So I was born in the Ice Age at the time when this
bad boy was considered cutting edge and the
biggest technology concern I had it was making
it through the Oregon Trail without dying of
dysentery (and I always got dysentery). It has
me thinking about all of these technology skills
I learned as a child of the eighties that are
completely obsolete now. So here are some of
the things that your students will never have to
deal with. Number one: your current students never
know the struggle of sitting in front of a boom
box with the finger on the record button just
waiting as you listen to the radio for your
favorite song to come on so that you can make
that epic mixtape. Now all they have to say is
"Hey Alexa, play my favorite song" and it
just plays it for them. Number two: your students
will never know what it's like to have your
fingers covered in purple because of the ditto
machine. Number three: your students will not know
how to navigate the dark art of the microfiche
machine where you would have to magically
maneuver around the articles and have these
weird, creepy-looking, faces that would stare at
you as this opposite other world. Number four:
unjamming slide projectors. Yeah, your students
have never had to do that before. Number five:
this one has nothing to do with the classroom,
but everything to do with my childhood. It's
walking through the kitchen and not getting
clotheslined by the 90 feet of phone cord that's
wrapped around every single object as my mom
would talk and talk and talk. It was like the
Matrix getting around this thing. Number six:
saving something Into a disk and also being super
duper worried that your disk is ging be erased
because it was too close to a magnet. Number
seven: your students will never have to experience
listening to the super slow, super low version of "Elderly
Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town"
because your Walkman batteries are almost dead
and you are going to milk them for every last bit
a battery juice that's left. Number eight: students
will never have the experience of sitting
absolutely still in the car because you don't
want anything to make your Discman jump. Number
nine: your students will not know how to fix the
cassette tape using a pencil. Number ten: your
students will not have the experience of picking
up the phone and listening on the other line and
just waiting for their sister to finish her
conversation so they can get online and press the
dial up button and wait for five
minutes so that they can read an article online.
Now we just have phones. Here's the thing, your
students will never know what it's like to try to
get a cartridge to work and to blow on it with the
hopes that somehow that would magically make it
work even though scientifically it's been proven
to just make it worse. Your students will never
know what it's like to wait by the mailbox for a
letter to arrive or to try to figure out how to
use a flip phone and how to decipher strange flip
phone text language. That will never have to
change the ribbon on a typewriter or wait days
(or at the bare minimum, a couple of hours) for
film to develop. Your students will never have
had the experience of using the map. A real map;
not the kind that you have on your phone.
This because the technology skills are
always changing. We live in unpredictable world
and the tech skills that you need right now you're
not going need in the future. On the other hand,
there are these things that are timeless like
creativity, collaboration, critical thinking,
project management, divergent thinking, and they
are the things that the machines will never
replace. And they are also the very things that
you, as a teacher instill when you design and
develop a creative classroom. See, the technology
skills will change in the future. But the one
thing that will never change is the impact you
have when you give them those forever timeless
skills.