During a lesson on credit cards, I found myself explaining the old credit imprinters. I made the motions, the sound effects … it was quite the show! My students looked at me like I was crazy, so I pulled up this video from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. When in doubt, refer back to great movies from the 80s!
They still seemed baffled. A lightbulb went off. I needed to get one for my classroom. I put out a request on my local Buy Nothing group on Facebook, explaining what I was doing and why I wanted a credit card imprinter. Lo and behold, someone came through the next day! I give to you, my very own credit card imprinter!
I was so excited to bring it to class to show my students! I didn’t have any carbon paper to put into it, but I cut out some cardstock in the correct size to mimic the carbon paper that would typically be used. I demonstrated the use of the credit card imprinter with my school ID. The students were fascinated. They wanted to play with it themselves. They passed it around the room and all took selfies and then videos of each other using it! It was amazing and inspired me …
I’m now creating a collection, a gallery of relics in my classroom. It will feature old “new” technology devices for my students to learn about the past! I’m so excited about this project! I’ve already collected quite a few items through “shopping” in my father’s own collection of relics and via requests on my local Buy Nothing group on Facebook. Ultimately, I’ll have them displayed on a bookshelf or in a display cabinet of sorts in my classroom. Here’s what I have so far:
The Palmer Method of Business Writing Certificate circa 1931
3.5″ floppy disks
slide projector
8-track player
cassette tapes
reel-to-reel tapes
record (45 RPM)
record (78 RPM)
record (33 1/3 RPM)
8-track cassette
VHS tape
manual 35 MM camera
AM/FM Walkman
reel-ro-reel player
credit card imprinter
rotary phone
Hawkeye Instamatic X camera with Magicubes
LG flip phone
globe
scale
typewriter
phone book
pay phone
