OH OKAY, time to write some stuff down, Bay pushed up his sleeves as he pulled his parchment and quill closer to him

hmmm he looked at the paper.. hopefully these were all good.

...

.....

Slowly the Gryffindor lifted her head from the desk and looked over at the Professor asking them to compare muggle things to what they had. How in Merlin's beard was she meant to know that? It wasn't like there was some kind of manual on this...unless it was in her textbook? Definitely wouldn't be finding it then.

Very casually the Gryffindor leaned over to the closest desk and took a peak at the parchment but merlin could these people write any more terribly? What was that even saying? SIGH. Just across from her was another parchment that she considered fair game but not even squinting could help her see. These people were ridiculous. Looks like she'd be making these up on her own. Yup.

Here went nothing. Scribble. Scribble. Scribble.

And a couple she could think of too...

Ian listened to the beginning of class and decided to take a measured tone to see what might come of it. Soon enough it was time to do something. He took out his parchment and quill and began to think. Shortly, he came up with the following ideas

He was satisfied he'd done an adequate job.

......................... Oh jeez. He had made a BIG mistake sitting next to this sassy robot.

Grayson eyed her, maybe even raising an eyebrow at her when she gave him a sassy look. He wanted to ask her whether she always went around giving those kind of looks or whether this was a special day buuuuuut those kind of questions were best left outside of the classroom. Probably in the Great Hall where he could fling a bean at her if she decided to do anything--

....................... Really? REALLY?!

He looked down at her stinky feet, that were currently resting on his lap, and then over at her, both eyebrows raised. Did he LOOK like a footrest? Jeez. Somebody needed to teach this one how to respect people who were older and cooler than her. You didn't go treating them like footrests. No.

And thanks to the weird one over here, he had missed the first question.

The second one was a little easier. Probably. Grayson shoved Abbi's legs off of his lap because he actually needed to write something too. And he didn't care if it jogged her or surprised her. No. Grabbing his journal, he flipped a couple of pages before starting to scribble down something to answer Hadley's question.

Quote:

- Torch - Lumos
- Central Heating - Hot Air Charm
- Phone - Owl
- Using water and a cleaning sponge/scrubber brush - Sourgify/Tergeo
- Paint - Colour changing Charm

Okay, so her answer hadn't been too far off. That was nice considering she was just guessing. And now they needed to list some Muggle stuff and similar magic stuff. That shouldn't be too hard, yeah?

Penelope thought about it for a little bit and then started jotting down her thoughts.

Text Cut: Notes

Pencils/Pens -- Quills and ink (pencils and pens are better too)
Video chats on a computer -- Two-way mirrors
Vacuums -- Tergeo
Freezers -- Glacius
Post Office -- Owls

That was five, so those were good for now hopefully.

Okay, right... muggle technology for magic things? Derry could do this. She knew stuff like this. Thank you, muggle mother.

Derry picked up her quill and started jotting down examples on her paper.



... That totally made sense, right? Right.

All Elodie wanted to do was go back to bed. The thoughts hadn't gone away, but she battled on. And on and on and on. Something like that. It was an endless loop, she assumed. She'd been doodling in the corner of her page when Professor Hadley had started to respond to their answers, but when the first little task was given to them, she diverted her energy to writing things down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notes

Muggle vs. Magic: Technology comparisons

• Video calls → Two-way mirrors
• Long haul public transport → Floo network/Knight bus/Apparition
• Sewing machines → Replacement charms
• Vocal/written confrontations (Phone usage? Emails? Letters? Face to face?) → Howlers
• Vacuum packed storage → Undetectable extension charms
  
  (??)
• "Goal-Line Technology", sports viewing and whatnot → Omnioculars
• X-ray scanner → Probity probe

Hadley had asked for five, but Els had questionable ones and so she'd noted those down too just for the sake of it and to remind her to maybe ask about those if she felt like it. She'd caught Adi's grin, and returned it quickly, before going over her choices again.

"Candles and fireplaces aren't specific to magic society, but other than that, good." Hadley commented on Caleb's list.

Hadley nodded approvingly at Layla's list... even though she'd chosen to do only spells, it counted and worked so...

Pausing at Jasmine's workstation, she pressed her lips together thoughtfully. "I wouldn't necessarily equate airplane with portkey; airplane seems more equivalent to broom. Car maybe portkey though..."

"Good yes," Hadley said stopping at Simon's desk and given a nod of approval at his list.

"Again, airplane I would equate more with broom travel. Buses probably would equate with portkey as do cars..." Hadley said in comment to Lux's list.

Ooh, gillyweed. Nice comparison there. Hadley nodded in approval at Zander's list.

"Traveling by aeroplane I would think is more similar to broom travel, but other than that, good, good," Hadley nodded at the list. Actually, come to think of it, she wasn't sure there was anything really similar to apparition in the muggle world.


"Good, yes," Hadley nodded in approval at Sophie's list. Very good, actually.

