When you visit your child’s classroom, there’s a lot of new school technology that’s light years beyond what we had as kids — from digital smartboards to super-fast, Wi-Fi-powered laptops. But we had our tech back then, and for the time, it was pretty awesome! Take a trip down memory lane with some of these throw-back school tech gadgets that you’ll definitely remember.
8 School Technology Throwbacks That Will Make You Nostalgic
Big TVs on carts
You knew you were in for a treat when your teacher rolled in a huge TV/VCR combo strapped to a cart with wheels. While it was usually a history channel documentary or nature show, sometimes there were the rare days when you got to watch a fun movie.
Overhead projectors
Math just isn’t the same without your sitting teacher sitting hunched over the always buzzing, burning-hot overhead projector, writing equations out with dry-erase markers on flimsy transparent sheets. The best part? Making shadow puppets when you walked in front of it.
Chalkboards
It doesn’t get more analog than using messy, powdery chalk sticks on green ceramic at the front of the class. The old saying, “like nails on a chalkboard?” We’re very familiar with the real-life version. These eventually gave way to dry-erase boards, which were equally messy but in a different way.
Floppy disks
From saving book reports so you can print them out to loading up fun games like Math Blaster, floppy disks were the original Google Drive. Word on the street today is that Gen Alpha kids, when shown a real-life floppy disk, think it’s just a 3-D printed version of the “save” button they see on online programs.
Commodore 64
If a computer was a tank, it’d be the classic Commodore 64. From its boxy brown body to its 8-bit screen, these things were indestructible – and in almost every classroom in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Many a child first ventured out onto the Oregon Trail on these classic desktops.
Crank-style pencil sharpeners
The fastest way to put a fine point on our trusty number 2 pencils was the classic crank-style pencil sharpener, usually bolted down to a bookcase in the corner of the classroom. Taking a trip over to it was the old-school kid version of heading to the water cooler to take a quick break from class.
Dot matrix printers
Before lightning-fast laser and ink jet printers came on the scene, every computer lab had enormous dot-matrix printers. Their calling card that’s seared on the memory of our generation? The little perforated holes on the sides of the paper, along with the screeching line-by-line yowl as it threw tiny digital dots on the page.
Card catalog
Before you could simply type in a subject and press enter on a library computer, you’d have to head over to the wooden filing cabinets known as the card catalog. Here, you’d rifle through paper cards arranged by author, title, and even subject, write down what you need, then head to the stacks to find your book.
Keep Up with Modern Tech with Bark
School technology is always changing, but you don’t have to let it pass you by without knowing what’s going on. Bark helps keep your child safe online and in real life with a variety of products. We monitor activities on phones, tablets, and Chromebooks, scanning for inappropriate content, bullying, and other online dangers.
We also provide parents with an ever-updating page of resources, from the latest slang to the most viral new trends on TikTok. Also, be sure to join Parenting in a Tech World so you can connect with other digital parents raising kids today — it’s one of the best places to learn first-hand about kids and tech.
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