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40,000 BCE
Cave drawings
Cave drawing was among the earliest types of educational technology in history. The earliest cave drawings were discovered in Asia and Europe. These cave paintings could have been used to educate early humans at the time, telling stories about their early lives (Bates, 2015). -
Period: 40,000 BCE to 500 BCE
Oral communication
Oral communication was the first resource for formal education in Greek ancient times. Oral - though human speech - was one of the earliest forms of formal teaching, but technology has progressively been used to enable or back up oral communication over time. In that times, stories, folklore, histories, and news were transmitted and maintained orally, making accurate memorization a critical skill; this remains the situation in many aboriginal societies today (Bates, 2015). -
2500 BCE
Abacus
The abacus arose from an urge for more convenient computation (Rhodes, 2020). -
700 BCE
Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey
The ancient Greeks used verbiage and speech to understand and share knowledge, including in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. These stories were planned for public performance and constituted part of a long oral communication. Greek ancient people memorize by listening rather than reading, and they passed on their stories to the public by reciting rather than writing (Bates, 2015). -
500 BCE
References for oral communication
Bates, A. W. (2015, April 5). 6.2 A short history of educational technology – Teaching in a Digital Age. Pressbooks. https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/section-8-1-a-short-history-of-educational-technology/
Haran, M. (2015, May 29). A History of Education Technology | The Institute of Progressive Education and Learning. -
1440
Printing press
The printing press is a machine that enables the industrial growth of uniform printed matter, primarily text in the form of books. Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in Germany around 1440. His first achievement was the printing of the Bible in Latin. Moreover, the printing press was a major change agent because many people in government and industry were expected to evolve literate and analytical, resulting in an immediate evolution of formal instruction in Europe (Haran, 2015). -
Period: 1440 to
Written communication
Written communication's role is huge in education history. The majority of the tools used today were invented during the era of written communication. For example, the printing press, invented in Europe in the 15th century, was a truly disruptive technology, making written knowledge much more freely available, much like the Internet does today. It significantly increased the availability of written knowledge (Bates, 2015). -
1450
The Horn Book
The horn book was used to teach a set of syllables, vowels, and letters of the alphabet. However, it did not replace formal teaching (Haran, 2015). -
Slate Tablet
Prior to the invention of the chalkboard, students had access to individual slates on which they could write their assignments and responses (Avenia, 2018). Prior to those reforms, writing and reading were taught separately. Reading ability did not always imply writing ability. In the year 1800, this changed. Reading and writing should no longer be memorization exercises and acts of copying. The relationship between letters and their sounds should be taught to students (Trottmann, 2019). -
The chalkboard
The chalkboard is generally thought to have been invented by a Scottish teacher named James Pillans. This invention reduced the price and need for sometimes limited and expensive paper and pencil supplies (Avenia, 2018). It is a time and money-saving tool that continues to be used in classrooms. -
Magic lantern
Magic lanterns projected images from glass plates onto walls in the classroom. By the end of World War I, the public school system in Chicago had amassed a collection of approximately 8,000 lantern presentations (Haran, 2015). -
Pencil
The first was mass-produced in the late 19th century pencils replaced school slates as chalkboards did. -
References for written communication
Avenia. (2012, October 28). The History and Future of the Chalkboard | ETEC540: Text, Technologies – Community Weblog. A MET Collaborative Weblog. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept12/2012/10/28/the-history-and-future-of-the-chalkboard/
Bates, A. W. (2015, April 5). 6.2 A short history of educational technology – Teaching in a Digital Age. Pressbooks.
