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Period: to
Evolution
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Horn-Book
Wooden paddles with printed lessons were popular through the colonial era. How did they work? Paper was expensive. The horn of a cow can be "peeled" to form thin, transparent sheets. These could then be glued to the board and allow students to practice by tracing letters. Read more here. -
New England Primer
The New England Primer was the first reading primer designed for the American Colonies. It became the most successful educational textbook published in 18th century America and it became the foundation of most schooling before the 1790s. -
Typewriter
The first commercial typewriter was sold in Europe in 1870. A fundamental design issue was the placement of the letters so that the fastest writing fingers struck the most frequently used letters. Is that the design for our current QUERTY keyboard? -
Magic Lantern
The Magic Lantern could be considered the predecessor to the slide machine. Images printed on glass plates could be projected and viewed by students. By the end of World War I, Chicago's public-school system had a collection of some 8,000 lantern slides. -
School Slate
Widely used throughout the 19th century, the writing slate was praised by a Boston school superintendent in 1870 this way: "If the result of the work should, at any time, be found infelicitous, a sponge will readily banish from the slate all disheartening recollections, and leave it free from new attempts." -
Chalkboard
Perhaps the most durable instrument of American education, the chalkboard can still be found in classrooms. -
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Stereoscope
At the turn of the century, teh Keystone View Company began to market stereoscopes. These viewing devices allowed people to experience three-dimensional pictures. There were popular in home parlors and schools. Do you remember having a View-Master? -
Filmstrip Projector
From the 1940s to 1980s, filmstrips provided an easy and inexpensive alternative to 16mm projector educational films, requiring very little storage space and being very quick to rewind for the next use. Thomas Edison predicted that, with the advent of projected images, "books will soon be obsolete in schools. Scholars will soon be instructed through the eye." -
Radio
New York City’s Board of Education was actually the first organization to send lessons to schools through a radio station. Over the next couple of decades, “schools of the air” began broadcasting programs to millions of American students. You can read more about the history of radio here. -
Overhead Projector
First used for police identification work, the overhead projector was quickly adopted by the military in World War II. Schoola and businesses began to use them in the 1950's and 60's. -
Ballpoint Pen
While it was originally invented in 1888, it was not until 1940 that the ballpoint pen started to gain worldwide recognition as being a useful tool in the classroom and life in general. The first ballpoint pens went on sale at Gimbels department store in New York City on 29 October 1945 for US$9.75 each. This pen was widely known as the rocket in the U.S. into the late 1950s. -
Mimeograph
Mimeographs force ink through a stencil onto paper. Once prepared, the stencil is wrapped around the ink-filled drim of the rotary machine. This hand-cranked drum would draw a single page per turn. Can you imagine preparing handouts for your class with this? -
Headphones
Headphones were the only way to listen to electrical audio signals before amplifiers were developed. -
Slide Rule
The sliderule might best be described as a mechanical analog computer. It was commonly used for multiplication and division, but could also perform functions such as roots, logarithms, and trigonometry. -
Videotapes
A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock used in filmmaking or random access digital media. You may know these as VCR's and (tape-based) camcorders. -
Reading Accelerator
With an adjustable metal bar that helped the reader march down a page, the device was meant to improve reading efficiency. -
Skinner Teaching Machine
The teaching machine was a mechanical device whose purpose was to administer a curriculum of programmed instruction. In one incarnation, it housed a list of questions, and a mechanism through which the learner could respond to each question. Upon delivering a correct answer, the learner would be rewarded. Here is a video where B,F, Skinner explains the machine and the principle for its use. -
Educational Television
By the early sixties, there were more than 50 channels of TV which included educational programming that aired across the country. -
Photocopier
