Historical Evolution of IDT

  • First School Museum Opens

    "Most of the media housed in school museums were visual media, such as films, slides, and photographs" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 9).
  • "Visual Education" Movement Begins

    "Keystone View Company published Visual Education, a teacher’s guide to lantern slides and stereographs" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 9).
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    Audiovisual Instruction Movement

    Technological advances in such areas as radio broadcasting, sound recordings, and sound motion pictures led to increased interest in instructional media (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 2).
  • Department of Visual Instruction Formed

    Three existing national professional organizations for visual instruction combined to form the Department of Visual Instruction (DVI). This organization is now called the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) and is still relevant in the field of IDT (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 9).
  • Division of Visual Aids for War Training Established

    "During the war, training films also played an important role in preparing U.S. civilians to work in industry" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 10).
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    Instructional Design Developed after WWII

    "During the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, psychologists working for" organizations such as the American Institutes for Research "started viewing training as a system, and developed a number of innovative analysis, design, and evaluation procedures" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 13).
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    Instructional Television Becomes Popular

    242 television channels were set aside for educational purposes in 1952. The Ford Foundation funded continued growth of instructional television (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 10).
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    The Programmed Instruction Movement

    "The programmed instruction movement, which ran from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s, proved to be another major factor in the development of the systems approach. In 1954, B. F. Skinner’s article, “The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching,” began what might be called a minor revolution in the field of education" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 13).
  • The Popularization of Behavioral Objectives

    "In the early 1960s, Robert Mager, recognizing the need to teach educators how to write objectives, wrote Preparing Objectives for Programmed Instruction... Although Mager popularized the use of objectives, the concept was discussed and used by educators at least as far back as the early 1900s" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 13-14).
  • The Criterion-Referenced Testing Movement

    "In the early 1960s, another important factor in the development of the instructional design process was the emergence of criterion-referenced testing" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 14).
  • Robert M. Gagné: Domains of Learning, Events of Instruction, and Hierarchical Analysis

    "Another important event in the history of instructional design occurred in 1965, with the publication of the first edition of The Conditions of Learning, written by Robert Gagné. In this book, Gagné described five domains, or types, of learning outcomes—verbal information, intellectual skills, psychomotor skills, attitudes, and cognitive strategies—each of which required a different set of conditions to promote learning" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 14).
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    Number of Instructional Design Models Increase

    "During the 1970s, the number of instructional design models greatly increased. Building upon the works of those who preceded them, many individuals created new models for systematically designing instruction, several of which became “standards” in the field" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 15).
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    Growth and Redirection of IDT

    "A factor that had a major effect on instructional design practices in the 1980s was the increasing interest in the use of personal computers for instructional purposes. With the advent of these devices, many professionals in the instructional design field turned their attention to producing computer-based instruction" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 15).
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    Widespread Use of the Computer as an Instructional Tool

    "By the early 1980s, a few years after personal computers became available to the general public, the enthusiasm surrounding this tool led to increasing interest in using computers for instructional purposes. By January 1983, computers were being used for instructional purposes in more than 40 percent of all elementary schools and more than 75 percent of all secondary schools in the United States" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 11).
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    Digital Technology Advances

    "Rapid advances in computers and other digital technology, including the Internet, led to a rapidly increasing interest in, and use of, these media for instructional purposes" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, p. 11)