JonesPC

That last post I made about keeping kids safe online got me to thinking about some things. Times are different. I’m not that old (I keep telling myself) but I’m not a young buck anymore either. From time to time, I have had the opportunity to notice things about how the kids are living today.

It makes me think about when I was in middle school and high school. How tech has changed things.

Thanks to tech, Kids today have it made

Calculators use to be a no no

• All through middle school and high school, if a teacher saw someone using a calculator, they would take it away. You may even get sent to the principles office. Today is different. A couple of friends of mine have kids who are issued laptop computers at the beginning of the school year…to use throughout the year. The ultimate calculator, and they will get in trouble if they didn’t bring it to school.

Passing notes in class has gotten a lot easier.

• I still remember the first note I was ever passed in class. I don’t know what it said because the teacher intercepted it before it got to me. All I know is someone scribbled something on a piece of paper and it went through a line of other students….who all read it as they got it…then the teacher saw it and took it away. From what I can tell the rules on passing notes in class hasn’t changed but the method has.
• Kids have cell phones!! They send text messages. No passing through a line of other students, no worry of anyone else reading the note, no risk of the teacher intercepting it and throwing it away before the recipient got a chance to read it. You just type a quick message and hit send. You don’t even have to be in the same classroom.

In-class entertainment has gotten a lot better.

• Do you remember pencil fighting? Thats when one person hold a pencil horizontally while another person wack it with their pencil. You take turns wacking each others pencil, trying to get your turn in as the teachers back was turned. The first person with a broken pencil looses. That was a big deal in about 6 grade, you’d get mad if someone used a husky pencil.
• Later I begged my parents to get this watch for me.
• 
• Took a while to convince them but they finally got it. I thought I was high tech. But that was nothing compared to the options kids have today. I would’ve never got any work done if I had one of these (DS lite or PSP) in middle school to occupy my class time.
• 

Unlimited reading material

• Right on magazine use to be a popular magazine when I was in 8th grade, we would sneak issues to school and try to read them in class, hiding them inside of our history books. Ripping articles out and folding them in a way that a it will fit nicely inside my composition notebook. Reading the same articles over and over again because we usually only had a couple issues throughout the year.
• Kids these days have it made. A lots of school now have computers in class…with internet access!!! of coarse it may be blocked and restricted to almost unusable other than for schoolwork, but kids are figuring out ways around it. Just like I figured out in middle school ways to read my Right on magazine. The difference is now kids have an unlimited source of off topic reading material.

Even listening to music in class has improved

• Not much to say about this, but just look at this.
• When I was in middle school We tried to sneak and listen to music with a gadget that looked like this…
• 
• Now kids are sneaking their music listening with a gadget that looks like this…
• 

Enough said.