Written by Jennifer Dunn & Zareena Zaidi
The first iPhone came out more than twelve years ago! And “The Matrix” movie is more than twenty years old! Today’s kids don’t even know that when they click “save” in Microsoft Word, they’re actually clicking on a floppy disk icon. Come to think of it, do they even know what Microsoft Word is?
At ParentSquare, we love a good throwback, especially if it means we can fondly remember our favorite tech trends from the past half-century that transformed K12!
Recently Tech & Learning magazine recognized the ParentSquare platform as “Best Re-invention of a Classic Legacy Technology.” We’re proud to be one of five award winners nationwide in this category and the only school communication platform.
It makes sense, as our innovations in school-home communication have made hard-to-track emails, long-format newsletters, lost flyers, and missed robocalls seem like a blast from the past! And with modern two-way communication, we can empower families to play an active role in their children’s education and support their educators, rather than remaining “spectators” with legacy mass notifications and bolted-on tools.
In celebration of our award, we created a list of our favorite retro tools and trends that take us back to the days of landlines and overhead projectors, before technology opened up a world of possibility for students, teachers, parents, and schools. We’ve also included what’s “in” now as ParentSquare leads school communication into 2020!
| THEN | NOW |
|---|---|
| Blockbuster Videos 📀 | Netflix, YouTube, Disney+ |
| Maxwell House, Sanka and NESCAFE Instant Coffee | Hemp milk, Coconut milk and Bulletproof lattes |
| OK Boomer | |
| America’s Funniest Home Videos | TikTok |
| Destiny’s Child | Beyoncé 🍋 |
| Scrunchies | Scrunchies |
| Macy’s, Toys R Us and Kmart | StitchFix, Tinker Crate and DollarShave |
| “Let’s Xerox it!” | “Just ParentSquare it!” |
| Ferris Bueller 🏎️ | Attendance notifications from ParentSquare via web and app — excuse your child right from your phone! |
| “Press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish.” | Real-time two-way translation to 100+ languages |
| No tech in class | Flipped classroom, blended learning, Kahoot! |
| Only sending mass notifications | Two-way communication 🏠 🔄 🏫 |
| Parents searching for updates across apps, email, website and paper | “Alexa, are there any updates from school?” |
| Paper or PDF newsletters sent home once a month | Daily or weekly targeted updates from teachers and schools — pictures, notes, volunteer signups & more! |
| On-premise server | All-in-one cloud platform |
| Backpacks full of crumpled paper 🎒 | Digital forms and permission slips — sign right from your phone |
| Stuffing envelopes and licking stamps | Delivering important documents (such as report cards) to parents securely through ParentSquare |
| Cash or check! | Electronic payment through ParentSquare |
| Parent phone trees | Text-to-voice emergency notifications |
| Clunky email distribution lists and mass one-way emails from the office | Contact details for text, phone, app and email, constantly synchronized from the SIS. Reports and dashboards showing contactability, reach, etc! |
| Dozens of tools, apps, attachments and software for: class updates, notifications from the district, news from the school office, emails from the principal, report cards, progress reports, assignments, permission slips, field trip sign ups, sports team communication, PTA projects, forms, and robocalls | The ParentSquare platform  |
Share your favorite throwbacks in the comments! We can’t wait to see what the next big thing is, and what today’s students will invent in the 2020s.
