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700 BCE
Written Communication Era
According to the Bible, Moses used chiseled stone to convey the ten commandments in a form of writing, probably around the 7th century BC (Bates, 2019). -
500 BCE
Technology in Education
Arguments about the role of technology in education go back at least 2,500 years (Bates, 2019). -
499 BCE
Oral Communication Era
One of the earliest means of formal teaching was oral –through human speech– .
In ancient times, stories, folklore, histories and news were transmitted and maintained through oral communication (Bates, 2019). -
1200
Oral Communication Era
Slate boards were in use in India in the 12th century AD (Bates, 2019). -
1436
Written Communication Era
The invention of the printing press in Europe in the 15th century was a truly disruptive technology, making written knowledge much more freely available, very much in the same way as the Internet has done today (Bates, 2019). -
Oral Communication Era
Blackboards/chalkboards became used in schools around the turn of the 18th century (Bates, 2019). -
Written Communication Era
Improvements in transport infrastructure in the 19th century, and in particular the creation of a cheap and reliable postal system in the 1840s, led to the development of the first formal correspondence education, with the University of London offering an external degree program by correspondence from 1858 (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Computer based learning
B.F. Skinner started experimenting with teaching machines that made use of programmed learning in 1954, based on the theory of behaviourism (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Computer based learning
PLATO was a generalized computer assisted instruction system originally developed at the University of Illinois, and, by the late 1970s (Bates, 2019). -
Written Communication Era
In the 1970s, the Open University transformed the use of print for teaching through specially designed, highly illustrated printed course units that integrated learning activities with the print medium, based on advanced instructional design (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Computer Networking
At the University of Guelph in Canada, an off-the-shelf software system called CoSy was developed in the 1980s that allowed for online threaded group discussion forums, a predecessor to today’s forums contained in learning management systems (Bates, 2019). -
Paradigm Shift
The phrase "paradigm shift" has been employed to conceptualize educational transformation since the early 1980s. Farrell, T., and Jacobs, G. M. (2001) Education has been greatly impacted by technology, as the digital age has accelerated development and deepened engagement with tech-based activities. We are continuing to integrate these improvements while keeping outdated technologies in specific sectors (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Computer Networking
Arpanet in the U.S.A was the first network to use the Internet protocol in 1982 (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Computer based learning
AI began in the mid-1980s, with a focus initially on teaching arithmetic (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Computer networking
In 1988, the Open University in the United Kingdom offered a course, DT200, that as well as the OU’s traditional media of printed texts, television programs and audio-cassettes, also included an online discussion component using CoSy (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Computer Networking
The Word Wide Web was formally launched in 1991 (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Computer Networking
The first web browser, Mosaic, was made available in 1993 (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Online learning environment
In 1995, the Web enabled the development of the first learning management systems (LMS) (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Online learning environment
The first fully online courses started to appear in 1995, some using LMSs, others just loading text as PDFs or slides (Bates, 2019). -
Written Communciation Era
With the development of web-based learning management systems in the mid-1990s, textual communication, although digitized, became, at least for a brief time, the main communication medium for Internet-based learning, although lecture capture is now changing that (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Computer Networking
Google, created in 1999 (Bates, 2019). -
Social Media
Social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, wikis, and blogs enable users to interact with one another in virtual communities and produce material that is created by others. Even though they are primarily associated with millennials, they are slowly being incorporated into formal education. Supporting classroom activities and creating online communities are their current strengths, with the potential for future learning improvements (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Online learning environment
By 2008, create the first ‘connectivist’ Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), a community of practice that linked webinar presentations and/or blog posts by experts to participants’ blogs and tweets, with just over 2,000 enrollments (Bates, 2019). -
Computer Technologies: Online learning environment
In 2012, two Stanford University professors launched a lecture-capture based MOOC on artificial intelligence (Bates, 2019). -
References
Bates A. W. (2019) Teaching in a Digital Age. Tony Bates Associates LTD.
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