Educational Technology Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

1. Educational TechnologyYesterday, Today, and Tomorrow James Lehman Educational Technology Purdue University

2. Educational TechnologyPast Today’s Lesson History

3. Roots • Educational technology as we know it today has roots in at least three once-separate disciplines: • Systematic instructional design • Educational media • Educational computing • Most of this presentation centers on the latter, although they are intertwined.

4. Instructional Design Educational Media Educational Computing Educational Technology - Past

5. Instructional Design Roots • Instructional design was founded on the pioneering work of individuals such as Edward L. Thorndike (at right). • Thorndike developed one of the first “scientific” theories of learning. His was the original expression of the stimulus-response framework of learning that gave rise to behaviorism.

6. Theoretical Perspectives • The field has been influenced by three major theoretical perspectives over the last century: • Behaviorism • Cognitivism • Constructivism • Although behaviorism came first, famous educator John Dewey, a contemporary of Thorndike, is often credited as the founder of constructivist thought in education.

7. Designing Instruction • The growing understanding of the process of human learning in the 20th century supported the notion that instruction could be systematically designed to produce learning. • Concepts such as individualized instruction, instructional task analysis, and the use of objectives to describe what students should learn arose as early as the 1920s and 1930s.

8. Shifting Paradigms • The behavioral view of learning dominated instructional design through the 1940s and 1950s, particularly the influential work of B.F. Skinner. • In the 1960s, the cognitive view of learning came to the forefront as work by people like Robert Gagné began to displace behavioral thinking.

9. Shifting Paradigms • In the 1980s, a constructivist perspective of learning began to exert significant influence on the field. • Beginning then, more student-centered approaches, such as discovery learning, problem-based learning, situated cognition, and social learning became the subject of increasing attention in the field.

10. Educational Media Roots • Media have been of interest in education since the late 19th and early 20th centuries when visuals and real objects emerged as a way to help people learn.

11. Educational Media Roots • The training effort during World War II, and subsequent developments, helped to link instructional design with mediated and mechanical delivery systems. • \WWII training relied heavily mediated instruction, a model for later education.

12. Educational Media Roots • Films, and later radio, TV, and computers were the object of much excitement because of the belief that media that could promote learning. • However, until recently, all media were separately developed and managed.

13. Educational Computing Roots • Most developments in computing occurred in about the last half of the 20th century. • However, precedents were set earlier. • Abacus, circa 3000 B.C. • Pascal’s adding machine, 1642 • Jacquard’s loom, 1801 • Babbage’s analytical engine, 1834 • Hollerith’s electric tabulator, 1889

14. Educational Computing Roots • Early computers developed around the middle of the 20th century included: • ABC Computer, developed by Atanasoff and Berry at Iowa State • IBM/Harvard Mark I and II developed by Aiken • ENIAC, developed by Mauchly and Eckert at Pennsylvania • EDVAC, developed by von Neumann also at Penn • Colossus, a British computer secretly built during WWII to break German codes. • UNIVAC I, the first commercial computer

15. ENIAC

16. Computing - past • First generation computers used vacuum tubes. • The 2nd generation used transistors. • The 3rd generation relied on integrated circuits. • Today’s 4th generation models use very large-scale integrated circuitry.

17. Computing - past • In 1971, Ted Hoff at Intel Corporation developed the first microprocessor, a computer on a single silicon chip. • In 1972, handheld calculators began to appear, Pong - the first video game was invented, and Wang developed a word processing system. • In 1973, Xerox PARC researchers invented the mouse and graphical user interface.

18. Computing - past • In 1975, a company called MITS began marketing the Altair personal computer kit. IBM introduced the laser printer. • In 1977, led by upstart Apple Computer, the first ready-to-run personal computers were released. Microsoft was founded. • In 1979, the first spreadsheet, Visicalc, was released and became the first “killer app” for personal computers.

19. Computing - past • In 1981, IBM made the movement “legitimate” by releasing the first IBM-PC. Microsoft, led by Bill Gates, was chosen to provide the operating system. • In 1982, the computer was chosen Time Magazine “Man of the Year.” TCP/IP became the standard for ARPANET. • In 1983, Apple released the Lisa. Though a commercial flop, it led to the subsequent Macintosh.

20. Computing - past • In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh computer with a now-famous Orwellian ad during the Super Bowl. The CD-ROM was developed by Sony and Philips. • In 1985, Microsoft released the first version of Windows. • In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee at CERN developed the World Wide Web. • In 1992, Windows 3.1 was released. It established Windows as the dominant OS.

21. Computing - past • In 1993, Apple introduced the Newton, the first popular PDA. Mosaic, the first popular web browser, was released by NCSA. • In 1994, Netscape’s first browser was released. • In 1995, Windows 95 was released, completing Microsoft’s transition to a Mac-like GUI. • In 1996, the number of Web hosts passed 10,000,000. • In 2000, the number of Web hosts passed 100,000,000.

