History of Educational Technology

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Year Film Radio Television Computers
Late 1800s  Silent commercial films enter American culture      
Early 1900s films produced for the classroom      
1910 NY public school board adopts films for instructional use      
1917 Chicago schools implement a "visual education" department      
1920   Radio Division of US Dept of Commerce begins to license commercial and educational stations    
1923   Haaren HS in NYC is first public school to use radio to teach a class.  (Accounting)
CA schools broadcast penmanship, arithmetic, and history
   
1924   "Little Red Schoolhouse" airs weekly on WLS in Chicago    
1931 25 states have units in the dept. of Ed devoted to film and related media      
1932   Benjamin Darrow publishes Radio: The Assistant Teacher    
1939     An L.A. HS experiments with classroom use of TV  
1940s   CBS American School of the Air estimates about 8 to 10 million students listening to its weekly programs    
1940-41   Ohio finds that the American School of the Air is used "regularly" in 3% of rural schools, 18% of urban schools, 8% of elementary schools, and 5% of secondary schools, estimating a classroom audience of 500,000-1 million.    
1947     Closed circuit broadcasts begin in Philly public schools  
1953     KUHT in Houston, TX begins broadcasting  
      FCC allocates 242 channels for Ed purposes   
      Ford Foundation's Fund for the Advancement of Education underwrites the initial use of TV in schools and colleges to relieve the shortage of teachers  
1958     National Defense Education Act (NDEA)  
1962     US office of Ed grants $32 million to the development of classroom TVs  
1970s     Citizens groups petition the Federal Communications Commission (FCC's launch number of revision prs designed to educate inform children  
Early 80's     Deregulation of TV industry; educational programming children diminishes Number of computers available for instructional use tripled within 18 months
1984       of 82,000 schools in the nation, 56,000 (68%) had a least one computer (terminal or micro) for an average of one machine for every 92 students.

the average  elementary school had 5 machines, while the typical secondary school had just over 13.

1985       92% secondary schools had at least one machine available for instruction; for elementary schools, 82%.

This page was last updated on 04/14/99.
Please contact the Educational Technology Group with questions and comments.