Author's Message

When I think about learning technologies, I usually think of the latest device and what opportunities it affords for new modes of learning. So, the wireless portable device that a student could take on a visit to a museum fits my ideal, but not the stationary, messy, and dull chalkboard, despite the fact that it is, of course, a learning technology as well. I want the future to be fresh and unencumbered by the less than ideal realizations of the past.

However, as I think more about future possibilities, I realize that they are always shaped by present realities. We construct our stories of the future out of the materials of the present—the hopes and beliefs that nourish and limit our vision. For that vision to grow, we need to delve deeper into our past, for only there can we find the stuff to build a better future.

In the fall of 1999, I taught a course on the use of technologies for learning. We studied the World Wide Web, multimedia, communication and collaboration software, tutoring systems, virtual reality, and other new digital technologies. The more we became immersed in all these new developments, the more it seemed important to understand their antecedents, and to evaluate them in the light of past successes and failures. In our effort to understand and build a better future, we found it increasingly valuable to turn to the past. Thus began our timeline project www.lis.uiuc.edu/~chip/projects/timeline/. This month I explore what we are beginning to learn from this investigation of the past and future of learning technologies.

Back to menu

Issue

How we built the learning technologies timeline and what we learned doing it

The students involved in the timeline project were a diverse and interesting group. There was an on-campus section of the course, which included both undergraduate and graduate students in computer science, education, and other fields. Some of the students held jobs in which they were developing or implementing learning technologies. For one student, the project work he completed in the course led directly to his obtaining a job in the French department to develop language-learning software. There was also an online section, consisting of students enrolled in Curriculum, Technology, and Educational Reform (cter.ed.uiuc.edu), a master's program for teachers, administrators, and technology coordinators interested in new learning technologies.

I knew the students possessed a collective resource of knowledge about the development of learning technologies, and that they had the research skills to discover more through reading and personal contacts. But I could not anticipate how rich their collaboration on this history project would become, or how much I would learn from it.

To get things started, I asked the students to construct a Web page for some event that they thought was significant, or simply interesting, in the history of learning technologies. I agreed to place those entries on a collective timeline so that we could look for patterns among the events. You can see a small portion of the Learning Technologies Timeline (Middle Ages) we created below. Each underlined phrase is a hyperlink to a Web page, and each one was created by a different student.

600 "Arabic" Numerals developed by the Hindus
1453 The printing of the Bible with movable type by Gutenberg transforms society
1564 Graphite is discovered
1608 Hans Lipperhey's patent application for the telescope to the government of Zeeland
1635 Founding of Boston Latin, the first public school in the US
1651 John Dury invents the modern library

The first entries matched my expectations; they described technologies that had been designed explicitly for teaching and learning. For example, there was an entry for the development of the programming language, Logo (Abelson & diSessa, 1981; Goldenberg & Feurzeig, 1987; Logo Foundation, 2000; Papert, 1980). Logo was important, because it showed that even young children can understand and make use of sophisticated ideas in computing such as decomposing complex problems into simpler ones, thinking in terms of recursion, and representing data in arbitrarily complex structures. It was also an early example of the link between constructivist philosophy of learning and new technologies.

There were a couple of entries related to the even earlier PLATO system. PLATO was developed in the United States at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the early 1960s, as one of the first computer assisted instruction (CAI) systems (Bitzer, Lichtenberger, & Braunfeld, 1961). It eventually included thousands of course modules. Ten years before the Arpanet (forerunner of the Internet), 15 years before the personal computer, and 30 years before the Web, PLATO supported networked instruction using touch-sensitive screens, graphical interfaces, e-mail, and online chat spaces with multiple windows for multiple participants.

Examining these early developments helped us all to see current innovations in an appropriate historical perspective. In some cases, we saw that today's novelties were not so new after all; in others, we came to appreciate how much things had changed. Soon, there were entries for other key early systems, such as Scholar, HyperCard, and the graphing calculator. All of the aforementioned might be considered as tools designed explicitly for teaching. But before long there were other technologies that did not fit so neatly within the "learning technologies" label. Students saw that the Apple II computer was a major learning technology, even if it had other uses as well. The Web became an entry, as did technologies associated with it such as the Internet.

