Back to School Rewind: Kids React to Old Classroom Tech

In an era where nostalgia is trending, we decided to take a playful journey back in time.

Classrooms and educational technology are evolving rapidly, and children today are more tech-savvy than ever. However, with this constant progress in tech, we wondered: How would today’s children react to the classroom staples of the previous generation?

Our Back to School Rewind project did just that. We surveyed 500 UK children aged ten and showed them images of once-common school items, including a floppy disk and an overhead projector.

Next, we took our research a step further. We presented children at our Explore Learning tuition centres with three ‘ancient’ classroom tools to let them interact with the tech (and capture their genuine responses and puzzled expressions!).

So, what did we find?

The perplexing overhead projector

Our young participants were puzzled when faced with the once-common overhead projector. "Maybe it takes a picture?" one child wondered, trying to guess its purpose. Another confidently declared, "It's kind of like an old whiteboard." Some creative guesses for its identity included "a DVD player” and "a laminator – it makes it [plastic] hot and sticks it together”.

When asked about its age, one child estimated it to be 100 years old – quite a stretch from its classroom heyday in the 1960s! With the use of projectors in the classroom gradually declining since its peak in the 1990s, one pragmatic child summed it up bluntly: "It's not that useful." This contrast with modern tech was evident when a child explained, "We have electric whiteboards that work online" now.

The confusing cassette player

The humble cassette player and tape left our young tech experts scratching their heads. When shown a tape, guesses ranged from "It's a battery?" to "It's a CD!"

The generational gap was perfectly captured when a child, used to today’s voice-activated tech, demonstrated how they play music now: "Hey Google, play Roar by Katy Perry." One child described the inconvenience: "Imagine if you had this 'boombox' and you were just carrying it around all day listening to music! That would be, like... harder!"

The flabbergasting floppy disk and PC

Someone inserting a floppy disc into a PC

The floppy disk and old PC combo proved to be real head-scratchers. Initial guesses for the floppy disk included "A calculator!" and "A Nintendo thing?" One child, peering at the old PC, described it as "kind of like a motherboard." When asked what the floppy disk does, one child wondered, "Does this one do songs?"

The dial-up internet sound also left them truly baffled. One child asked, "Is it when the screen goes all muffly and it makes that horrible white noise?" Another likened the dial-up sound to a computer virus, saying, "It's having multiple glitches in the sound."

These reactions provided plenty of laughs and highlighted just how much classroom technology has evolved in a single generation. It's clear that today's kids, while tech-savvy in their own right, are worlds apart from the educational tools their parents once used.

The survey results are in: A generational gap revealed

It turns out that classic overhead projectors are one of the most baffling blasts from the past for today’s kids, according to our survey. A whopping 68% of children couldn’t even name it, and a further 72% had no clue what it was for!

Some of the children’s guesses were pretty creative, ranging from “eye machine” to “sink” and even “walkie-talkie”! While the incorrect responses are amusing, they’re not actually that surprising. After all, with smartboards and digital projectors in classrooms now, there’s no reason for most kids ever to encounter this classic tech.

Floppy disks didn’t fare much better in the survey results, with 61% of kids unable to identify them. But here’s where it gets interesting – many of the kids in both the in-person experiment and the survey at least recognised it had something to do with computers. They called it things like “computer old thing” or “a game.” It seems that, even though they’ve never used one, kids today are so tech-savvy that they can sense the digital connection!

Time warp age perceptions: How old is old?

Kids' perceptions of how old these items are gave us a good chuckle. Some thought floppy disks were older than sliced bread! (For the record, sliced bread hit the shelves in 1928, while floppy disks came along in the 1970s.)

7% of kids thought overhead projectors were around 75 years ago, which isn’t too far off, actually – projectors became popular in classrooms in the 1960s. It looks like some of our little ones have a better sense of history than we give them credit for!

Tech confusion across the UK

Our survey took us on a whirlwind tour of the UK, revealing that when it comes to old-school tech, confusion knows no bounds – geographical or gender!

Northern Ireland took the crown for the most overhead projector puzzlement, with a whopping 95% of kids scratching their heads over its purpose. Liverpool was in a time warp of its own, with 20% of kids ageing floppy disks to 75 years old.

There were some small differences between boys and girls, but nothing too dramatic. Boys were slightly more likely to be stumped by these retro gadgets. For instance, 72% of boys couldn't name the overhead projector, compared to 64% of girls. But let's be honest – whether you're a boy or a girl, north or south, east or west, these old-school tools are equally mysterious to most kids today!

The rapid advance of educational technology – and the future of learning

Our results illustrate just how quickly technology has evolved in our classrooms and daily lives. Just two to three decades ago, these items were essential tools in every school. Today, they're relics that baffle our tech-savvy kids!

The biggest shift? The move from analogue to digital. Smartboards have replaced not just overhead projectors but chalkboards, too. Cloud storage has made floppy disks obsolete, and many kids are more likely to reach for a tablet than a textbook.

While it's amusing to see children puzzle over these outdated technologies, it also reminds us of the incredible opportunities modern tech offers in education. At Explore Learning, we're at the forefront of blending traditional teaching methods with cutting-edge technology.

Our approach, both in our tuition centres and through our online tuition, ensures that children are not only familiar with the latest educational tools but also develop the critical thinking skills to adapt to future technological changes. After all, today's iPads may well be tomorrow's "mysterious relics"!