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10,000 BCE
Picture Writing
Picture writing's origin cannot be determined because it goes so far back that it could be considered a myth, but as the earliest form of literacy, this fits into the technology of the time considering how little else people would have had to teach and express their ways of meaning-making (Smith, 2002, p. 3-5). Technology is not just defined as a digital item, but technology is any innovation in the materials one has access to that makes one's life better or easier. -
Period: 10,000 BCE to
What is Technology?
"Technology is an ever-changing medium that if used correctly can facilitate successful learning in schools today and especially in classrooms. It has long been involved in the classroom to enhance reading" (Stone, 2011). Technology does not have to mean an object that plugs into an outlet or an object powered by batteries; It is any innovation in what one has access to that makes life better or easier. In this timeline, I note technology that has significantly affected literacy instruction. -
4700 BCE
Egyptian Wooden/Stone Tablets
Egyptians would use wooden tablets to teach letters/symbols, and this is one of the earliest forms of the modern reading textbook. Egyptian people created these tablets for education "for the express purpose of providing mediums on which symbols might be inscribed" (Smith, 2002, p. 3-4). -
2000 BCE
Graphic Symbols and Phonetic Writing
"[The] principle of representing ideas by graphics symbols was elaborated with the invention of phonetic writing in which pictures represented the consonant" (Soffer & Eshet-Alkalai, 2009, p. 50). -
200
The Page
"During the 3rd century A.D., scrolls were replaced by a new invention for text-layout: the page" (Soffer & Eshet-Alkalai, 2009, p. 52). The page revolutionized reading because people could absorb a lot of information at once instead of using a scroll to slowly read, and soon after pages binder together were created and eventually led to publishing the first books. -
500
Page Numbering
Page-numbering was created around this time so that readers for the first time could "refer to or...return to specific places in the book" (Soffer & Eshet-Alkalai, 2009, p. 52). This invention also let the people who publish the books to create a table of contents and for other people to more easily reference portions of a text. -
813
Primer
"Early in the history of religious instruction priests came to believe that certain religious selections were so fundamental that all adults and children should memorize them" (Smith, 2002, p. 7). These books are not called primers because they are the first textbook, but they are called primers because their content was considered primary knowledge in 813, so they were created because of a need to spread their content to the masses. -
1400
The ABC
A textbook that contained "the Pastor Nova, the Ava Maria, the Credo, and two prayers" (Smith, 2002, p. 8). This textbook is a piece of technology because it was created as a result of a need for a textbook that served as a book of reading instruction as well as a religious text. -
1500
Gingerbread Hornbooks
Likely, hornbooks were created around the 16th century, and some were made of gingerbread, a popular food. This is one of the earliest documented attempts at student motivation (Smith, 2002, p. 5). -
Steampress
The steam press, "perfected in the 1830s," could produce 3,000 impressions per hour, and this vastly revolutionized printing and mass production of printed materials (Venezky, 1990 p. 20). -
Roads and Canals
"[Newly] built canals and road allowed publishers to operate profitably over a larger territory than before," and these allowed even more school textbooks to be distributed more widely and more quickly (Venezky, 1990 p. 21). While the canals and roads were likely not created with the thought of the mass distribution of educational materials in mind, publishers and educators used them to their advantage to make educational materials more accessible than before. -
School Museums
School museums were created in the first decade of the 20th century as a way to serve "as the central administrative unit(s) for visual instruction by distribution of portable museum exhibits, stereographs...slides, films, study prints, charts, and other instructional materials" (Reiser, 2001, p. 55). This is one of the first instances of media being widely used in schools, and these museums were mostly viewed as supplemental materials in curriculum. -
Overhead Projector
The first overhead projector was produced during World War II, but they did not become abundantly used in schools until the 1960s. This technology was created because of a need to project what was on a piece of paper or on a computer onto a larger screen for military as one of their forms of "audiovisual materials" for teaching (Reiser, 2001, p. 57). -
Interactive White Board
Interactive White Boards (IWBs) are a classroom technology that include an interactive whiteboard, a computer, a projector, and white boarding software. "IWBs were initially developed for and used in the business sector, but they eventually caught on in higher education" (Lacina, 2012, p. 270). -
Internet in Schools
Internet access in schools has come a long way, and it all started in 1994. In public schools, only 3% of instructional rooms had access to the Internet in 1994 compared with 94% in 2005 (Wells and Lewis, 2006, p. 4). Access to the Internet in literacy classrooms gave students access to modes of learning that they did not have before, and the possibilities for literacy learning in schools became seemingly endless. -
CD-ROM
Professional development for the use of CD-ROMs in school became rampant in 1995 because of the increasing "interest in, and use of, these media for instructional purposes" (Reiser, 2001, p. 60). It also helped teachers and students save and reproduce their information more easily than before. -
1:1 Technology
1:1 technology is revolutionary in that it gives each student access to their own computer; no sharing or group work, and each student can work at their own pace. Since the introduction of Internet in schools, schools have continued to try to provide 1:1 technology, and we've only come closer every year. "In 2005, the ratio of students to instructional computers with Internet access in public schools was 3.8 to 1, a decrease from the 12.1 to 1 ratio in 1998" (Wells and Lewis, 2006, p. 6) -
Explosion of Technology Applications: 2010+
"One of the most frequently cited reasons for justifying the need for change in education...is the enormous technological (r)evolution our world has undergone in recent years" (De Bruyckere, 2016). We now have smartphones, Ebooks, iPads, Google Classroom, and so many more apps with the potential to enhance literacy learning in the classroom. The explosion of technology should be treated with care so that pedagogy can can keep up with it and so that teachers and students use it to their benefit.