The activity opened up the question, What important learning technology might I describe? Once that happened, it was not long before one student decided to make the case that if the Apple II of 1977 were classified as a learning technology, then the Remington No. 2 typewriter of a century before should be too. Soon, we saw the pencil appearing on our timeline, and then graphite; its discovery in 1564 made the pencil possible.

The timeline stretched further and further into the past. I decided to ask my fall 2000 class to extend the timeline. This time, I had a mix of students as well. There were teachers again, also full-time doctoral students, and many were current or future librarians. They were enrolled in an online course on learning technologies offered through the Library Education Experimental Program (LEEP) www.lis.uiuc.edu/gslis/degrees/leep.html. Then, I asked the students in my course for undergraduates, called Literacy in the Information Age, to make their contributions. These students all added to the timeline, bringing in the Rosetta Stone from 196 BCE and Ashurbanipal's Royal Library at Nineveh from 650 BCE. Today the timeline goes back to 40,000 BCE, when cave paintings were first used as a means of communication.

One student asked whether we should not add the telescope, because it can be used to learn about the stars. Another added the stethoscope, which helped people learn about the human body. We now had tools for representing information, for communicating, for collecting and analyzing data— essentially a conception that includes all information and communications technologies. We also had organizations, such as the first public school in the U.S., the first library, and the first university. Soon, the question arose, Is there anything that is not a learning technology? One student said, "Surely, we can't include the automobile!" But others pointed out that we use a car to get to class; we learn how to use a car; we learn about gasoline, construction materials, traffic laws, distance/rate/time, and many other things as we use cars. It became difficult to draw the line that clearly demarcated learning from nonlearning technologies. We began to see that it was the way we used a tool rather than its inherent properties that determined its capacity to support learning. Our conception began to move toward John Dewey's view of technology as a way to resolve a problem (Hickman, 1990).

I also asked the students to look ahead: What events will occur in the future history of learning technologies? Again, their creativity and resourcefulness surprised me. You can read now that virtual reality training becomes a requirement for all healthcare professionals in 2004; the Power Pencil, which stores the information that is written with it, appears in 2040, and holographic teaching comes in 2065. Entries such as this continue up to 3922.

As we looked at the timeline as a whole, a number of characteristics stood out. I noticed first that events in the future often occur in years ending in zero. Note, for example, the interesting set of events proposed for 2010, as shown in another excerpt from the timeline below. Again, each hyperlink (underlined) led to a Web page, and each page was created by a different student.

In contrast, past events happen all over the place. The placement of future events at decade and century boundaries correlates with a sense of their significance. In the past, every event is part of a long chain of developments so that it is difficult to identify the essential turning point. For the future, the opposite problem occurs. We have only essential events, and it is difficult to construct the chain of events in which that event should reside.

This situation leads to the somewhat paradoxical result that there is more disagreement about the past than about the future. When, for example, was the printing press invented? Should we mark the years 1453–1455 when Gutenberg printed the 42-line Bible? Or should it be the year he began work on it? Should we perhaps mark the year he formed a partnership with the wealthy burgher, Johann Fust, to build the press?

Alternatively, should we count the earlier printing done by others of less significant books or the much earlier printing in Korea or China, even if it did not involve movable type? Often there are conflicting claims, especially when we ask about "the first" of anything in an important sequence. Because we have not visited the future yet, our vision of it is shaped by literature, and the broader literature of film, television, and Web genres. The past, of course, is also shaped by imaginative literatures as well as by documentary accounts. However, the literary accounts of the past are somewhat constrained to conform to documented happenings.

When events occur in the described construction of the future, they not only happen in isolation, but also tend to have their effects all at once. Whereas the printing press required additional technologies of paper production and transportation to realize its power, such is not true of future devices. More often, just as in science fiction, they simply appear and work their wonders. Their work is little constrained by the social, cultural, and economic factors that play such an important role in the adoption of past technologies.

