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1400
The Hornbook
Adopted from England, the hornbook was one of the first forms of educational technology used to aid in teaching reading in American schools. A hornbook was “a small, wooden, paddle-shaped instrument. The hornbook was a crude, low-cost solution to the American settler’s problem of how to teach children to read without having books available. Although it was useful at the time, the hornbook became obsolete as the cost of printing decreased and texts became more widely available. -
1400
The Printed Books
Perhaps the most popular early printed book was the New England Primer: Introduced to schools in 1690, the New England Primer was intended to make learning to read more interesting for children. The next generation of written texts included Webster’s first spelling book, followed by the McGuffy Readers. The evolution of these primitive textbooks allowed teachers to follow a predefined sequence of lesson plans that taught students how to read and write. -
The Blackboard
While individual slates were used in classrooms during the early 1800s, it was not until 1841 that the classroom chalkboard was first introduced. By the late 1800s, the chalkboard had become a permanent fixture in most classrooms. -
Film
The kinetoscope, which is now known as the motion picture, was invented in 1889. Over the next decade, film equipment was developed and refined. And in 1902, Charles Urban of London began exhibiting the first educational films .In 1910, enthusiasm for educational films led Rochester New York’s Board of Education to adopt education films for instructional use. Many other public school systems soon followed Rochester’s lead. -
Radio
Radio entered the educational system in the early 1920s. Like the early days of film, radio was heralded as a tool that would revolutionize classroom teaching. By the end of the 1940s, technology proponents had given up on educational radio and instead began focusing on the use of television in schools, which was perceived to be the ultimate combination of audio and visual technology. -
The Typewriter
The first functioning typewriter was marketed and sold by the Remington Arms Company in 1873. An often overlooked form of educational technology, the typewriter is the one form of mechanical technology that has penetrated and been used by large numbers of students over several decades. This use, however, has generally been limited to “business” classes that focus specifically on teaching students how to type. -
Television
Although it wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that instructional television reached its peak, the first documented use of closed circuit television was in Los Angeles public schools and at the State University of Iowa in 1939. While the popularity of instructional television was rising between 1939 and the 1950s, the overall United States educational system was facing harsh criticism. -
Computers
The research in the 1950s and 1960s on programmed instruction laid the foundation for the development of more advanced learning systems. Computers were first used in education in the 1960s in a way that was intended to individualize instruction. This method became known as computer assisted instruction (CAI). CAI was intended to teach students a specific content area. Initially, the only difference between CAI and teaching machines was the type of technology used to deliver the material. -
Teaching Machines And Programmed Instruction
The premise behind teaching machines was that objectives must be defined in advance and the extent to which these objectives are achieved must be measured. Students operated the machines themselves and followed instructions on a screen similar to a television. Typically, individual student cubicles were set up to block the noise made by the machines. This format minimized the amount of interaction among students and between students and the teacher -
The Internet
Nowadays, the Internet is one of the more popular forms of educational technology used in classrooms. As an example, the Virtual High School (VHS) was launched in the late 1990s. Since then, VHS has grown and served approximately 3,000 students in more than 150 schools with 134 online courses in 2001. In addition to online courses, there are a variety of ways that the Internet is being used in classrooms. -
References
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Information from http://institute-of-progressive-education-and-learning.org