"Good ... patronus doesn't have to be specific to mobile phone though, as I think it could be any type of phone," Hadley explained. "And I think owl mail would be the equivalent of more e-mail or the muggle post."


"Good except owl mail is more equivalent to e-mail or muggle post mail than phones. And I'm not sure necessarily that shooting stars are .... magic in nature." But otherwise the list was good.

Hadley nodded at Adi's comparisons. "Ah yes, very good, very good indeed." He definitely wrote some unique ones too.

"Good, good," Hadley nodded at Abigail's list in approval.

"I wouldn't necessarily compare cars to broom. Cars more to floo or portkey, but airplanes more to brooms. And candles aren't necessarily magical, but the way you described it, alright fair enough."

"Good," Hadley nodded in approval at Bay.

And a nod for the Gryffindor prefect too; see, we knew you could do this! Nice unique comparisons too for some of them.

And nod for Ian too; Hadley gave him a brief smile

"Good, good," Hadley nodded surprisingly at the slytherin when he actually wrote down somewhat unique answers. At least the paint one was unique.

"Excellent," Hadley nodded at the seventh year Greenwell. Merlin, wasn't it like JUST yesterday when the other Greenwell was graduating? Where had the time gone?

Ohhh more unique answers! "Good, good," Hadley smiled nodding in approval at another seventh year.

And nod for her prefect too, because even the ones with question marks next to them were good; at least Hadley didn't see anything wrong them. "Good, good," she nodded at Elodie approvingly.

"Right, so as you can see, muggles have quite a few technological advances that they've developed over the years - decades even - to make their lives simpler. To, in essence, be us without being us." Because why wouldn't they want to be them? They did everything faster and more efficiently, two things that humans ALWAYS seemed to want done. "Technology is developed to make life easier. To make life more efficient. To move at the speed of light, if you will, if its possible."

"The piece of technology we're specifically studying today is the computer. The general purpose of it being to carry out arithmetic or logical operations in automatic fashion." Picking up a stack of papers, Hadley passed some to the person at the end of each row, "I have here a diagram which highlights the important terminology and components to a computer. Select one of the terms you see on there and tell me what you think it does?"

You know those times when you are trying to pay attention and then you are suddenly in the future and you have no idea what happened. Except you had an awesome daydream. Yeah that just happened. It might have had sea stars and gorgeous hair in it.

But Nigel could not remember.

Well that question was an excellent segue to the point she was making. Muggle were really fascinating once you started to care about their lived and stuff.

"The power strip supplies the computer with electricity,the thing we learned about last year, so it can work."

But effort.

Angel looked at the Professor and smiled, she wondered if her sister would tell the Professor all about computers because at home her sister loved them more than she did, she would rather do girly stuff instead of playing on a computer but her sister wasn't into girly stuff.

Angel raised her hand. "Professor the CD-Rom has data on it that can be used on a computer, it's like with football manager and other top games, they use the disks so that the computer doesn't have to use all it's memory and if you want to swap games you can uninstall one of the others to make room and you can re-install it using the disk later, it free's a lot of space." Angel beamed before continuing. "Though now something called stream is starting to get rid of disks, this is basically so that they can tighten up the security." Angel could tell the Professor more but she decided to leave it as that because she didn't want to get into trouble for talking to much.

Derry owned a computer, so this wasn't exactly difficult. She mentally listed off what every thing did, but figured she wouldn't say what they all were, since that was kind of hogging the limelight. "The speakers play sound from your computer." she said, after raising her hand. "Anything that happens on the computer that plays sound comes out of them. Music, sound effects, video soundtracks. That kind of thing..."

...

Any of the purebloods got something to say? That could be funny.

Tag took the paper that was passed to him and looked at each spot that was marked on it. Finding a piece that he felt comfortable answering with. He glanced at it for a bit before speaking up, "Icons are like programs. You click on the 'icon' and a particular program should pop up, or a window should appear that relates to that program. Like, if you click on a music note icon then, you should get a new 'window' that has a program all about music." Tag said.

He'd realized earlier that he had answered the question wrong. So, this time, he hoped it had been more on the right track. The boy didn't want to say something completely wrong from what Hadley had asked.

Ooo, a diagram. Nice. Now Penelope had to decide which one would be the easiest and take the least effort to explain out of the ones that hadn't been mentioned yet. Hmm.

Finally deciding on one, she raised her hand. "The keyboard is the thing you type on to make words and numbers and other things appear on the screen." Pretty simple and straightforward really.

AJ had messed something up in Muggle Studies? How was that possible when she was nothing more than a muggle less than a year ago? Moving on. The lion paid attention and made adjustments to her notes. All better now.

Once the diagram was passed to her, she wasted no time putting her two cents in. With a said hand she said, "Professor, the mouse is used to access what you need to on the computer. You move it around, and then click on the program." Although, it was funny that that mouse had a wire still attached. Everybody was wireless nowadays.

