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School museums came into play in the first decade of the twentieth century. The first museum opened up in St. Louis.
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Instructional films was first cataloged in the United States. Thomas Edison proclaimed: "Books will soon be obsolete in the schools...in the next ten years" (Saettler, 1968)
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Visual instruction did grow but Edison's revolutionary change did not come as predicted. Five national professional organizations for visual instruction was established.
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The Great Depression began and caused investments to suffer. However the movement continued to strive. In 1932 the three existing national professional organizations merged.
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Technology advances now include radio, sound recordings and pictures changing the visual movement to audio visual.
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Increased interest in television as a medium for delivering instruction. This was sparked because of two major factors:
1.In 1952 Federal Communications set aside 242 television channels for educational purposes. (public "educational" television stations).
2. The Ford Foundation provided funding of more than $170 million on educational television. -
Computers became available to the general public in 1980 the interest grew. Three years later more than 40% of all elementary schools and more than 75% of all secondary schools used computers for instructional purposes.
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The ratio of computers to students grew to 1:9 but they were not being used for instructional practices. Elementary schools were using them for practice and drills and the secondary schools were teaching computer skills.
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Computers are used for online instruction and this field is growing for not only K-12, and the collegiate level but for businesses and industries. In 2014 training was up to 28%.