Haran, M. (2015, May 29). A History of Education Technology | The Institute of Progressive Education and Learning. -
References 2
Trottmann, M. (2019, November 21). Writing slates – tablets of the 19th century. Seren. https://www.seren.bangor.ac.uk/uncategorized/2019/11/01/writing-slates-tablets-of-the-19th-century/ -
Radio
Radio was introduced in education in the early 1920s, and started broadcast and video communication era. Haaren High School in New York City was the first public school to use radio in the classroom in 1923 (Haran, 2015). -
Period: to
Broadcasting and video
The concept of video and broadcasting in education was started by radio broadcasting. The first adult education radio broadcast from the BBC was about Insects in Relation to Man in 1924. The BBC's new director of education, J.C. Stobart, wrote about "a broadcasting university" in the magazine Radio Times the same year (Robinson, 1982, as cited in Bates, 2019). -
Film projector
This enabled teachers to show videos to their students to help them visualize aspects of science, history, and so on (Wikipedia). -
Overhead projector
The overhead projector was a common training tool for American military personnel during World War II, and it eventually found its way into classrooms (Haran, 2015). -
Mimeograph
Copying and distributing materials for the classroom was made simple by this development. Since not all students could buy books, this reduced their expenses for them. -
Television
Open-circuit television began to be used extensively for broadcasting entertainment-related programming in 1950. Since 1960, television has been used in education (Bates, 2015). -
The hand-held calculator
In the 1960s, the first hand-held calculator was created. This utility was invented by Pat Haggerty. This invention allowed pupils to enter numbers into the device rather than solve each issue by hand (Hamrick, 1996). -
References for broadcasting and video
Bates, A. W. (2015, April 5). 6.2 A short history of educational technology – Teaching in a Digital Age. Pressbooks. https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/section-8-1-a-short-history-of-educational-technology/
Hamrick, K. B. (1996, October). The History of the Hand-Held Electronic Calculator. The American Mathematical Monthly, 103(8), 633–639. https://doi.org/10.1080/00029890.1996.12004799 -
References 2
Haran, M. (2015, May 29). A History of Education Technology | The Institute of Progressive Education and Learning. http://institute-of-progressive-education-and-learning.org/a-history-of-education-technology/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projector -
Period: to
Computer technologies
In principle, the advancement of programmed learning seeks to computerize teaching by organizing data, testing learners' knowledge, and enabling rapid feedback to learners, with no human interference other than the layout of hardware and software, as well as the collection and loading of content and assessment questions. Moreover, computer-based learning, computer networking, and online learning environments are subtitles of computer technologies (Bates, 2015). -
Apple I
A pioneering personal computer is the Apple I. It was designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak (Dernbach, 2008). This began the time of technology for teachers. Previously, they had used technology as an aid of instruction. And, then technology was the source of instruction. (Haran, 2015). -
Apple II
The first mass-produced microcomputer was produced by Apple Computer, and it was called the Apple II. Using floppy discs, students were able to learn subjects such as geography and math, etc (Dernbach, 2008). -
The IBM Personal Computer
IBM PC is the first personal computer. The IBM PC outperformed competitors in terms of speed and memory capacity and was supported by a sizable sales force within IBM. (Gregersen, 2022) -
Interactive Whiteboard / Smartboard
The interactive whiteboard began replacing blackboards in the 1990s. -
Internet
Students in schools started having access to the World Wide Web in 1990, ushering in a new generation of learners (Haran, 2015). -
Google
The Google firm was established in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. And, then it has evolved into the most prevalent web-based search engine (Wikipedia). -
Learning management system (LMS)
Learning management systems (LMS), usually referred to as instructional management systems, are online tools that let teachers, administrators, and students engage and communicate with each other remotely over the internet (Haran, 2015). -
VR
Pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays are used in virtual reality (VR) to provide users with an immersive sense of a virtual world (Wikipedia). Moreover, VR enables pupils to travel the world without ever leaving the classroom, and students can engage with what they observe in a VR environment as if they were actually there (Gupta, 2018). -
References 2
Gupta, J. (2021, May 12). How To Transform Classroom Learning With Virtual Reality In Education. eLearning Industry. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://elearningindustry.com/transform-classroom-learning-virtual-reality-education
Haran, M. (2015, May 29). A History of Education Technology | The Institute of Progressive Education and Learning. http://institute-of-progressive-education-and-learning.org/a-history-of-education-technology/ -
References for computer technologies
Bates, A. W. (2015, April 5). 6.2 A short history of educational technology – Teaching in a Digital Age. Pressbooks. https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/section-8-1-a-short-history-of-educational-technology/
Dernbach, C. (2012, February 14). Apple I and Apple II. Mac History. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.mac-history.net/computer-history/2008-05-25/apple-i-and-apple-ii -
References 3