22. Education - past • The first experiments in the use of computers for education date back to the late 1950s and early 1960s, well before PCs. These early efforts focused on the computer as a “teaching machine” useful for drill and practice and content tutorials. • Patrick Suppes from Stanford is sometimes credited with being the “father of CAI” for his early work in this field.

23. Education - past • The largest early effort was PLATO, developed by Donald Bitzer and associates at the University of Illinois beginning in the early 1960s. Authoring tools and many packages developed for PLATO were ultimately ported to personal computers. • TICCIT, guided by Victor Bunderson at BYU, was another large-scale early project. It was notable for approaching CAI from an instructional design perspective.

24. Education - past • When PCs first emerged, emphasis was placed on teaching children to program. This was largely due to the lack of prepared software and availability of programming languages. • It spawned a “computer literacy” movement, a term coined by Arthur Luehrmann, which focused mainly on knowledge of programming.

25. Education - past • As educational programs began to appear, much emphasis shifted to computer assisted instruction and many of the ideas first developed by PLATO and TICCIT. • Another school of thought emphasized student development of understanding using education friendly computer languages such as Logo, developed by Seymour Papert and associates at MIT.

26. Education - past • In 1980, Robert Taylor of Teachers’ College, Columbia, placed computer uses in education into three categories • Tutor: the computer acts like a human tutor (e.g., CAI as represented by PLATO and other projects) • Tool: the computer aids in the performance of everyday work (e.g., word processing) • Tutee: the computer “learns” what it is taught (e.g., programming via Logo or other tools)

27. Education - past • In more recent years, the emphasis in educational computing has shifted to subject matter integration, using the computer as a tool to support teaching and learning in specific disciplines. Teaching about technology takes a back seat to teaching and learning with technology.

28. Today’s Lesson Trends Educational TechnologyPresent

29. Educational Technology Today • Today, instructional design, educational media, and educational computing are robust fields of endeavor. • They influence formal and informal education, the training sector, and segments of society.

30. Educational Technology Today • What are some educational technology trends that we can see today?

31. Instructional Design Educational Media Educational Computing Discipline Convergence

32. Instructional Design Educational Media Educational Computing Discipline Convergence

33. Discipline Convergence Educational Technology

34. ID Theory Base • Behavioral perspective • Cognitive perspective • Constructivist perspective

35. ID Theory Base • Behavioral perspective • Cognitive perspective • Constructivist perspective

36. ID Theory Base • Behavioral perspective • Cognitive perspective • Constructivist perspective or an eclectic view

37. ID Emphasis • Pre-designed education and training materials • Just-in-time education and training, learning objects, rapid prototyping, and collaborative construction of materials

38. Media Convergence

39. Media Convergence

40. Media Convergence

41. Media Convergence

42. Computing Developments • Today’s PCs are a significant advance over the first models. • Moore’s Law, originally postulated in 1965, predicted that the number of transistors on a integrated circuit would double every 18 months. Though Moore forecast it would hold true through 1975, it is still holding true today.

43. Computer Size

44. Networking • In 1969, ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet, began with 4 hosts • By 1987, there were 10,000 hosts • By 1992, there were 1,000,000 • By 1996, there were 10,000,000 • Today, there are 250,000,000+

45. Software - present • Software has improved dramatically since the introduction of the PC. • Text-based operating systems have given way to the GUI, originally invented at Xerox PARC, popularized by the Apple Macintosh, and now embodied in Windows. • Voice recognition is here but not yet widespread.

46. Software - present • A wide array of powerful productivity tools for the PC (e.g., word processors, databases, spreadsheets, desktop publishing software) is now available. • Educational software has improved greatly in quality, and many titles are available. • The Web has made huge quantities of information as well as software readily available.

47. Computers in Schools Today

48. Computers in Schools • There are about 14 million computers in K-12 schools in the U.S. The student-to-computer ratio fell from about 40:1 in 1985 to less than 4:1 today. The ratio of students to Internet connected classroom computers is about 8:1. • Dell is the largest single brand (46%), followed by Apple Macintosh (27%), HP/Compaq (18%), and Gateway (10%). Apple, while still strong in the K-12 market, has slowly been losing market share.

49. Computers in Schools • Nationally, annual K-12 technology spending is $5+ billion, down slightly from a high of nearly $7 billion several years ago. • Per pupil expenditures: • $71 -- hardware • $17 -- software • $9 -- outside services • $6 -- staff development

50. Computers in Schools • About 99% of schools, and 87% of instructional rooms, are connected to the Internet. • Schools with higher percentages of poor and minority students lag behind other schools but only slightly. • Newer technologies are increasing: laptops (54% of schools), wireless networks (45%), and instructional whiteboards (30%).