PLATO (computer System) - Historic Background

Historic Background

Before the 1944 G.I. Bill that provided free college education to World War II veterans, higher education was limited to a minority of the U.S. population. The trend towards greater enrollment notable by the early 1950s, and the problem of providing instruction for the many new students was a serious concern to university administrators. To wit, if computerised automation increased factory production, it could do the same for academic instruction. The U.S.S.R.'s 1957 launching of the Sputnik I artificial satellite energized the United States' government into spending more on science and engineering education. In 1958, the U.S. Air Force's Office of Scientific Research had a conference about the topic of computer instruction at the University of Pennsylvania; interested parties, notably IBM, presented studies.

Read more about this topic:  PLATO (computer System)

Famous quotes containing the words historic and/or background:

    It is, all in all, a historic error to believe that the master makes the school; the students make it!
    Robert Musil (1880–1942)

    Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)