Nevertheless, the story of the future that we see in this timeline does give us a visual aid for understanding the past and present uses of technologies for learning. We see there both the Utopic and the dystopic visions of the technological world we are creating every day. In a small way, it may serve to inform scenario planning or future studies as applied to learning technologies.

Back to menu

Interpretations

A friend was cleaning out files in a library in Amherst, Massachusetts, when he came across a document that intrigued him. The document contained a list produced for a course taught in 1946. I was equally intrigued when he sent me a copy of the list. Gwladys Spencer was the instructor for the course, Library Science 54, which was taught at the University of Illinois Library School, Second Semester, 1946–1947. Much of the list, reproduced as is below, is unremarkable.

But several things struck me as I went through Spencer's list. One was that she included television in a course in 1946, showing that she had foresight about its eventual prominence as a communications medium. Another thing was that she included tools for investigation, such as microscopes, and "Models, objects, specimens." She clearly saw that audiovisual materials were more than simply devices for transmitting information. But more striking still are numbers 3 and 4 in her list. Among audiovisual materials and equipment, she included "pantomimes, playlets, pageants, puppet shows, shadow plays" and "trips, journeys, tours, visits." The presence of these says that she saw all of the elements of her list as opportunities for enriching experiences, rather than simply as media for transmitting information.

Aside from the details of which tools she had available, the list tells me that Spencer had a broad view of how libraries could support learning and, more important, a vision of what learning could be. Today, we are excited about multimedia in education. But what we often mean is simply that a computer display can show students moving pictures with sound. Interactivity is an important additional component. But our vision of what that multimedia really means for learning needs to go beyond the technical features of the display to consider what students can do and how they can extract meaning from their own experiences.

Spencer saw that there were many tools and media that could enhance learning. She drew from traditional as well as emerging technologies to lay out a spectrum of possibilities for teaching and learning. Her list suggests an openness to diverse ways of learning and, moreover, a view of learners as active constructors of meaning. "Gwladys Spencer, who had joined the faculty in 1940 and had demonstrated brilliance in teaching, research, and scholarship, died in November 1947" (Downs, 1992, p. 26).

Back to menu

Literacy Web Page of the Month

In 1996, the USA Public Broadcasting System produced a television special called Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires. According to PBS Online www.pbs.org, the three-part show "zooms backwards on the information superhighway to show in vivid detail how youthful amateurs, hippies and self-proclaimed 'nerds' accidentally changed the world." The companion Web site www.pbs.org/nerds offers a variety of resources, such as a timeline for the history of the personal computer; facts about some of the "nerds" featured on the television program; and the program transcript. You can also try out an interactive "pick the computer" game, which lets you test your nerd quotient.

It's hard to believe that twenty years ago there were no personal computers, now it's the third largest industry in the world, somewhere between energy production and illegal drugs but the most amazing thing of all is that it happened by accident because a bunch of disenfranchised nerds wanted to impress their friends. This is the story of how a handful of guys launched an industrial revolution. How they changed the culture of business, how they made history.


Robert X. Cringely, Part I of Triumph of the Nerds

How You Can Participate

The timeline project exists on a public Web site: www.lis.uiuc.edu/~chip/projects/timeline/. Please come visit it to see some interesting student work and to learn a little about the history of learning technologies. I would be interested to hear, perhaps through the ROL Communities listserv, what you see in the entries and what you learn from your exploration.

Beyond simply reading the timeline entries, you might like to add one of your own. There is an online form at the end of the timeline, which you may use to add an entry. You just need to give it a headline, a date, and a description, either as a URL or as text you send.

Back to menu

Glossary

Future studies — a form of inquiry in which futurists forecast a variety of alternative possible futures (see Dator, 1998). The goal is to help people invent and then move toward a preferred future. This is similar to an approach called scenario planning.
Back

Learning technology — a tool or medium that helps learners construct new knowledge. It usually refers to a new information or communication technology such as visualization software, virtual reality, electronic bulletin board, simulation, tutorial, or interactive game. Depending on the use, practically any technology can be considered a learning technology.

