Technology Timeline by Kira Hanna

Before the internet

kir2177422 — 2025-01-19 20:56:39 UTC

My grandmother was born in a time without the Internet and grew up in an impoverished home in a tiny town. To her, even basic technology at the time, such as a typewriter, was not accessible. Luckily, her school provided students with their papers, pencils, and books. Which allowed students to have access to an education, regardless of wealth. Students used the school library to access any information needed for study, as without the internet, there was no google for them to search the answers on!

Electric Typewriters

kir2177422 — 2025-01-19 20:57:38 UTC

When my grandmother entered high school in 1960, she was given access to a portable electric typewriter. She had never interacted with any technology of this degree before. So it made her rather nervous. Students were put in typing classes to get familiar with how to use the typewriters.

The typing classes she took remind me of the ones I also took in the computer labs in elementary school! They're the worst!

Landline telephones

kir2177422 — 2025-01-19 20:57:51 UTC

While invented in the 1870's, only 75% of Americans owned a landline telephone by 1957. In that year, my grandmother only recently joined this crowd. The thing about landlines is if someone in the same house picked up the telephone while you were having a conversation, they could hear every word that was spoken, there was no privacy! My grandmother noted how much eavesdropping went on between her and her siblings. Sometimes, she could even pick up conversations between her neighbors. "Sometimes, if the neighbor to my right was on the phone with the neighbor to my left, and you were real focused on it, you could hear the two of them talking through our own telephone!"

I can't imagine someone being able to tune in to my conversations! We had a landline when I was a child, but now I love the privacy of my cell phone.

Video Games

kir2177422 — 2025-01-19 20:58:01 UTC

My coworker Laura notes using an Atari 3600 to play video games as a young child in the early 1980's, it was her first experience with any sort of video game, and she has great memories of playing it as soon as she got home from school with her grandfather.

This makes me think about how many kids still rush to their video game consoles right after school before they even touch their homework!

The World Wide Web

kir2177422 — 2025-01-19 20:58:09 UTC

My coworker Laura talked about the introduction of the World Wide Web when she was a teenager. She said suddenly you were able to look up things for school you previously had to go to the library for, although they did not have as much information at their fingertips as we do now.

Its amazing how much things have changed! Nowadays, you can google just about everything and have the answer in just a few seconds!

Zoom

kir2177422 — 2025-01-20 02:29:55 UTC

My cousin was in kindergarten when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, after only a semester of schooling, his classroom was switched online over Zoom. Zoom allowed students to continue to be taught from the safety of their own homes.

Many students still use Zoom, or similar applications for either fully online classes or hybrid classes.

Chromebooks

kir2177422 — 2025-01-20 02:30:08 UTC

Many students are given access to chrome books nowadays, even kindergarteners. Many children are put in classes teaching them how to safely use the web, and how to navigate their device.

For many of us, this access did not come to us until later in our schooling, we used computer labs! Some people had no computer access at all!