From Quill Pens to Computer Adaptive Testing: Old and New Technological Devices | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

From Quill Pens to Computer Adaptive Testing: Old and New Technological Devices | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

From Quill Pens to Computer Adaptive Testing: Old and New Technological Devices

by larrycuban

There are many definitions of instructional technology. One concentrates on devices teachers use in classrooms.  Another definition focuses on the different ways that teachers have used such devices as tools to advance learning in lessons. Even other definitions frame technology as processes, ways of organizing classrooms, schools, and districts.
I examine the second definition in this post: the connection between writing tools students used and the perpetual demand over the past two millennia of teachers in every culture to find out what students have learned. Here I consider the quill and steel-tipped pen, pencil, ball-point pen, and yes, the computer.
I begin with the quill pen.

Here is how Robert Travers (1983, pp. 97-98) described quill pens.
The quill pen was first mentioned in the writings of Saint Isodore of Seville in the seventh century…. The quill seems to have been by far the best writing instrument invented in its time for it displaces all other forms. It became the main instrument used in schools, apart from the slate…. Even in the late 1800s, the quill pen was still the most widely used instrument for writing. Quills [came] from the wings of geese, but swan quills were also