Learning from Teaching Machines
A new web timeline highlights the History of Teaching Machines. The site, created by writer Audrey Watters, can serve as a very brief introduction to educational technology over the years. The timeline features developments as diverse as MOOCs, television programs, B. F. Skinners’ teaching “box”, and “mechanical textbooks”. The site has some links to further reading, but you can also find more literature about teaching machines, and of course educational technology, within BU Libraries Search. See below for a selection of works available to the Boston University Community.
For another freely available, more expansive introduction to educational technology, a lengthy and well-organized entry appears on Wikipedia. The Education Librarian at BU, Dan Benedetti, suggests that Wikipedia articles can serve as great introductions to topics for general background knowledge, but that such essays should rarely if ever be cited in in a college-level papers.
