Lessons of experience in the use of media: Problems created by the development of the use of media in industrialised countries

Abstract

Some media have been known for centuries, at least in a primitive form (pictures, transparencies, and of course books), others for more than a century (photographs for example), still others have appeared in a more and more accelerated way since the beginning of the 20th century and mainly since the 1950's. New hardware has been invented, almost never for education. Each time, some teachers have questioned the contribution that it can bring to education, pedagogy following techniques rather than the contrary. Consequently, little by little, audio-visual methods and media have penetrated schools, at the beginning very modestly after 1900, progressively before the second world war, definitely after the war. Since the 1950's, each generation of students has known new media. The context, the environment, and the methods have changed according to a similar rhythm, moderated, slowed down by the extreme prudence of the teachers, resisting the fact that these new innovations were introduced too rapidly.