Tech Timeline by Rebecca Eid

Chalk It Up

reb2169175 — 2025-09-08 04:19:03 UTC

My dad was born in Lebanon in 1959. For the first thirteen years of his life, he attended school where the most advanced tech was the Chalkboard. He hates it to this day. The way he described it was, "as technologically advanced as a rock on the ground" and he especially hated how "it would smear everywhere and make an irritating noise".

Click-Clack: The Typewriter

reb2169175 — 2025-09-08 04:23:47 UTC

My mom was born in Lebanon in 1969. She grew up there, lived there until she was ~23-ish. She LOVED the typewriter. She claims that she was something of a protege with the keys, and absolutely loved the clicking noises it made. She said it was easier on her hands than writing on paper, and she loved to write a lot. By this time, the typewriter wasn't anything new, but it was to her village since it was no longer seen as a luxury item so much as a necessity.

Whiter the Board, Purer the Soul

reb2169175 — 2025-09-08 04:28:20 UTC

My eldest brother was born in America only 27 years ago. His memories of grade school are blurred but, much like our dad, he hated whiteboards with such a burning passion that he remembers the feeling to this day. For the time, whiteboards were pretty much vital for all classrooms. This disgusted Abe. "The markers were always dry and the board was always stained," he says. This makes sense, given how underfunded his school district was back then.

The Special Media Center

reb2169175 — 2025-09-08 04:34:15 UTC

Chris, my second eldest brother (25), loved tech. Even as a kid, he would look forward to the media center day where he would occasionally have to make a Google Slideshow or write a short paper. However the real "cream of the crop" in his words were the games. Marble run, the art software Kidpix, Funbrain, Starfall, you name it. Perhaps not the most educational, but real great incentives to get kids used to computers back then.

The Smart (Stupid) Board

reb2169175 — 2025-09-08 04:39:09 UTC

My third eldest brother, Eli (23) and I are the closest in age so our experiences are pretty much the same with the dreaded "Smart Board". For some reason, teachers could never figure the darn things out. They'd always be recalibrating them and misclicking, to the point where it was just a distraction from learning. "It was actually kinda annoying," he says, "I felt like kind of a nerd, getting mad at [the smart board] for interrupting class, which just got me madder." These things were a great source of frustration, if nothing else.

Why is Everything Chrome?!

reb2169175 — 2025-09-08 04:43:47 UTC

A friend of mine, Cadence (20), remembers when chromebooks were first introduced in elementary. "We felt [...] so futuristic, y'know? Until we realized it meant more work." Indeed, the chromebooks were a curse in disguise. Teachers felt more comfortable assigning homework since students had the laptops, and they could impose late-night deadlines instead of letting students complete work overnight or that morning. It was a big adjustment to everyone at the time, but I like to say we've all gotten used to them by now.