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ABSTRACT
The differences between computer-mediated and in-person learning are of increasing interest to educators, both with the rise of fully online education offerings and the move to ‘blended learning’ when teachers use computer-mediated learning to supplement and extend classroom activities. This paper offers a narrative history of the world’s first computer learning system, PLATO, developed at the University of Illinois between 1959 and 1976. The PLATO experience prompted discussions regarding the nature of e-learning among the developers that have since become a ubiquitous part of our educational discourse. While the technical story of PLATO and its place in the development of cyberculture has been told, the educational story has not. This paper discusses the ways in which educators using PLATO gradually discovered that their teaching and their students’ learning could be different. It analyses the implications of these insights for the emergence of e-learning pedagogies in subsequent decades.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
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20 Steve Jones and Guillaume Latzko-Toth, ‘Out from the PLATO Cave: Uncovering the Pre-Internet History of Social Computing’, Internet Histories 1, no. 1–2 (2017): 65, 63.
21 Nor do other histories of PLATO: Kevin C. Brady, ‘Using Computers for Learning: An Historical Study of Four Early Programs’ (PhD thesis, University of New Mexico, 2007); Mathew Cherian, From PLATO to Podcasts: Fifty Years of Federal Involvement in Educational Technology (Washington, DC: Center on Education Policy 2009).
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29 Dear, The Friendly Orange Glow, 25, 34.
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31 Francis D. Driscoll, ‘The PLATO System: A Study in the Diffusion of an Innovation’ (PhD thesis, Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1987), 46.
32 Cope and Kalantzis, Making Sense, 295–8.
33 B. F. Skinner, ‘Baby in a Box: The Mechanical Baby-Tender’, Ladies’ Home Journal 62 (1945): 30–1, 135–6, 138.
34 Dear, The Friendly Orange Glow, 32.
35 D. Alpert et al., Progress Report, 1959–60 (Urbana: Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1960), Mar/Apr/May, 9.
36 Dear, The Friendly Orange Glow, 36–7.
37 Ibid., 38–9.
38 Harry S. Broudy, ‘Teaching Machines: Threats and Promise’, Educational Theory 12, no. 3 (1962): 155.
39 Ibid., 154–6; Harry S. Broudy, ‘Socrates and the Teaching Machine’, in Programs, Teachers and Machines, ed. Alfred de Grazia and David A. Sohn (New York: Bantam Books, 1962), 18–25.
40 Dear, The Friendly Orange Glow, 38, 49, 58.
41 For corrections to, and elaborations of, the points made in this text, many thanks to Pam and Mike VanBlaricum who, as undergraduate then graduate students in Engineering, worked with PLATO in the 1960s and 1970s.
42 Donald L. Bitzer and Peter G. Braunfeld, ‘A Computer-Controlled Teaching System (PLATO)’, in New Media in Higher Education, ed. James W. Brown and James W. Thornton (Washington, DC: National Education Association, 1963), 108.
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50 Bitzer, Lyman and Easley, ‘The Uses of PLATO’, 1.
51 Dear, The Friendly Orange Glow, 72, 65, 73–4.
52 Donald L. Bitzer and H. G. Slottow, ‘The Plasma Display Panel: A Digitally Addressable Display with Inherent Memory’, in AFIPS ’66 (Fall): Proceedings of the Fall Joint Computer Conference (1966), 541–7; Larry F. Weber, ‘History of the Plasma Display Panel’, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science 34, no. 2 (2006): 268–78.
53 Donald L. Bitzer, Hiram Gene Slottow and Robert H. Willson, Gaseous Display and Memory Apparatus, ed. US Patent US3559190A (1966).
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55 Ted Nelson, Dream Machines: New Freedoms through Computer Screens, a Minority Report (Chicago, IL: Hugo’s Book Service, 1974), 104.
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57 Elisabeth R. Lyman, ‘Instructions for Using the PLATO Logic, General’ (Urbana: Computer-based Education Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1968), 3.
58 Driscoll, ‘The PLATO System’, 68–72.
59 Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia, Surpassing Ourselves: An Inquiry into the Nature and Implications of Expertise (Chicago: Open Court, 1993).
60 Maryann Bitzer, Self-Directed Inquiry in Clinical Nursing Instruction by Means of the PLATO Simulated Laboratory (University of Illinois, 1965), 11–12, 16; Rankin, A People’s History of Computing in the United States, 174–5.
61 Bill Cope et al., ‘Maps of Medical Reason: Applying Knowledge Graphs and Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education and Practice’, in Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies, ed. Michael Peters, Petar Jandrić and Sarah Hayes (Cham, CH: Springer, 2022), 133–59.
