Timeline: History of Educational Technology

30,000 BCE

Cave Drawings

Cave painting is drawings painted on cave walls about 30,000 years ago, mostly of prehistoric origin. The purposes and meanings of the Paleolithic cave paintings are unknown. Some theories hold that cave paintings may be a way of communicating with others, and others that they serve a religious or ceremonial purpose.

510 BCE

Pythagoras Academy

Pythagorean School, Pythagorean Academy, Pythagoreanism. The Pythagorean School or Pythagoreanism is a school of Ancient Greek philosophy distinguished by its theological, scientific and philosophical views. The philosophical approach of this school is called Pythagoreanism.

105

The First Paper

The first paper was made in China back in 105.

382

Manuscript Transcription

Transcription is the process of writing down the text from a document. There are two goals for transcription, which in reality may seem to be at conflict with one another: You want to make the manuscript's text legible so that you or other users may use it to continue working on the material.

1101

Slate Board

Slate boards were in use in India in the 12th century.

1450

Printing Press

On a piece of land that belonged to a distant cousin, the Humbrechthof, Gutenberg's workshop was established. He once more requested financial assistance from Fust in 1452 and began work on the Bible, which would become the first book printed at his "Gutenberg Printing House."

1801

Blackboards

The problem's very simple answer first appeared in 1801. When James Pillans put a sizable piece of slate on the classroom wall at the Old High School in Edinburgh, Scotland, he is credited with creating the first modern chalkboard.

1910

Audio-visiual Age

During 1910s, the audiovisual age began.

1920

Radio

In the United States, the popularity of radio as a source of entertainment expanded in the 1920s. Radio shows, music, and other forms of affordable family entertainment were available.

1930

Film Strip Projector

A filmstrip is a spooled roll of 35 mm positive film with approximately thirty to fifty images arranged in sequential order. Film Strip Projectors are firstly used in 1930s.

1940

Overhead Projector

Similar to a film or slide projector, an overhead projector (commonly abbreviated as OHP) utilizes light to display an enlarged image on a screen, allowing a large audience to view a small document or picture.

1960

Television

As early as the 1970s, educational television was being used all around the world (Bates, 2015). It brought a whole new world to many people.

1960

Information Age

The concept of the "Information Age" holds that having access to and control over information characterizes the current phase of human civilisation. It began during 1960s. It is also indicated that The Information Age does not have to be characterized by increased social isolation, polarization, and inequality (Castells, M. ,1997).

1970

VCR (Video Completion Rate)

JVC created the vcr (video recording format), which was first made available in Europe and Asia in September 1976.

1980

Audio Tape

Magnetic tape is used to record sound on audiotape.

1990

Computer

The first digital computers were massive devices with thousands of vacuum tubes that were constructed in the 1940s and 1950s. They frequently filled a sizable room, although their computing capacity was inferior to that of modern personal computers (O'Reagen , 2021).

1995

Digital Age

Beginning in the middle of the 1980s, digitized networking and communication in education gained popularity in the middle of the 1990s, especially through the World Wide Web (WWW), eMail, and forums.

2000

Interactive Age

The Information Age is being logically extended into the Interaction Age, which is founded on a foundation of well-known information technologies but expands them to stress interactivity above merely delivering material.

2024

References

Bates, A.W. (2015) Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for Designing Teaching and Learning Vancouver BC: Tony Bates Associates Ltd.
Castells, M. (1997). An introduction to the information age. City, 2(7),6–16.
https://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Educational_technology
O’Regan, G. (2021). A Brief History of Computing. Springer.

2024