Ten “People” Who Have Influenced the History of Instructional Design and

Technology

Porter W. PalmerSeptember 16, 2007

IST 5003

Thomas Edison

In 1913, Edison predicted that with

the invention and use of the motion picture, books would soon be obsolete in schools.

United States Army Air Force

During World War II, The USAAF

produced film-based training materials. Germany had not anticipated how

quickly America was able to train personnel.

During World War II, Gagné

conducted research and

helped develop the training

materials for the USAAF.

Robert M. Gagné

http://web.syr.edu/~hcavino/social_learning_theory.htm#Instructional%20Theory

Federal Communications Commission

In 1952, The FCC set aside 242 television

channels known today to most Americans as educational or

public television.

Edsel Ford

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Ford

Foundation spent more than 170

million dollars on educational television

Burrhus Frederic "Fred" Skinner

Skinner described the characteristics of

effective instructional materials. He used data to support the specific materials

and methods.

Craig Swanson Enterprises. Copyright © 2007

Socrates

Socrates believed questioning to be

the only defensible form of

teaching. The Socratic method is one of the oldest

examples of instructional

design.

Benjamin Bloom

The Soviet Union

The launch of Sputnik caused the United States to throw millions of dollars at math and science education, without actually

considering effectiveness of materials. The terms formative and summative evaluation were coined as a result of these ineffective

instructional materials.

Al Gore

“Invented the internet”

No, he didn’t actually say that. The World Wide Web was invented by these two guys in Switzerland in 1989. It is the opinion of this writer that this invention has been the most powerful historical event in the history of instructional technology thus far.

Honorable Mentions

• AECT- created a single sentence definition

• Dick, Carey, and Carey- ADDIE

• IBM- computer-assisted instruction

• Tyler to Glaser- criterion-referenced measures

• Constructivists- authentic instruction

• Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau- for actually inventing the Web.