Educational technology refers to the application of modern science and technology in education. After the 20th century, with the development of modern science and technology, modern technologies such as slide show, projection, film, recording, video recording, radio and television have been widely used in education, which has expanded the scope of educational and teaching activities and improved the efficiency and quality.
From 65438 to 0974, the United States launched the first "practical technology satellite" dedicated to teaching, marking the development of modern educational technology to a new stage. Since then, people have further discussed the new topics brought by the latest achievements of computer, microelectronics and optical fiber communication to the development of educational technology.
American educational technology was the earliest, developed clearly and completely, and had the greatest influence in the world. Other countries, such as Japan, Britain, Canada, etc., have borrowed the theoretical model of American educational technology, so the United States can be a typical representative of studying the development history of foreign educational technology.
The formation and development of American educational technology can be traced back to three main aspects: first, the audio-visual teaching movement promoted the use of various learning resources in teaching; Secondly, personalized teaching promotes the formation of learner-centered personalized teaching; Thirdly, the development of teaching system method promotes the birth of instructional design as the core of educational technology theory.
These three aspects have different origins, but basically follow the development track of "visual teaching-audio-visual teaching-audio-visual communication teaching-educational technology".
During this period, multimedia audio-visual communication teaching, personalized teaching and teaching system design gradually merged. In 1970s, under the integration of systematic methods, three branches formed educational technology, making it a systematic and complete field and discipline.