His list was good. Phew. He thought it had been terrible but he figured that he ought to stop doubting himself so much. Now Professor Hadley had a diagram of a computer up. Alright... Cool! Simon knew kind of how they worked but how could he explain it. He paused, tried to form some ideas about the monitor and then raised his hand. "The monitor gives us some feedback of what the computer is doing when you work or play on it. It does it through the use of images and text?" he offered, really unsure. He then simplified his previous statement. "Basically it allows to see what we're doing on the computer." Man. Explaining a monitor was difficult and he was just extremely grateful that there was one attached to a computer.

Well at least Jasmine had gotten part of her answer right. She equated the portkey with an airplane because they had taken a portkey to Peru this summer and traveling from London to Peru seemed like an airplane situation to her. Anyway.....

Listening to the next question, Jasmine raised her hand to give her answer. "There are many keys that make up the keyboard. Each key represents a letter, a symbol or a task to be performed." Anything else to add? Probably, but that was all she had at the moment.

Caleb blinked at the diagram that was held in front of them. WHAT did half of these things even mean? What was a CD-ROM? That was NOT a mouse that they had labeled on there either, it was some sort of egg looking thing. How did muggles understand all this stuff?

Caleb picked an easy one and raised his hand. "I know the power strip is where you plug the computer in. Like most muggle electronics, it can't work without being plugs into a power source," he explained.

Yaaay, computers!

Lux liked using them to access Twitter, and she used the Technology Center a lot of the time for that very reason. That, and the telephone - though she didn't use that as often. Raising her hand, she said, "The toolbar is a row of boxes that you see at the top of the window when using an application. It's purpose is to carry out different functions within the application, and there are icons that tell you what the specific function is." Did that make any sense? She was trying to explain, but it was a little hard. "For instance, if a muggle wanted to print something, they would push the button in the toolbar that has a picture of a printer on it."

Hazel raised her hand eagerly. "The CD-ROM drive reads the data off of the CD and allows the user of the computer to view the contents of the disk." That sounded a lot more professional than she would have expected. It kind of goes in the name, "CD-ROM drive" that it has something to do with a CD. Still, she was proud of her answer. Maybe it could even be right! That would be exciting.

Adi studied Professor Hadley's diagram. Not that he really had to. He was familiar with a computer and most of its components. He waited for a few of his classmates to give their answers before he raised his hand.

"The cursor, Professor. It's used to select the item such as an icon, the tool bar or an item on it- basically anything on the monitor.'' The keys on the keyboard can be used for that purpose too but he thought a mouse was much easier to use.

Hayden studied the diagram Hadley showed them. She thought she knew what most of the things were. Even though her mother's family was pureblood, her dad was a muggleborn so she wasn't completely oblivious to muggle things. She knew what a computer was. She listened to what other people were saying so she wouldn't give the same answers as them. Hayden raised her hand.

"The sceen shows you a picture of whatever is on your computer." There, that one was pretty easy.

Well, whoops. Marigold hadn't finished her notes by the time Hadley walked past her desk, so she just scribbled her remaining three muggle to wizard analogies down. They were the simple ones.

SPOILER!!: Notes

1. Electric fireplace=flame conjuring spell
2. Treadmill=walking
3. Car=broom/floo/apparation(transport)
4. Cellphone's texting capability=really fast owls?
5. Air conditioning=cooling charm

Once that was done, she raised her hand to answer the question. "The speaker is where sound comes out." Good for music. Yus.

Good? Aweeesome. Elodie crossed out the question marks on her list, and put ticks in their place so if she looked back at her notes, she'd know and understand perfectly well that she'd gotten them all right like an awesome person.

Awesomer than some of the people in here anyway.

Her hand went up in the air for the next question, and once it was her turn to answer she let it fall back into her lap. "The mouse mat is like..a stable surface for the mouse to be placed and moved on. You can also get them with your own pictures on. So you get to mouse roll on your face. Cool, huh?" Not really. The sarcasm was evident in her tone, and she was already looking back at the computers in the classroom for a hint at the year they were made.

1750, maybe?

1400?

Wait, what, what, WHAT?!

Sophie had just missed what was pretty much the entire class. A list?! She hadn't even made her list yet. What was she supposed to--oh, yeah! Comparisons. She might be able to do that. She dipped her quill in ink and began scribbling away.

Light bulb - Lumos
Telephones - Owls
E-mail - Patronus

Err..., that was all the Muggle terms she knew as far as technology was concerned. Anyway...there had been a question, right? Sophie turned toward the diagram.

"Well, I know what power means," she said, raising her hand. Duh. "So the power strip would be what made the whole thing turn on."

Kace was hearing everyone's answers and he thought they were pretty good. He was dazing and missed out writing his answer. But anyways onto the task at hand. He squinted to the board and saw the computer there. She asked what tasks they each have. He saw the toolbar and raised his hand and said, "Professor the task-bar is at the bottom of the computer screen, it shows the user what application you have opened or you can switch between active windows." Yup that pretty much sums up what he thought the task bar does. It reminded him on the computer he had in his basement.