SWISSDIGITIZATION.CH

My mother bought both of us children a math learning game (Owl math Calculator) when we were in elementary school (early 1980s). She found it very useful and it was supposed to make the kids smarter instead of dumber, unlike the frowned-upon calculators. I don't remember how she knew about its existence. I think it was a recommendation from another mother. Although it was a different manufacturer, our two devices were designed the same: It was an owl with two diodes for eyes. One green and one red. And it had buttons like a calculator. And now you could enter a calculation with a result. If that calculation was right, the green diode would light up, and if it was wrong, the red diode would light up. I may remember that although we were excited about the technology, we didn't enjoy it for very long. Actually, it wasn't really anything new: like in school, you had to solve calculations and you were eventually corrected. 

A short time later, my mother bought the Little Professor, which you can still buy today. Instead of diodes, it had an LCD display. She kept it for herself (so as not to cause a conflict of ownership among us kids) but we were allowed to play with it, but we lost interest very quickly. The concept was the same as with the owls. The Little Professor did not solve any calculations for us, but merely corrected them. The little face in the display smirked when we were right or looked angry when we were wrong. One of the game modes was that you were allowed to get it wrong five times until the game ended. The Little Professor came with a manual with game variations, but we weren't very interested in it. There wasn't much gameplay behind it either, but we quickly found it to be pure school material.

During secondary School we just had changed tve computer systems from the zx-spectrum to mac classic.

we didn't really use the computers for much. Mac write and Mac draw were ok. We even produced a school paper with it. The secret hifhlights were Shufflepuck and Leisure Suite Larry.

Later on we didn't really use computers at School. We only programmed a bit BASIC with programmable sharp calculators.

My Performa 630 and later the G4 tower with a 17 inch screen I used mainly for gaming,

I even used to move the whole tower to a friends house for lan parties!

Then came the internet... I got a discette with the "ppp monkey" software and a piece of paper with magical numbers to configurate the system in order to connect to the internet with my 56 modem.

When I started Uni (SFA to become Secondary School teacher myself) I got a Mac Laptop via the Neptun programme.

it had a Dvd burner. Tha was incredible. My friends and I even made a short movie thanks to the tech.

now I'm a teacher myself and we use all technology available to us: macbook air, ipad, the Ultimaker2 3D printer, codebugs, makey makeys, thymios, everything!

i even teach courses in programming (scratch), CAD (fusion 360) and film (imovie).

Lots has changed in the last 30 years...