62 Bitzer, ‘Self-Directed Inquiry in Clinical Nursing Instruction’, 16–17, 20, 2.
63 Maryann D. Bitzer and Martha C. Boudreaux, ‘Using a Computer to Teach Nursing’, Nursing Forum 8, no. 3 (1969): 234–54.
64 Genrose Alfano et al., ‘Nursing in the Decade Ahead’, American Journal of Nursing 70, no. 10 (1970): 2117.
65 Elisabeth R. Lyman, A Descriptive List of PLATO Lesson Programs 1960–1965 (Urbana: Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1965).
66 Elisabeth R. Lyman, A Descriptive List of PLATO Lesson Programs 1960–1970 (Urbana: Computer-based Education Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1970).
67 Elisabeth R. Lyman, PLATO Highlights (Urbana: Computer-based Education Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1974), 14.
68 Donald L. Bitzer and Jack A. Easley, ‘PLATO: A Computer-Controlled Teaching System’, in Symposium on Computer Augmentation of Human Reasoning, ed. Margot A. Sass and William D. Wilkinson (Washington, DC: Spartan Books, 1965), 89–104.
69 R. A. Avner and Paul Tenczar, ‘The Tutor Manual’ (Urbana: Computer-based Education Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1969), 7–8.
70 Ibid.
71 Jack A. Easley, A Project to Develop and Evaluate a Computerized System for Instructional Response Analysis: Project Sira (Washington, DC: Bureau of Research, US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1968), 5, 16.
72 Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, ‘Big Data Comes to School: Implications for Learning, Assessment and Research’, AERA Open 2, no. 2 (2016).
73 Noam Chomsky, ‘Review of “Verbal Behavior”, by B. F. Skinner’, Language 35, no. 1 (1959): 26–57.
74 Cope and Kalantzis, Making Sense, 298–301.
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76 Alpert and Bitzer, ‘Advances in Computer-Based Education’, 1584; Bitzer and Johnson, ‘PLATO: A Computer-Based System’.
77 H. Wallace Sinaiko and L. Shpiner, Experiments on the Performance of an Automatic Air Defense System (Urbana: Co-ordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1960).
78 Alpert et al., Progress Report, 1959–60, Mar/Apr/May, 12, 38–48.
79 Elisabeth Van Meer, ‘PLATO: From Computer-Based Education to Corporate Social Responsibility’, Iterations: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Software (2003): 3.
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84 Max Beberman, UICSM Project for the Improvement of School Mathematics (Urbana: University of Illinois Committee on School Mathematics, 1962).
85 Easley, ‘Logic and Heuristic in Mathematics’, 223.
86 Easley, ‘A Project to Develop and Evaluate a Computerized System’, 25–7.
87 H. G. Slottow, ed., Demonstration of the PLATO IV Computer-Based Education System, Final Report: 1 January 1972–30 June 1976 (Urbana, IL: Computer-based Education Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1976), 63.
88 Ibid., 64–5.
89 Robert B. Davis, Learning Mathematics: The Cognitive Science Approach to Mathematics Education (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1984), 313–15.
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91 Bonnie Anderson Seiler and Charles S. Weaver, Description of PLATO Whole Number Arithmetic Lessons (Urbana: Computer-based Education Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1976).
92 Sharon Dugdale and David Kibbey, Elementary Mathematics with PLATO (Urbana: Computer-based Education Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1977); Solomon, Computer Environments for Children, 36–40.
93 Slottow, Demonstration of the PLATO IV Computer-Based Education System, 93–5.
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96 Urban, More Than Science and Sputnik: The National Defence Education Act of 1958.
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99 J. Richard Suchman, ‘Inquiry Training: Building Skills for Autonomous Discovery’, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behaviour and Development 7, no. 3 (1961): 147.
100 Bitzer, ‘Self-Directed Inquiry in Clinical Nursing Instruction’.
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102 Ibid., 14.
103 Woolley, ‘PLATO: The Emergence of Online Community’, 103.
104 Ibid., 103–107, 115.
105 Courtney B. Cazden, Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning, 2nd ed. (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1988 [2001]).
106 Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, ‘Conceptualizing E-Learning’, in E-Learning Ecologies: Principles for New Learning and Assessment, ed. Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis (New York: Routledge, 2017), 16–20.
107 Lejaren A. Hiller and Leonard M. Isaacson, Experimental Music: Composition with an Electronic Computer (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959); James Bohn, ‘Lejaren Hiller: Early Experiments in Computer and Electronic Music’, in No Boundaries: University of Illinois Vignettes, ed. Lillian Hoddeson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 293–303.
