Home / Collections / Education / Teaching
The Teaching and Computing Collection captures the rich history of how computers have been used for teaching.
Decades before computers were available to consumers, attempts were made to invent machines to “automate” teaching. Some early examples of this became associated with “behaviorist” views of learning, and specifically, B.F. Skinner. A somewhat simplistic view of the history of educational technology purports that some educators tried to “port” early teaching machines, based upon behaviorist learning theory, to create what became known as “Computer Assisted Instruction” (CAI). This type of computer-based learning is generally contrasted with computer-based educational technologies grounded in constructivist and constructionist learning theory. In reality, when computers became available to educators, there was a wide spectrum of experimental attempts to employ them to teach students, and those attempts were grounded in an equally wide array of learning theories.
The collection consists of an extensive collection of books, documentation and software that captures the rich history of how computers have been used for teaching. Here is a tiny sample of what is in this collection.
Think-A-Tron
PLATO
On the Web
PLATO History Foundation
The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture (Brian Dear)
Bookshelf
These are some of the most relevant books in the collection. More…
© New Media Museum created by M. E. Hopper
You must be logged in to post a comment.