Alghough many people think that e-learning has been in existance only for the past fifteen years, it actually started in the 1920's with Sydney Pressey's testing machine.
Although originally designed for testing, this machine was then associated with teaching. The approach based on his work became known as 'programmed instruction' since learners could only proceed to the next section if they had acqired the knowledge from the previous section.
Pressey's contribution to e-learning was inspired from Edward Thorndike's thoughts that if a 'mechanical ingenuity' existed such that a printed text 'could be arranged that only to him who had done what was directed on page one would page two become visible and so on' (Holmes B., Gardner J).
Holmes B., Gardner J. (2006) ; E-learning concepts and practice; (P. 35-36); Retrieved from Google books database
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
To continue with the above, Pressey was the first to use machines for ‘programmed learning’ instead of printed textbooks which are still an option today. Such systems were further developed later on making use of complex matrices and network pathways.
ReplyDeleteProgrammed instruction became necessary to enhance learning. B.F. Skinner, a psychologist from Harvard University, focused his studies on the different forms of stimulations which could assist learning and on how learners could be motivated through the feedback provided. In order to carry out his research, he built a teaching machine in 1958, which provided students undergoing program instruction with feedback automatically.
Holmes, B., Gardner, J. (2006). E-Learning: Concepts and Practice (pp. 36-37). Retrieved from Google books database.
Interesting post! Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) came into existence in the mid-seventies. An Intelligent Tutoring System replaces a human tutor by a machine.
ReplyDeleteThe major components of a typical ITS are :
1. an expert (or domain) model,
2. student model
3. tutoring model
The expert model should be able to solve the problems the tutoring module submits to the students. The tutor module controls the interaction with the student, based on its teaching knowledge and comparisons between the student model and the domain knowledge. The student model reflects what the machine can infer about the student's cognitive state.
Reference:
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Intelligent_tutoring_system