If you are subscribed to the RSS feeds for various educational research journals, you’ve probably noticed sometimes some journals post old articles to their feed. I guess they are in the process of scanning in old issues. The journal Educational Technology Research and Development recently posted research articles from 1954. What were the big topics then? Film strips, as you might imagine. But also kinescopes, comics, and yes, feltboards. I don’t mean to sound inappropriately condescending. It’s actually useful to think of non-computer-based technologies when considering current issues. For example, some school districts ban various new technologies from the classroom like iPods and cell phones. Doug Johnson explored what it would sound like if someone made the same arguments for banning pencils. (For example, a student might use a pencil to write something hurtful about another student.) Others question whether technologies really have any effect at all on learning, and think they should be removed from the classroom. One might similarly ask, are feltboards hurting our children’s learning? Is feltboard helping our students become better citizens?
Faculty developer. Interests: developing educational technology; faculty & student development; learning sciences & psychology.
EdTechDev - Doug Holton 