From Chalkboard to AI, A Brief History of Tech in Education
Discover the true importance of technology around us.
As how they say in stories, time flies and people change. A bit something to add though, so do the system change around us. This time we will talk about something that has existed hand-in-hand for hundreds of years of human civilization; the education and technology. Make sure to get comfy cause the journey will now begin.
👑 The Ancient and Middle Age Times
First thing first, we should mind that technology in education is not only about the fancy robots, machine or internet like how it is today. It actually started as a very simple but helpful tools that ease human’s effort to learn and share knowledge to each other. Early education in ancient civilization is widely believed to start around 3000–1200 BCE at three main area which are Egypt, Mesopotamia, and North China (Britannica, Brewminate).
Take a look at these interesting stuff.
Looks familiar? These were how educational technology look like before the existence of the paper book we know. Wax tablet, birch bark book, and clay tablet are one from many initial writing tool invention with the oldest documented use of it in the 7th century BC. It had an important role in how students could learn grammar, spelling, and languages because it enabled them to write notes and even practice through homework.
In the ancient times, formal education was limited for few people. As an example, it was highly limited to those who were royal offspring, the riches or elite, and boys only in ancient Greece and Rome, and it was considered a luxury in ancient China. The tools needed for material such as book was also expensive so that lessons are delivered orally to students.
Continuing to the Middle Age, decent school and universities were also still only available to the wealthy and noble sons. However, the technological differentiator of this period compared to before is how paper and books had become more accessible as shown in the picture above, and teaching took place in monasteries or cathedral schools. The main characteristic of education in this period is the major influence of religion on the curriculum and who are the educators.
📖 The Modern Age
On this next chapter, we will examine the revolutionary inventions from 18th to early 20th centuries. In here, you might meet some technology that I certainly bet you are more familiar with because they are the earliest ‘prototype’ of what we know today. Let’s check them out!
Blackboard
Blackboard has been said as one of the most revolutionary and iconic educational technology back then. It is believed to be invented in 1801 by James Pillans, the headmaster and geography teacher at the Old High School in Edinburgh, Scotland. In the same year, another educator in America, George Baron, also spotted using a large black chalk board into his math presentation. Blackboard had significant benefit for teachers because previously, there was limited if not zero way to visually present spelling, grammar and mathematics to the students altogether. With its erasable feature, Blackboard became a cheap but durable substitute for expensive paper and ink in the century before.
The continuation and upgrade of chalkboard is the glossy whiteboard that is still widely spread in school and university today. It was created around 1975 with the dry-erase marker that made its public debut around 1980 invented by Jerry Woolf who worked in Techform Laboratories. In this new form of board, cleaning is a lot easier and neat, and the variety of marker colors like red, blue, and green, made things more interesting for the students. Europe accepted the whiteboard and dry markers in 1980s while United States adopted it around ‘90s.
Overhead Projector
Projector is not special to see nowadays remembering it is one of the thing that exist in many school or university aside than whiteboard. Nevertheless, there was a time period where it is a special thing. Fun fact, overhead projector did not start as a technology for public or schools, but instead it was used for police ID work and pre-WWII Army training. Only on the late 1950s and early 1960s, the device made it to school and continued to become a mainstay in classrooms through the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. The projector biggest strength at that time was how they can accommodate a better quality of visual presentation (like images) in terms of color and shape than writings or drawing on the whiteboard. With its ability to instantly project image, it also cuts off the time needed for educators to manually draw or illustrate on the board.
Photocopier
Next we have another breakthrough tool that made a big change in how teachers can give materials for students or learners. It is recorded that in 1949, Xerox introduced the first photocopier machine named Model A. Later on in 1959, photocopier arrives in schools, allowing educators to mass produce instructional material from copying documents and pictures more than before.
🦾 The 21st Century (Now)
And here we are, finally, in the digitized era. At this last part, we will delve into the educational technology from late 20th and 21st centuries. Feel free to let me know in the comment which one have you tried or even your favorite tech in this century 😉
Computer
The history of computer usage in classroom is quite phenomenal. It can be split into 2 phase which are the mainframe computers era and the personal or desktop computer. In the first phase around 1950s, mainframe computers named UNIVAC were made and sold commercially. The mainframe computers could only run simple instructions like presenting information, question, and when the students give answer there will be instructional decisions made based on the given responses. The difficulty of mainframe computer, however, was its big size and high price. Not everyone could afford it or use it personally.
