Visual education began in the late 19th century with the use of magic lanterns and stereopticons to project slides during lectures. In the early 20th century, films and film projectors were introduced into classrooms, and the first educational film catalog was published in 1910. During this time, radio, television and early computers were also experimented with for educational purposes. By the late 20th century, technologies like videotapes, compact discs, and the internet became widely used in education.

1. Brief History of
Educational Technology
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• Visual Education began in the late
19th century.
• Photography was invented, but
became widely accepted not until
1920s.
• Public lectures were illustrated
through the use of magic lanterns
that projected slides and
stereopticons, the earliest visual
display devices.

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sWorld's earliest surviving camera photograph, 1826 or
1827: View from the Window at Le Gras

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Projector –W.C. Hughes, Magic
Lantern
Pampahengos Lantern
Projector with Chimney

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Close-up Pamphengos lantern
projector.
Pampahengos Lantern
Projector with Chimney

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sClose-up Pamphengos lantern projector.

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• These multi-faceted lantern shows, combining image and
sound were continued throughout the 19th century.
Subject matter varied, from educational lectures, to
advertising, comic slides and illuminated narratives. The
height of this type of entertainment was probably reached
with the shows exhibited at the Royal Polytechnic Institute
in London (1838-1882) which employed a number of
people behind the scenes in providing sound effects for the
shows.
The phantasmagoria shows, which had their heyday in the
late 18th and early part of the 19th century, can probably be
credited with being the first all sensory entertainments. The
back bone of the shows was the secret projection and sudden
appearance in the darkened rooms of fast approaching
ghosts, which just as quickly receded. Live actors, sounds,
smells, sometimes even electric shocks were used to augment
the effect of the ghostly projections and create an all round
frightening experience.

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• The first visual instruction department which
collected and distributed lantern slides to schools
was organized in New York in 1904. This began
the audiovisual and media science departments.
a film projector from this
time period. (Courtesy
Carbon Arc, Flickr).

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• The first school museum to open in the United States was the St.
Louis Educational museum, which house collections of art
objects, models, photographs, charts, real objects, and other
instructional materials gathered around the world, was the
forerunner of the present-day media center.
• It was renamed the Division of Audiovisual Education 1943.

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• Films came onto classrooms in the early 20th
century.
• A series of historical and scientific films for
school use was developed by Thomas Edison.
Theatrical films were also as educational tools.
• The first educational film catalog was published
in 1910 in the United States.
• Films for regular instructional use was adopted
by the first public school system of Rochester,
New York.

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• Dr. Sidney Pressey published his earliest
paper on programmed learning about a
machine which tested and confirmed a
learning task.

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• The Ohio State University and a Cincinatti
radio station launched the Ohio School of
the Air in 1929.

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• The first instructional television
program was launched by Iowa State
University in 1932.

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• The first all-electronic digital computer,
ABC, was invented by John Atanasoff and
Clifford Berry at Iowa University in 1939.

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• By the 1940s, the first practical
tape recorders were developed.

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• Edgar Dale developed the Cone of
Experience, a hierarchy of learning
experiences in 1946.

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• John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert
invented the first large-scale, general
purpose electronic digital computer,
ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania
in 1946.
• The first generation computer is based on
vacuum tube technology.

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• During the World War II years,
the US government produced
more than 800 training films
and filmstrips, purchased tens of
thousands of projectors, and
spent about 1 billion dollars in
training films.

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• The invention of the videotape in the
1950s made it possible to record pictures
as well as sounds.

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• In the a950’s and 60’s, systematic studies
were undertaken to establish how the
attributes or features of various media
affected learning.
• The convergence of instructional media
and instructional design began with the
conceptualization of audiovisual studies
as something broader than just media.

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• In the late 1950s, the second project
was started by Patrick Suppes and
his associates in the early 1960’s in
Stanford University.
• The project developed drill and
practice and tutorial applications.

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• The third generation computers
which used solid-state
technology or integrated circuits
(IC’s) were launched in the
1960s.

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• Jerome Brunner, working from a
different perspective, devised a
descriptive scheme of labeling
instructional activities parallel to
that of Edgar Dale’s in 1966.

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• The fourth generation of
computers which introduced
personal computers were
developed in the 1970s.
• One significant highlight is the
invention of the microprocessor,
a single silicon chip that
contains all the functions of a
computer.

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• In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the school
community recognized the role of
media specialists.

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• In the 1980’s he video cassette
recorder enabled people to
record and playback television
shows.
• In the same decade, compact
discs became popular.

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• By the end of the 1990’s, the Internet had
connected many millions of computers around
the world.