The history of educational software: the development of personal computers and virtual teachers
When the potential of the PC was fully revealed, and they became more understandable, more convenient and more attractive for the average people, the situation began to change, including in the field of educational software.
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Iron usability
It was the first Apple model with a peripheral bus SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface, pronounced “Tale”), thanks to which a variety of devices could be connected to a computer: from hard drives and drives to scanners and printers. Such ports can be seen on all Apple computers until the iMac, which was released in 1998.
The idea of expanding user capabilities has become key to the Macintosh Plus. Then the company offered educational institutions discounts on a special model – the Macintosh Plus Ed, and Steve Jobs actively supplied equipment to schools and universities, and at the same time lobbied for tax incentives for IT companies involved in such projects.
A year after the Macintosh Plus, Apple launched its first full-color computer, the Macintosh II. Engineers Michael Dhuey and Brian Berkeley began work on this model in secret from Jobs. He was categorically against the color Macintosh, not wanting to lose the elegance of a monochrome picture. Therefore, the project gained full support only with a change in company management and shook the entire PC market.
It attracted not only with its 13-inch color screen and support for 16.7 million colors, but also with its modular architecture, improved SCSI interface and the new NuBus bus, which allowed changing the set of hardware components (by the way, Steve was against this point too).
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Despite the price tag of several thousand dollars, computers every year became closer to consumers, at least at the level of functions and capabilities. The only thing left was to create programs that would work on all this magnificent hardware.
Virtual teachers
New computers have sparked discussions about the problems of the education system as a whole. Some talked about the impossibility of reaching out to each student in a crowded class. Others calculated how much time it takes to carry out and verify control work. Still others criticized textbooks and manuals, updating of which cost a pretty penny and lasted for years.
On the other hand, an “electronic teacher” could study with thousands of students at a time, and each of them would receive 100% of his attention. Tests could be generated automatically, the training program – updated with the click of a button. Not to mention the fact that it would be possible to present the material without subjective assessments and additions, always in the form and volume that was approved by the expert community.
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In the early 90s, schoolchildren were offered a new generation of educational software – they began to study algebra with the Algebra Cognitive Tutor and Practical Algebra Tutor (PAT), and physics with DIAGNOSER. This software provided opportunities not only for assessing knowledge, but also help in mastering material from training programs. But adapting such products to educational processes was not so simple – the new software was different from its predecessor programs and required different teaching methods – the developers wanted schoolchildren not to cram the material, but to understand it.
“All high school students use mathematics in everyday life, but few associate their experience with“ school ”mathematics, the creators of PAT reasoned. – In our [виртуальных] In classes, they work on mini-projects, for example, comparing forest growth rates for different periods. This task forces them to make forecasts based on existing data, teaches them to analyze relationships between sets, and describe all phenomena in the language of mathematics. ”
Software developers referred to the proposals of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, which in 1989 recommended not to torment students with hypothetical problems, but to form a practical approach to studying the subject. Traditionalists from education criticized such innovations, but by 1995, comparative sections proved the effectiveness of integrating practical tasks – classes with new software increased the effectiveness of students in the final testing by 15%.
But the main problem was not with what to teach, but with how the programmers of the early 90s were able to establish a dialogue between electronic teachers and their students?
Human conversation
This became possible when academics literally disassembled the mechanics of human dialogue into gears. In their writers, the developers mention Jim Minstrell, who formed an aspect method of teaching, achievements in the field of cognitive psychology and the psychology of learning. These findings allowed them to design systems that, decades before smart chat bots, could support a “conversation” – to provide feedback as part of the learning process.
So, in the description of the electronic physics teacher AutoTutor says that he is able to “provide positive, negative and neutral feedback, push the student to a more complete answer, help with remembering the right word, give tips and additions, correct, answer questions and summarize the topic ".
“AutoTutor offers a series of questions that can be answered with five to seven phrases,” said the creators of one of the systems for teaching physics. – First, users respond with one word or a couple of sentences. The program helps the student to reveal the answer, adapting the statement of the problem. As a result, one question accounts for 50-200 dialogue replicas. ”
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Developers of teaching solutions did not just provide them with the possession of school material – like “living” teachers, these systems approximately represented the level of students' knowledge. They “understood” when the user thinks in the wrong direction or is one step away from the correct answer.
“Teachers are able to choose the right pace for their audience and find the right explanation if they see that the students are at a standstill,” wrote the developers of DIAGNOSER. – It is this ability that underlies the Minstrel aspect method (facet-based instruction). It is assumed that the answers of the students are based on their in-depth ideas about a particular subject. "The teacher must evoke the correct idea or rid him of the wrong with the help of counterarguments or by demonstrating contradictions."
Many of these programs (DIAGNOSER, Atlas, AutoTutor) are still working, having passed the evolution of several generations. Others were reborn under new names – for example, PAT developed a series of educational products for high and high schools, colleges and universities. The question is, why haven't these great solutions replaced teachers so far?
The main reason is, of course, the money and the complexity of long-term planning in terms of integrating such software into the educational process (taking into account the life cycle of the programs themselves). Therefore, electronic teachers and teachers today remain an extremely interesting addition, which can flash some schools and universities. On the other hand, the developments of the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s could not simply be a gulf. With such a technological base and the prospects that the Internet opened, educational systems could only grow.
In the following years, school classes lost walls, while schoolchildren and students (almost) got rid of boring lectures. We will tell about how this happened in the new habratopika.
At us on Habré:
- The birth of educational software and its history: from mechanical machines to the first computers
- The history of educational software: the first PCs, educational games and software for students
