Nostalgia Tech 6: Back to school tech that will make your kids hate you
Calculator
Why they will hate it: They do not need a calculator. They have all of their calculator functions on their phone, PC or their tablet. They do not think it is cool to input 07734 into the calculator and marvel at the word that displays on the LED screen when you turn the calculator upside down.
What they want instead: An iPad
Apple Computer
Why they will hate it: It is big, heavy,slow and looks like Windows 3.0. It has a mouse attached by a wire and a clunky keyboard.
What they want instead: An iPad
Tamagotchi
Why they will hate it: It has an LCD screen with only two colours. It requires looking after regularly or else the pet will die. It is not Bluetooth enabled and you can not play with other virtual pets online.
What they want instead: Angry Birds
Cassette Recorder
Why they will hate it: They can not understand why their parents used to stay in all day listening to the radio so they could record their favourite song and listen to it over and over again on the cassette tape. Sometimes the tape became stuck in the machine but it could easily be sorted out by sticking a pencil in the hole.
What they want instead: Spotify or any other free app that can download music to their device.
Chalk
Why they will hate it: It is dusty, it runs out quickly and it hurts when someone throws it at you. You can not write on any boards in the classroom as the chalk will slide.
What they want instead: Smart screens that sync everything that the teacher writes to their device.
Pacman backpack
Why they will hate it: They will not look cool with this backpack. Most of their friends will not know what Pacman is. Parents will look on fondly.
What they want instead: Spiderman -- or Angry Birds.
Flipover alarm clock
Why they will hate it: It will drive them crazy every minute as the time flips over to the next minute. 09:59 to 10:00 is a particularly loud change. It will make sure that they get up for school with its annoying buzz.
What they want instead: Longer school holidays so they can sleep in until noon.
Exercise book
Why they will hate it: They will lose this when homework needs to be given in. Handwriting needs to be neat and legible. They can not edit or delete sentences easily and they can not cut and paste from other finished work without a lot of effort.
What they want instead: any device with word processing software, spell checking functions, WiFi and access to the Internet.
Roller blackboard
Why they will hate it: Although this was considered high tech in the '70s after the fixed blackboards of the 1960s it had three faults; You had to concentrate on the blackboard in case the lesson rolled round and you missed what was going on. It needed chalk which was usually missing due to being thrown at unruly pupils, You had to copy down relevant information as it was written down during the lesson.
What they want instead: Any device which can receive the lesson from the smart screen over WiFi.
Colouring pencils
Why they will hate it: Coloured pencils are for art students and kindergarten kids.
What they want instead: Draw Something.
Polaroid camera
Why they will hate it: After taking a photo you have to take the film photo out of the camera, put the developing image under your armpit if the weather is cold and wait a couple of minutes for the film to develop. Then if the photo is not good enough you need to retake thephoto. Upload any decent photographs to a paper photo album. Affix with glue, sticky tape or plastic photo corners that will only last for a couple of years before they fall off.
What they want instead: A smartphone. Or a tablet. Or a digital compact camera. Or anything digital that can upload to Facebook within seconds.
Speak and spell
Why they will hate it: You must pronounce the words in exactly the right way or you the device will not understand you.
What they want instead: Siri.
Sony Walkman
Why they will hate it: It needs a cassette tape (later models used CD's). It is too big to carry comfortably in your hand so a shoulder strap is provided to sling it across your body. It does have two sockets so that you can both use your own headset
What they want instead: iPod / Zune / smartphone
Mobile phone
Why they will hate it: Mono LCD screen, not touch enabled. It has no data plan by default but there might be WAP to access the Internet.
What they want instead: A touch screen device with a data plan, WiFi and unlimited texting on the plan.
Slide rule
Why they will hate it: They probably will never have seen one. Their parents will not know how to use it, and their grandparents will baffle them with reminiscences of their time at school
What they want instead: They will want one of these. It is ultra geeky and none of their friends will have one -- nor know how to use one.