Kinlund, C. (2011). Vintage Gutenberg printing press [Photograph]. licensed under CC By-NC-ND 2.0
Looking back at the history of educational technology, I came across multiple articles about how technology has improved. One of the articles I read, written by Tony Bates, was a blog post discussing how “roles of technology in education go back at least 2,500 years” (2014, para 2). His example was the writing Moses chiseled on stone in the bible. As discussed by Bates, as technology advanced, such as writing tools, it challenged what was the accepted norm and lead to a resistance. I see this in current education, with the change in curriculum in BC, using more computer mediated tools. Resistance to change is a common theme seen throughout history and currently in education.
In his article, Bates broke education into different categories: oral communication, written communication, broadcasting & video, and computer technologies. As he discussed how the different technologies within the different categories has evolved and developed, he points out that most education technologies were not originally developed for education purposes, but for business, such as overhead projectors and powerpoint. I wonder how technologies developed specifically for education improvement today, compare statistically to the older, less specific technologies?
Reading through this article and its discussion of the printing press, it lead me back to a course I took in university (History of Biology) and the discussion around the most influential people in the last millenium (personal communication, 2012). After our course did our guessing, it was revealed that Johannes Gutenberg was giving the title for his invention of the printing press (Johannes Gutenberg, n.d.). It was the printing press that allowed mass production of words, which lead to more reading and changes to education.
The printing press made the world a smaller place by having written word reach with more people, and the internet has done that again, reaching a larger audience. I am curious what the next big invention or technology will be that completely revolutionizes the way we learn and live our lives, much like the printing press or the internet has done.
References
Bates, T. (2018). A short history of educational technology. Retrieved 9 September 2018, from https://www.tonybates.ca/2014/12/10/a-short-history-of-educational-technology/
Johannes Gutenberg. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved 9 September 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg
Hi Amanda, Great post. Your thoughts about educational technologies being developed within the business context and then being used in education really resonated with my own readings for this assignment. I work in healthcare, another social system, and I question this practice. Can a tool for use in business automatically be assumed to be appropriate for use in education and healthcare? The contexts can be so drastically different, depending on the intended audience, subject, etc. Thanks for the opportunity to reflect further! Christy
Hi Christy, thanks for the response. I often think that teachers often work with what they are given and do the best they can. Since it isn’t exactly made for education, they ( we) adapt and work around. I see this in many classrooms with teachers and I a more surethis can be translated to health care… often accompanied with lack of funding for social systems sadly.
Hi Amanda, great blog post. I was intrigued to read about Gutenberg having changed the landscape of education forever and how it created a smaller world, much like the internet today. We so often forget about where it all started. I have the same questions as you, what will be next, but also, how will w deal with it. Technology use in education brings controversy and I came across TrustEd with a great article about computer use in the public school classroom. Here is the link:https://www.k12insight.com/trusted/screen-time-addiction/
Thank you for your post, you got me thinking.
Hi Anita,
I will have to check out that post, thank you for sharing. I agree, it will be interesting how we deal with changes. We can look at history and the resistance that comes with change, it will be interesting to see how much resistance will inevitably come along with it.
Thanks,
Amanda
Hello Amanda, I loved your post. I have had many discussions in my politics classes about the importance of the printing press and newspapers on education and in politics. Such an interesting topic of what will be the next educational tool. Interesting that most tools were not ‘invented’ for schools or instruction, but after some thought, I almost feel it would be risky to try new tools with emerging minds and our future. Leave it to the military and businesses, they have money and a direct focus, and we can adapt from their expertise.
Hi Danielle,
I enjoyed learning about the printing press, such an interesting piece of history to link back to. I feel like we are starting to see more technology created with education in mind, such as Fresh grade for elementary schools. With the increase in entrepreneurs I am sure we will see more, but yes I believe in many ways let’s leave it for the military and businesses to experiment and do the trial and error first.
Thanks for your post,
Amanda
Amanda, I enjoyed the approach you took to your blog post. From Bates article, I too was most impressed with the technologies that helped widely distribute content. Whether it be paper and pencil, the printing press, or the World Wide Web. These tools have allowed educational resources to be accessible to a larger population, giving more people the opportunity to learn.