108 David V. Meller, ‘Using PLATO IV’ (Urbana, IL, 1974).
109 Rankin, A People’s History of Computing in the United States, 193–227; ‘Towards a History of Social Computing: Children, Classrooms, Campuses, and Communities’.
110 Jones and Latzko-Toth, ‘Out from the PLATO Cave’, 64.
111 Nelson, Dream Machines, 103.
112 Valarie C. Lamont, ‘New Directions for the Teaching Computer: Citizen Participation in Community Planning’ (Urbana: Computer-Based Education Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1972).
113 Charles E. Osgood and Stuart Umpleby, ‘A Computer-Based Exploration of Alternative Futures for Mankind 2000’, in Mankind 2000, ed. Robert Jungk and Johan Galtung (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1969), 353.
114 Stuart Umpleby, ‘The Teaching Computer as a Gaming Laboratory’, Simulation & Gaming 2, no. 1 (1971).
115 ‘Citizen Sampling Simulations: A Method for Involving the Public in Social Planning’, Policy Sciences 1, no. 3 (1970): 361; Stuart Umpleby, ‘Some Applications of Cybernetics to Social Systems’ (PhD, Graduate College, University of Illinois, 1975).
116 The Alternative Futures Project at the University of Illinois, ‘Newsletter’ (1973), 5.
117 Dear, The Friendly Orange Glow, 207.
118 Bitzer and Braunfeld, ‘A Computer-Controlled Teaching System (PLATO)’, 109.
119 Dear, The Friendly Orange Glow, 418–19.
120 Lyman, ‘PLATO Highlights’, 1–7; Slottow, Demonstration of the PLATO IV Computer-Based Education, 5.
121 Christopher Felix McDonald, ‘Building the Information Society: A History of Computing as a Mass Medium’ (PhD thesis, Princeton University, 2011), 144–80.
122 Donald L. Bitzer, interview by Sheldon Hochheiser, Champaign IL, February 19, 1988.
123 Office of Technology Assessment, Informational Technology and Its Impact on American Education (Washington, DC: United States Congress, 1982), 129.
124 Stanley Trollip, ‘PLATO in South Africa’, South African Journal of Science 77, November (1981), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)#In_South_Africa (accessed 4 January 2023).
125 Phillip A. Schwenke, Tafe Aboriginal Access, Use of PLATO 1982 and 1984 (Perth, Western Australia: Technical Education Division, Education Department of Western Australia, 1985).
126 Donald L. Bitzer, ‘The PLATO Project at the University of Illinois’, Engineering Education 77 (1986): 175–80.
127 Meer, ‘PLATO: From Computer-Based Education.’
128 Cope and Kalantzis, ‘Conceptualizing E-Learning’; Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, ‘The Changing Dynamics of Online Education: Five Theses on the Future of Learning’, in Foreign Language Learning in the Digital Age: Theory and Pedagogy for Developing Literacies, ed. Christiane Lütge (London: Routledge, 2022), 1–45; Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope, ‘Pedagogies for Digital Learning: From Transpositional Grammar to the Literacies of Education’, in Multimodal Literacies across Digital Learning Contexts, ed. Maria Grazia Sindoni and Ilaria Moschini (London: Routledge, 2021), 34–53; Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope, ‘The Digital Learner: Towards a Reflexive Pedagogy’, in Handbook of Research on Digital Learning, ed. Matthew Montebello (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2020), xviii-xxxi; Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, ‘After the Covid-19 Crisis: Why Higher Education May (and Perhaps Should) Never Be the Same’, ACCESS: Contemporary Issues in Education 40, no. 1 (2020): 51–5.
129 James J. Gibson, ‘The Theory of Affordances’, in Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Towards an Ecological Psychology, ed. Robert Shaw and John Bransford (1977), 67–82.
130 Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope, ‘Learning and New Media’, in The Sage Handbook of Learning, ed. David Scott and Eleanore Hargreaves (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2015), 373–87.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Bill Cope
Bill Cope is a Professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization & Leadership, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include theories and practices of pedagogy, cultural and linguistic diversity, and new technologies of representation and communication.
Mary Kalantzis
Mary Kalantzis was from 2006 to 2016 Dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. With Bill Cope, she has co-authored or co-edited New Learning: Elements of a Science of Education, Cambridge University Press, 2008 (2nd edition, 2012); Literacies, Cambridge University Press 2012 (2nd edition, 2016); e-Learning Ecologies, Routledge, 2017; and a two-volume grammar of multimodal meaning: Making Sense and Adding Sense, Cambridge University Press, 2020.