Technology Museum

A colleague of mine is creating a technology museum in his classroom. He wants to illustrate how quickly things have changes over the last 30 years.

So he put out a call yesterday for any 'old' technology - old cell phones, computers, cassettes (remember those?), albums (I owned two, but they were tough to find), Eight tracks (I hardly remember those), and old video games (Artari, Gameboy . . .).

What a great idea.

I recall the first iPod I bought not all that long ago (actually it was in 2002). I thought it was cutting edge, but ten years later it's a dinosaur. I wish I still had it. Of course, all it did was play music and save my contacts and have a few generic games. Unlike my current iPod which can, of course, hold music and contacts, but the games are far better and I can save videos, movies, TV shows, podcasts, keynote presentations, and so much more. And it doubles as a hard drive.

I could bring in all those Walkmen I went through in high school (several dozen I'm afraid). Of course, all those did was play music and devour my cassettes at an alarming rate.

I think there's still a black and white TV in my parents' house. And it didn't even have a remote control. Compare that to our flatscreen with DirecTV - which allows me to live record any shows I want and also - thanks to NFL Direct Ticket - I can now watch every single football game - and also program in my fantasy football roster and get screen updates.

That's progress as far as I'm concerned.

Call me a wanna-be millennial, but I don't think the rapid change is a bad thing.

I like the idea that our daycare center just asked for our permission to put pictures of Kenzie on Facebook so we can log on during the day and see her.

Now, is that necessary? No. But would my mom have signed up for something like? In a nano-second. I mean she was the lady who saved every assignment I ever brought home and every tablet I ever used. She also went to every single conference of mine and nearly every game I ever played. So I think she would have jumped at the chance to get digital photos of me during the day.

I really like the idea that a kid like Michael Greyson can perform at his middle school piano recital and become instantly famous . . . and have his life changed forever thanks to someone videotaping it and uploading it to Youtube (the comment, who needs American Idol when you have Youtube? comes to mind here). As of yesterday, 1.3 million people had watched it. Thanks to a feature on ABC News, that number has likely doubled (mostly thanks to Kristie and KoKo watching it numerous times last night). Greyson could well be on his way to becoming America's version of Susan Boyle, another internet phenomenon.

Had this been 1980, the poor kid would likely have toiled in vain and the only people to know about it would have been the people at the recital.