Learning About and From Obsolete Objects

A friend of mine recently Instagrammed a picture of the boom box that she used to crank-up in high school. We all had a good time commenting about how long it had been since one of us had used a cassette tape. That conversation reminded me of a fun YouTube channel called the Museum of Obsolete Objects.

The Museum of Obsolete Objects is a neat YouTube channel featuring videos about objects like cassette tapes that at one point represented cutting edge technology and are now obsolete. The MOOO isn't limited to 20th Century objects. The list includes things like quill pens and the telegraph. I've embedded the telegraph video below.


Applications for Education
Have students pick an obsolete object then research that object's influence on  communication and culture in its time. Then have students pick a currently ubiquitous object like the iPod and ask them to make predictions as to how long that object will be relevant before becoming obsolete.