ruler and some 1/8-inch pinstriping available at auto parts stores. Even if a school already has standard five-line music staves in its music room, music teachers might like having a three-line staff for use with first and second graders or staves in different areas of the room that work better for teaching purposes. Music teachers will be amazed at how easy it is to produce the staves with the pinstriping material, and having one or more permanent music staves in the music room will make their lives much easier.

In this way, a dry-erase coated wall offers a space-saving, highly functional addition to a school’s music classroom. The high-quality dry-erase paint produces a tough, attractive writing and drawing surface that resists scratching, staining, and ghosting. And when permanent lines are made on the wall, it saves teachers the hassle of redrawing staff lines each time they erase notes during music lessons.

The Computer Room

Installing dry erase paint on the walls of the school computer room creates a vast area for teachers to write down lesson information when conducting classes, posting rules such as “no food and drink allowed” and “save your data often,” as well as times for using the computer room, and other useful information. In addition, advice on how to use computers, such as which keys to use for PC computer shortcuts, can be written down in large letters on the wall for younger and less tech-savvy students to easily see and study. Another area of the dry-erase wall may be designated for students to write suggestions about improving the computer room, notes to teachers, and the like.

The School Library

Library class time and other time spent in the school library are some of the most important periods of the day in a school’s curriculum, but they often get sidelined and become a secondary priority to course completion and other activities. Installing a dry-erase painted wall in the school library can help to alleviate this problem by helping teachers make library time more exciting for students through class activities involving library use. For example, after a class has read a book, they can create a large “story pyramid” on the dry erase wall using the following structure:

Line 1: One word that gives the main character’s name
Line 2: Two words that describe the main character
Line 3: Three words that describe the story’s setting
Line 4: Four words that state the story’s main problem
Line 5: Five words that describe one main event in the story
Line 6: Six words that describe a second main event
Line 7: Seven words that describe a third event
Line 8: Eight words that provide the solution to the problem.

In this way, the library’s dry erase wall becomes a useful tool for enhancing children’s reading proficiency and interest in reading that can last a lifetime and enhance both their academic and personal growth.