Xerographic office photocopying was introduced by Xerox in 1959, and it gradually replaced copies made by Verifax, Photostat, carbon paper, mimeograph machines, and other duplicating machines. The prevalence of its use is one of the factors that prevented the development of the paperless office heralded early in the digital revolution[citation needed].Photocopying is widely used in business, education, and government. There have been many predictions that photocopiers will eventually become obso -
Liquid Paper
A secretary made this white liquid in her kitchen and sold the company to Gillette for about $50 million. The rest is (redacted) history! Here is a commercial about why you need it! -
Filmstrip viewer
All the benefits of a filmstrip projector, personalized. -
Hand-held calculators
Though studies showed that calculators improved student's attitude toward math, teachers often were slow to adopt them for fear that they would undermine the learning of basic math facts. -
Scantron
The Scantron Corporation eliminated the hassle of grading multiple choice exams. The machines were free to use, but the company made money by charging for proprietary grading forms. -
First Cellphone Call
Marty Cooper of Motorola spoke to his rival Joel Engler at Bell Labs to gloat over the new invention. He made the call on a Motorola DynaTAC 8000x which weighed 2.5 pounds and had a single-line, text-only LED screen. The phone had a battery life of 20 minutes. Click herefor more... -
Apple II computer
One of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. This product was heavily discounted for schools and consequently, found its was into many classrooms. -
Ditto Machine
The spirit duplicator came to be called the Ditto machine as the best-known US manufacturer was the Ditto Corporation. This duplicator used two-ply "spririt masters". The first sheet was written, typed, or drawn upon. The pressure of the writing would transfer the colored wax to the second sheet.
This was the technology I used in my student teaching! Here is a scene from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". -
Plato Computer
Public schools in the United States averaged one computer for every 92 students in 1984; in 2008 there was one computer for every 4 students. -
IBM Personal Computer
Alongside "microcomputer" and "home computer", the term "personal computer" was already in use before 1981. It was used as early as 1972 to characterize Xerox PARC's Alto. However, because of the success of the IBM Personal Computer, the term PC came to mean more specifically a microcomputer compatible with IBM's PC products. -
Graphing Calculator
The successor to the hand-held calculator (see above), the graphing calculator made far more advanced math much easier as it let you plot out points, do long equations, and play ‘Snake’ as a game when you got bored in class. -
CD-ROM Drive
A single CD-ROM disc could store an entire encyclopedia, plus video and audio. -
Apple Macintosh
In 1985, the combination of the Mac, Apple's LaserWriter printer, and Mac-specific software like Boston Software's MacPublisher and Aldus PageMaker enabled users to design, preview, and print page layouts complete with text and graphics—an activity to become known as desktop publishing. Initially, desktop publishing was unique to the Macintosh, but eventually became available for other platforms. Apple's introductory commercial for the Macintosh. -
Interactive Whiteboard
The chalkboard got a facelift with the whiteboard. That got turned into a more interactive system that uses a touch-sensitive white screen, a projector, and a computer. Still getting slowly rolled out to classrooms right now, betcha didn’t know they were first around in 1999! (I didn’t know that, at least) -
Apple QuickTake
The Apple QuickTake is one of the first consumer digital camera lines. Time magazine profiled QuickTake as "the first consumer digital camera" and ranked it among its "100 greatest and most influential gadgets from 1923 to the present" list in 2010. -
Apple AirPort
According to the Wi-Fi Alliance's records, the Apple AirPort, which Steve Jobs debuted at MacWorld in 1999, was the first certified wireless gateway. The AirPort not only connected devices to the Internet wirelessly but also connected peripheral devices like printers to other devices on the same local network. -
Wireless Student Response Systems
There are many similar tools available now, but iClicker was one of the first to allow teachers to be able to quickly poll students and get results in real time. -
XO Laptop
The ‘One Laptop Per Child’ computer was built so it was durable and cheap enough to sell or donate to developing countries. It’s an incredible machine that works well in sunlight, is waterproof, and much more. -
Apple iPad
Just like the original school slate, could the iPad bring Thomas Edison’s statement to life? Could the iPad make it so “scholars will soon be instructed through the eye.” Only time will tell.