Meanwhile on the second phase when personal computer went available publicly in mid to late 1970s, its ability had improved in terms of power, speed, and the complexity of programs. After its release, the data showed that over two million students were using computers in their classrooms in the 1970s. Personal computer offer big data storage size for files and programs plus the flexibility to use personally (much more compact form than mainframe). Look below for the documentation of students using personal computer at school 👇
Virtual Reality (VR) & Augmented Reality (AR)
Virtual Reality is a simulated 3D environment that enables users to explore and interact with a virtual surrounding in a way that approximates reality (Tech Target). The earliest prototype of VR in the form that is similar to what we know now was Morton Heilig’s Telesphere Mask in 1960. After that, the VR tools keep developing in the form of glasses, headset, and even in application like Street View feature in Google Maps.
Augmented Reality, the close ‘sister’ of VR is also not any bit less interesting than VR. While it is easy to mistake the difference between both, there is actually a simple differentiator between VR and AR. VR made up a whole new environment around you as if it replace your vision. By contrast, AR does not replace it but add things to it. You can imagine it as you are using a transparent glasses that give you additional image projections in the environment you see around you. Although it feels like a very recent technology invention, AR was actually developed in 1968 at Harvard by Ivan Sutherland. It was even shown in a BMW advertisement in 2008. Take a quick look of Pokémon Go below as one of the most successful augmented reality game.
Now the question, what does VR and AR help in educational settings? If we see closely, both have the unique ability to make many diverse realistic environments or things. Whether it is a place thousand miles away from us or even help us visualize how a furniture would look in an (actual) empty room. That kind of power is said to be a new way to demonstrate and explain concepts for students. It also can increase student’s engagement and interest with its simulations and animations that mimic a real setting. In certain level of tools, it can help teachers create lesson plans with multisensory experiences for the students because it triggers them to move and interact instead of simply watching a demo or listening to a material.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The last but not least in our 21st century educational technology, Artificial Intelligence or shortly called AI. Historically, the concept of AI was initially explored by Alan Mathison Turing, a British logician and computer pioneer, in around 1950. After that, the earliest successful AI program was written in 1951 by Christopher Strachey and the earliest successful demonstration of machine learning named Shopper by Anthony Oettinger was published in 1952. In the recent years and months, AI has been the trending topic in business and education. Plans to involve AI in classroom has resulted two opposing parties in regards to the pros and cons of AI.
Positively, AI generally make use of algorithms to determine where students’ knowledge is lacking and then it can automatically supply them with custom educational content to assist in filling those knowledge gaps. That is to say, it can contribute to personalized learning for students and lighten the teacher’s workload of having to do manual assessment of students or providing personalized tutor for each students.
On the other hand, the easiness and instant work it offers also bring disadvantages. The automation of grading scores, producing materials, and creating worksheets, is feared to cause job displacement for educators. Moreover, for the learner side as well, it is worried to give misleading contents and slow down or even stop their critical-thinking and problem-solving skill development because of the dependency to use AI on working their academical tasks.
Good news is, even though we cannot completely abolish the disadvantages, there are always ways to minimize them and use it to our advantages. For an example, there are several startups, organizations, and individuals that recently released or are developing AI-detection software in hope to aid educators in spotting schoolwork done with AI. Despite not being fully perfect and accurate yet, as you have read so far in this article, I think we can agree that technology development is nothing to be underestimated or be pessimistic about.
An article by Kevin Roose from The New York Times also made a handful of interesting points on how should educators treat AI such as ChatGPT. Educators can view them as a helper and utilize it in ways like generate ideas for classroom activities, make it their own debate partner to rich class materials, after-hours tutor for themselves, and many others. A source person named Mr. Gold also made a point by stating that ChatGPT wasn’t a threat to student learning as long as teachers paired it with substantive, in-class discussions.
Technology in education has been with us across centuries of human civilization. We have seen how it started as a simple clay chiseled as a form of writing, to chalkboards hung in classrooms, and now to a non-physical tool called AI that can think and behave like us. From this brief recap, we can conclude that technology has helped us a lot in education that further affects our understanding of what is around us, why some things can happen, how should we best react in certain situations, and many more.
It has evolved nearly as long as human have been on earth and guess what, it is still developing. Can you predict what might be our next educational technology?
