Timeline: History of Educational Technologies

100,000 BCE

Oral Communication

Oral communication was the only way of teaching and learning at the early periods of human history. It dates back from early human evolution to present. People had to memorize everything in order to pass the knowledge to the others or use them later. Stories, folklore, new, education were told through oral communication.

35,000 BCE

Cave Paintings

One of the most primitive ways of communication was the cave painting. Early humans used them to express their thought, emotions and especially in order to describe what they saw. They were used to describe hunting, dangerous creatures, landscapes, road tracks and cultural events.

6000 BCE

Egyptian Hieroglyphics

Egyptian developed a pictographic written language in order to record their knowledge and stocks. Firstly, they had been written on the walls until they met and developed stone/clay tablets. Later, they used papyrus.

3200 BCE

Stone and Clay Tablets

Firstly they were used by the Sumerians in order to keep the track of their stocks and record important information. Later on, Egyptians and Ancient Greek used them in education. Thanks to the development of tablets it became a bit easier to access knowledge and carry it around. However they were still hard to produce. They were taking too much time to write and they were realy heavy to carry in stacks.

3000 BCE

Writing on Papyrus

It was invented by the ancient Egypt around 3000BC. Ancient Greek and Rome used it until around 1100 AD. After the stone tablets it was easier to produce them. However they were not still commen among the citizens. They were mostly used by elites, nobles and goverment.

1500

Invention of Printing Press

After the renaissance and the invention of printing press it became more effortless to produce paper and copy writings. This invention accelerated the production of educational books and resources. Even if it was not still commen among the common folk, as the time goes by paper and books became more accessible to everyone.

1800

The Blackboard

First introduction of the blackboard to the class environment was around 1800s. It became one of the most used educational technologies since then.

1920

Educational Radio

After the invention of radio broadcasting in 1895, it is firstly used for educational purposes in 1920.

1930

Overhead and Movie Projectors

After they used by the US military in 1930s, they are easily adopted by schools. Visual materials such as image presentations, videos and movies become important aspects of education.

1960

Television

Televisions were first used in school education in 1960.

1970

Computers

Computers were firstly integrated to education in classroom around 1970s. In 1981 first practice programs are developted for the classroom education. After that computers gained a wide spread around the school education. Apple was one of biggest supporters of this educational technologies.

1980

Internet

First public version of the internet known as "network of networks" is introduced in 1980. It is integrated to education in 1988 by the Open University in the United Kingdom. It offered a course program including texts, television programs and audio cassettes. In 1990s internet become more convenient and created a reliable environment for education with the invention of "World Wide Web" by Tim Barners-Lee. WWW was the first important milestone of education through the internet fallowed by Google

2008

Online Courses

After the 2008 educational online courses were became widely populer.

2012

Mobile Devices and Social Media

Mobile Devices were started to be used after Apple introduces first Ipad in 2012. Most of the population were able access mobile devices, therefore social media become widely used and popular. Educational contents became puplished/posted through the social media.

2019