Digital Media in education is measured by a person's ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and produce media content and communication in a variety of forms. These media may involve incorporating multiple digital softwares, devices, and platforms as a tool for learning. The use of digital media in education is growing rapidly in today's age, competing with books for the leading form of communication. This form of education is slowly combating the traditional forms of education that have been around for a long time. With the introduction of virtual education, there has been a need for more incorporation of new digital platforms in online classrooms.
History
20th century
The technological advances and invention of the Internet in the late 20th century created the prospect of incorporating technology into learning. The early 1900s saw the use of the overhead projector as an educational tool, as well as on-air classes accessible through radio. The first use of computers in classrooms occurred in 1950; it was a flight simulation program used to train pilots at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, the use of computers remained extremely limited and largely inaccessible. In 1964, researchers John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz designed a new computer language, called BASIC, that was simpler to learn than previous ones and popularized time-sharing, which allowed for multiple students to use a computer at one time. By the 1980s, many schools began to take interest in the computer field, as companies began to release mass-market computers to the general public. The emergence of networking allowed for computers to connect to a single communication system, which was both more efficient and cheaper than the previous stand-alone machines, leading to widespread adoption in school districts.
By 1999, 99% of public school teachers in the United States reported that there was access to at least one computer in their school, with a further 84% of teachers having access to a computer in their classroom. The invention of the World Wide Web around 1992 allowed for easier navigation of the Internet, and interest rapidly grew in educational fields. Computers began to be integrated into school curriculums; at first, they were used for word processing, creating spreadsheets, and data organization. By the latter half of the 1990s, the Internet became a tool for research, being used as a giant library resource.
The invention of the World Wide Web also enabled the development of learning management systems, which allowed teachers to create online teaching environments that would store and organize content, as well as provide an online space for student activity, discussions, and assignments. The rise of digital compression and high-speed Internet access allowed for video creation and distribution to become much cheaper, which led to the development of systems made for recording lectures. These lectures were often distributed through learning management systems, and led to the rise of fully online courses.
21st century
2000 - 2010
By 2002, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had begun making their recorded lectures available to the public. The creation of YouTube, in 2005, further allowed for distribution of educational content, and many teachers chose to upload lectures or short videos to use as teaching aids in the classroom; notably, Khan Academy began uploading videos to YouTube in 2006, which further propelled the platform as an educational tool. In 2007, Apple released iTunesU, another platform for collecting and sharing educational materials and videos. Learning management systems also became increasingly common, with two of the most popular-- Blackboard and Canvas-- coming into popularity after Canvas's release in 2008. 2008 also saw the first Massive Open Online Course, which was open to anyone and contained webinar presentations and posts made by experts.
Projectors began to be phased out in favor of interactive whiteboards, which allowed teachers to easily integrate digital tools into their classrooms. By 2009, 97% of classrooms in the United States had one or more computers, with 93% of them having Internet access.