Writing on Slates

I'm interested in understanding the role of technology in the transformation from the one room school house to today's system. 

I'm just beginning the study but I believe that at one point, writing with paper and fountain pens and quills was awkward and expensive. While businesses had typewriters, schools generally did not.  The students practiced writing on slates with chalk. The books were shared resources.  The teacher along had a notebook in which she would write in ink.

I'm not sure when this era would have existed.  For instance, the picture below is taken from a page of Harpers Weekly published in 1886 (I bought it from Argosy Book Store in NYC). Its about the Philadelphia School of Industrial Design.  The studenets seem to be holding pieces of graphite.  The mass produced pencil started in Germany in 1812 (source: Pencil History)