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Prior to the 1960s, university educations were limited to a tiny minority of the population. But the future trend to much larger enrollment in higher education was already clear in the early 1950s, and the problem of providing for an influx of new students was a serious concern. A number of people proposed that if the computer could increase the capabilities of the factory via automation, then surely it could do the same for education.
In 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, and the United States suddenly felt a collective sense of educational inferiority. The result was massive spending on science and engineering education; computer-based education along with it. In 1958 the US Air Force's Office of Scientific Research held a conference on the topic at the University of Pennsylvania, and a number of groups --notably IBM -- presented studies on the topic.
Chalmers Sherwin, a physicist at the University of Illinois, suggested a computerized learning system to William Everett, Dean of the College of Engineering. Everett recommended that Daniel Alpert, another physicist, convieve a meeting on the topic that included engineers, educators, mathematicians, and psychologists. After several weeks of meetings the group was unable to suggest a single design for such a system. Alpert was unhappy with the results, but before announcing their failure he mentioned the meetings to a lab assistant, Donald BitzerDonald Bitzer most notably inventor of the Plasma display and largely regarded as the "father of PLATO", has made a career of improving classroom productivity by using computer and telecommunications technologies. The creation of PLATO, the first system t. Bitzer claimed that he had already been thinking about the problem, and suggested that he could build a demonstration system.
Donald BitzerDonald Bitzer most notably inventor of the Plasma display and largely regarded as the "father of PLATO", has made a career of improving classroom productivity by using computer and telecommunications technologies. The creation of PLATO, the first system t, regarded as the "father of PLATO", suceeded largely due to their rejection of "modern" educational thinking. Returning to a basic drill-based system, his team improved on existing systems by allowing students to bypass lessons they already understood. Their first system, PLATO I first ran on the locally-built ILLIAC IThe ILLIAC I Illi nois A utomatic C omputer , a pioneering computer built in 1952 by the University of Illinois, was the first computer built and owned entirely by an educational institution. It was also the first computer at the University of Illinois. in 1960. It included a TV for display and a special keyboard to navigate the system's menus. In 1961 they introduced PLATO II, which ran two users at once.Convinced of the value of the project, the PLATO system entered a major redesign between 1963 and 1966. The new PLATO III allowed "anyone" to design new lession modules using their TUTOR language, brainchild of Paul Tenczar. Built on a CDC 1604 which had been given to them for free by William Norris, PLATO III could run up to 20 lessons at once, and was used by a number of Urbana-local facilities that could be attached to the system with their custom terminalThe term Terminal can be used in several way and includes various topics: Usually terminal means forming or pertaining to an end. In Computing, it refers to an electronic or electromechanical hardware device. See Computer terminal. In Telecommunication, ts.