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1300 BCE
The Abacus
The abacus was invented in China, around 1300 BC. It was popularized during the Ming dynasty (1368 AD to 1644 AD), and has been a very popular calculating device ever since. Other early forms of the abacus include the ancient Roman abacuses consisting of a sand-covered wax tablet, marked table,, or grooved table. In medieval England, a tablet with marked spaces was used with coins or other small objects. -
1440
The Printing Press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink, and accelerated the process. Germany, around 1440, goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which started the Printing Revolution. -
The Magic Lantern
The Magin Catacoprica or magic lantern, invented in 1646, led to the eventual zoetrope.
Magic lantern, or slide, shows played an important role, attracting young and old to schools, theaters, and homes to watch depictions of fables, legends, and current events. -
The Telephone
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the electrical speech machine which we now call the telephone. This machine would one day make distance learning and the Internet possible. -
The Television
The first public demonstration on television was conducted in 1927.
The birth of the electronic television age is almost impossible to pinpoint exactly. Due to the numerous contributors that
helped to develop this new medium, it is even more difficult to acknowledge any one person for its invention. -
The ENIAC
In 1941 , the ENIAC computer was introduced. ENIAC was unveiled in Philadelphia. It represented a stepping stone towards the true computer. It was built out of some 17,468 electronic vacuum tubes, ENIAC was in its time the largest single electronic apparatus in the world. -
The Calculator
An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized devices became available in the 1970s, especially after the Intel 4004, the first microprocessor, was developed by Intel for the Japanese calculator company Busicom. They later became used commonly within the petroleum industry (oil and gas). -
The Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing. -
Online Learning Environments
In 1995, the Web enabled the development of the first learning management systems (LMSs), such as WebCT (which later became Blackboard).LMSs provide an online teaching environment, where content can be loaded and organized, as well as providing ‘spaces’ for learning objectives, student activities, assignment questions, and discussion forums. The first fully online courses (for credit) started to appear in 1995, some using LMSs, others just loading text as PDFs or slides. -
E-Portfolios
The e-portfolio was a place to store all the evidence a learner gathered to exhibit learning, both formal and informal, in order to support lifelong learning and career development. But like learning objects—and despite academic interest and a lot of investment in technology and standards—e-portfolios did not become the standard form of assessment as proposed.