The term learning technology is ambiguous in at least four ways. It can mean (a) the tool that helps one learn and thus enables learning through technology, (b) learning how to use technology, (c) learning about technology, or (d) a technology that itself learns. In (d) for example, genetic algorithms in effect learn how to perform more effectively in some environments based on feedback about their success and failure; thus, they are technologies that learn.
Back

Logo — a programming language, essentially a version of the language Lisp, which was designed as a tool for learning. It is notable for its emphasis on modular design, extensibility, interactivity, and flexibility, all features that enhance its potential for learning. Wallace Feurzeig at Bolt Beranek and Newman led a team that created the first version of Logo in 1967. Seymour Papert, who had worked with Feurzeig and also with Jean Piaget in Geneva, led further developments of Logo at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Logo has been used across the curriculum, notably in mathematics, language, music, robotics, telecommunications, and science. The most popular Logo environments have involved the turtle, either as a robot that moves around on the floor or as an icon that moves about a computer screen and can be used to draw pictures.

Additional developments have included LogoWriter (adding word processing), LEGO Logo (connecting Logo to machines built out of LEGO bricks, motors, and sensors), MicroWorlds (adding drawing tools, a shape editor, and a melody maker), the Programmable Brick (with a computer inside it), and StarLogo (a massively parallel version of Logo in which thousands of turtles can carry on independent processes and interact with one another).
Back

Scenario planning — "is an approach to planning that starts from the assumption that, much as we try, we simply cannot predict or control the future. We can only imagine different ways in which the future might turn, stake out a course that makes sense today, and try to be flexible and alert when the unexpected inevitably occurs," according to the Web site www.marin.cc.ca.us/scenario/. The site, Scenario Planning at College of Marin, provides a good introduction to scenario planning and shows its application to planning in the context of uncertain levels of state funding for California's community colleges.
Back


Back to menu

References

Abelson, H., & diSessa, A.A. (1981). Turtle geometry: The computer as a medium for exploring mathematics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Back

Bitzer, D.L., Lichtenberger, W., & Braunfeld, P.G. (1961, October). PLATO II: A multiple-student, computer controlled teaching device (Rep. I-109). Champaign, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Coordinated Science laboratory.
Back

Dator, J. (1998, November). The future lies behind! Thirty years of teaching futures studies. Introduction to the special issue on "Teaching Futures Studies at the University Level." American Behavioral Scientist. www.soc.hawaii.edu/future/dator/futures/behind.html.
Back

Downs, R.B. (1992). The school's third quarter century. In W.C. Allen & R.F. Delzell (Eds.), Ideals and standards: The history of the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science (pp. 23-29). Champaign, IL: University of Illinois.
Back

Goldenberg, E.P., & Feurzeig, W. (1987). Exploring language with Logo. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Back

Hickman, L.A. (1990). John Dewey's pragmatic technology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Back

Logo Foundation.(2000). Web site: el.www.media.mit.edu/logo-foundation/
Back

Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. New York: Basic.
Back

Back to menu

Other Sources

Eisenstein, E. (1983). The printing revolution in early modern Europe. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Joy, B. (2000, April). Why the future doesn't need us. Wired Archive, 8. www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

Nunberg, G. (1998, November/December). Will libraries survive? The American Prospect Online. www.prospect.org/archives/41/41nunb.html


Back to menu

Reader comments on this column are welcome. Please send ideas for future discussion, sites for consideration, literacy and student Web pages for sharing, and Glossary suggestions to the Technology Department editor. E-mail: chip@uiuc.edu. Mail: Bertram C. Bruce, Graduate School of Library & Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 501 East Daniel Street, MC 493, Room 314, Champaign, IL 61820, USA.

For an index of JAAL Technology columns available at this site, click here. To print this column, point and click anywhere on the main text; then use your browser's print command.

Citation: Bruce, Bertram C. (2001, May). Constructing a once-and-future history of learning technologies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 44(8). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=/electronic/jaal/5-01_Column/index.html

Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Published May 2001 in the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Posted simultaneously in Reading Online
© 2001 International Reading Association, Inc.   ISSN 1096-1232