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One of the earliest means of formal teaching was oral – though human speech – although over time, technology has been increasingly used to facilitate or ‘back-up’ oral communication. In ancient times, stories, folklore, histories and news were transmitted and maintained through oral communication, making accurate memorization a critical skill, and the oral tradition is still the case in many aboriginal cultures.
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Slate boards were in use in India in the 12th century AD, and blackboards/chalkboards became used in schools around the turn of the 18th century.
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The role of text or writing in education also has a long history. According to the Bible, Moses used chiseled stone to convey the ten commandments in a form of writing, probably around the 7th century BC.
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By the fifth century B.C, written documents existed in considerable numbers in ancient Greece.
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rMedieval educational methods largely draw inspiration from classical methods of the Sophists, and students learn Latin, rhetoric, and grammar, along with the arts. Education and knowledge is largely controlled by the church for hundreds of years, due in part by the scarcity of books.
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The invention of the printing press in Europe in the 15th century was a truly disruptive technology, making written knowledge much more freely available, very much in the same way as the Internet has done today.
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Improvements in transport infrastructure in the 19th century, and in particular the creation of a cheap and reliable postal system in the 1840s, led to the development of the first formal correspondence education, with the University of London offering an external degree program by correspondence from 1858. This first formal distance degree program still exists today in the form of the University of London International Program.
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During the 19th and 20th centuries, various philosophers and educators have proposed educational theories that further develop and refine ideas of Comenius, Lancaster, and even draw upon some ideas of the Sophists. Portions of their work are reflected in what modern teachers do today.
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The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began broadcasting educational radio programs for schools in the 1920s.
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The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began broadcasting educational radio programs for schools in the 1920s.
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In the 1950's, behaviorists began the "programmed instruction movement", which stressed the importance of planning lessons and writing learning objectives that adhered to certain standards, followed logical sequences, and criterion-referenced testing-a method of assessment which determined how students could "perform a particular behavior or set of behaviors irrespective of how well others perform" (Reiser, 2001(1), p. 60).
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Russia successfully launches Sputnik, and the United States is sent into a frenzied "space race", which ultimately affects the direction of education. More emphasis is placed on science, math, and engineering, and more money is devoted to newer technology in schools, proof of influence the international community (and historical events) have on our education system.
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The Children's Television Workshop debuts "Sesame Street", as part of the burgeoning interest in the possibility of television as an educational medium.
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Although the telephone dates from the late 1870s, the standard telephone system never became a major educational tool, not even in distance education, because of the high cost of analogue telephone calls for multiple users, although audio-conferencing has been used to supplement other media since the 1970s.
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Video-conferencing using dedicated cable systems and dedicated conferencing rooms have been in use since the 1980s.
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In 1995, the Web enabled the development of the first learning management systems (LMSs), such as WebCT (which later became Blackboard). LMSs provide an online teaching environment, where content can be loaded and organized, as well as providing ‘spaces’ for learning objectives, student activities, assignment questions, and discussion forums.
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Social media are strongly associated with young people and ‘millenials’ – in other words, many of the students in post-secondary education. At the time of writing social media are only just being integrated into formal education, and to date their main educational value has been in non-formal education, such as fostering online communities of practice, or around the edges of classroom teaching, such as ‘tweets’ during lectures or rating of instructors.
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