Imagine writing a 2,000-word essay with only a feather, ink, and paper? Or constantly being tempted with food when it was only for doing math? This is how school was in the past before technology was developed.

Some people think school is difficult now, even with technology, but it hasn’t been very long since students needed to go to the library every time they wanted to research something. While the curriculum may seem more challenging than it was in the past, computers, phones, and other devices have simplified the steps available to research and do other assignments.

In the days before technology was developed to the level it is today, students had to talk to one another in person instead of texting. Imagine having to plan meetings face-to-face or visiting a friend’s house just to tell them something. In the days of learning and functioning before our advanced technology, school was, in some ways, more difficult than it is today.

Technology wasn’t introduced in education until around the late 1960s. That’s when computers, calculators and other things started being used for school. Even in the 1970s, students were only becoming proficient in electric typewriters, not electronic keyboards. A typewriter is basically a keyboard without a screen attached. Instead it had paper that is rolled into place. A mistake could be difficult, or messy, to correct, unlike the ease of correcting messages on a computer.

When the country started, students used quills and ink to write and later, pens and pencils. Teachers wrote on chalkboards instead of being able to present on a dry erase board or a smartboard. Even those are becoming outdated as smart TVs take priority.

In 1967, handheld calculators were a great advancement, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculator. Before that, students had to do much of their counting measurements with manipulatives like beans, noodles, or Cheerios, basically anything they could find.

So much of the technology used today was designed to make things easier and it was developed by people who had a vision of the future. Students today have a chance to visualize a more technologically influenced future and continue in its development.