History of Technology And the Effects on Education.

The First Technology Our friend Uhggg the caveman discovered tools could help him in many ways. He could use it to help find food. He could use it to find Love. He could use it to communicate.

Over time Technology grew and became more Complex. He begin to think about how Things work.

Time went on as time usually does and uhgg’s decendant used technolgy for many things. Growing crops Fighting wars Teaching others

In the 1800’s America this was technology in education Quill and Ink Chalk and small chalkboard. Hornbook : A teaching aid consisting of a leaf of paper showing the alphabet, and often the ten digits and the Lord's Prayer, mounted on a wooden

Technology improved Pencil and paper notebooks Books and magazines became more available The dreaded consumable workbook

Computers arrived and things were suppose to change. Things did change slowly at first because the human animal is resistant to change.

The first computers used vacum tubes and wires to perform simple basic calculations. One computer would fill a room. They were programed with punch cards. They were used by business and scientist.

In 1961 the first commercially available integrated circuits came from the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. This changed things. Things that at one time took up lots of space became smaller. They were expensive but it was progress.

The chips became smaller and faster and less expensive. This lead to the development of smaller faster computers. In 1977 the Apple II was created by Steve Jobs and Steve Wonziak in a garage. It was the first attempt to market a computer to homes and schools. In 1984 the cost of an Apple IIe was almost $ with a teacher discount. It used 51/4 inch floppy disk. You put the disk in and turned it on and the program loaded. There were other apples but the Ile was the education standard.

In 1981 IBM released the first personal computer or PC for public consumption. It featured their DOS operating system. This made it possible for different kinds of programs to run on the same PC. The computers in schools were used mainly for drill and practice. Lots of different companies jumped into the personal computer creation business. Commodore created the C-64 and Vic 20. Texas instruments created the Tandy Pc. Most were green screened or even used Televisions as the screen. In1984 Apple released the Macintosh. The first with a graphical interface.

Around 1985 computers could talk to each other by modem. It was difficult and expensive. There were services that let you access data like America online or Compuserve. If you lived in rural America it was a long distance call to the service. You could buy long distance time from them for 40 cents a min. In 1989 Microsoft experimented with a graphical user interface that became windows 3.1 IN 1991 the WWW was born but no one knew much about it. It was text based. Used by university scientist and military. Not easily accessible to the general public. You still had to have a modem and dial up service. In 1993 mosaic was released as a browser with a graphical interface. This became the basis of Netscape, Internet explorer, and other web browsers.

In 1973 one of the first mobile phones was released to the public. As the industry grew they became smaller and more powerful. The ultimate goal of the original cell phone was to make them as small as possible. As early as 1996 different companies experimented with smartphones. Now the phones are getting bigger to accommodate the extra functions.

Today its not ask if you use the internet and technology in the classroom but how you use it. It has become a major tool in education. In Kentucky schools you cannot take attendance without access to a computer and the school’s network

Today the new normal is bring your device to work and it is beginning to seep into the classroom. If you go into a sixth grade class and ask who has a smart phone you will find about half the students will produce a phone that lets them access the internet.

Home work. Find one article about cell phone use in school. It may be pro cell phone use or it may be anti cell phone use. If possible please copy and paste the link.