History of Educational Technology

It is common to believe that educational technology is a modern area of study and specialization. However, one can find precursors of modern educational technologies in ancient times. Confucius, a leading Chinese thinker who lived some 500 years BCE, apparently used storytelling, rituals, and maxims, among other techniques, to convey teaching about morality. Each of these strategies has modern, digital counterparts. Socrates, who lived about a generation later in ancient Greece, also focused much of his teaching on issues related to virtue and morality. In the Platonic dialogue Phaedo, Socrates reportedly used a stick halfway submerged in a pool of water to indicate that the senses can be misleading. Both Confucius and Socrates taught small groups of students directly, and both eventually ran afoul of ...