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The History of Educational Technologies

  • 500 BCE

    Oral Communication

    Oral Communication
    One of the oldest ways of formal teaching was oral education. Over time, technology was used more and more to facilitate verbal communication. In ancient times, stories, cultures, histories and news were transmitted and stored through verbal communication. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were recited poems designed as a public speech. In order to learn, it was passed on to the next generations by memorizing by listening instead of reading, and by roteing rather than in writing.
  • 800

    Written Education

    Written Education
    The earliest examples of educational technology in the ancient world were the tools that students and teachers used to write. For thousands of years, wax-coated whiteboards, clay tablets, leaves, and animal skin were used for written education.
  • 1436

    Invention of the Printing Press

    Invention of the Printing Press
    Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1436, and the first Gutenberg Bible was printed in 1455. Nearly two centuries later, Stephen Dayne brought the first printing press used in the United States.
  • Written Communication & Education and Postal System

    Written Communication & Education and Postal System
    Advances in transport infrastructure in the 19th century, and especially the creation of a cheap and reliable postal system in the 1800s, developments at the University of London led to the development of the first formal correspondence education. This first formal distance degree program is still available today as the University of London International Programme.
  • Educational Films & Other Tools

    Educational Films & Other Tools
    The important history of Educational Technologies begins with the educational movie (1900s) or Sidney Pressey's mechanical teaching machines in the 1920s. An example of the first significant use of new technologies is the use of educational films and other tools to train US World War II soldiers. Today, the foundations of presentation-based technology were laid in those years, based on the idea that people can learn content through auditory and visual reception.
  • Radio Broadcasts

     Radio Broadcasts
    The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began broadcasting educational radio programs for schools in the 1920s. The first adult education radio broadcast from the BBC in 1924 was a talk on Human Insects.
  • Television

    Television
    The first documented use of closed-circuit television was in 1939 in Los Angeles public schools and Iowa State University. Educational use of television spread rapidly around the world, and in the 1970s it was seen as a panacea for education in developing countries, but lack of electricity, cost, safety of public equipment, climate, resistance of local teachers and local language and cultural issues have somewhat prevented the use of television for educational purposes.
  • Computer Based Education

    Computer Based Education
    In the 1980s and 1990s, the use of Computer-based learning (CBL) began in some schools. Often based on cognitive learning theories, these environments focus on teaching both abstract and domain-specific problem solving. The preferred technologies were micro-worlds, simulations and hypertext.
  • Online Education Tools

    Online Education Tools
    In 1995 the Web led to the development of the first learning management systems (LMSs) such as WebCT. LMSs provide 'spaces' for learning objectives, student activities, assignment questions and discussion forums, as well as providing an online teaching platform where content can be uploaded and edited. The first fully online courses began appearing in 1995, both LMSs and text uploads as PDFs or slides.
  • Social Media

    Social Media
    Social media is a subcategory of computer technology, but their development has had an important place in the history of educational technology. Social media covers a wide range of different technologies, including blogs, wikis, YouTube videos, mobile devices such as phones and tablets.