Transforming the World by Computer-Assisted Instruction: UNESCO and Its Vision of Global Media Ecologies in Education (ca. 1950s–1970s)

UNESCO’s initiatives in computer-assisted instruction (CAI) date back to the early 1960s. Over the following years UNESCO increasingly concentrated on computational technologies and their educational value within wider multimedia ecologies. The organization believed that it had a global role to overcome technological divides by steering these technologies worldwide. Country missions played a key part in promoting audio, visual, and digital educational devices such as radio, film, television, and computers. These missions served to collect place-based information and to prepare for further steps in less accessible and less prosperous countries around the globe. UNESCO’s first country mission in the domain of computational technologies in teacher education was launched in Francoist Spain. UNESCO also offered specific support for Bulgaria concerning informatics in education for children. Other regions of the world followed through the twentieth century, including Asia and the Pacific region.
The chapter begins by looking at the origins of UNESCO’s initiatives to promote computer-assisted instruction. Computer-assisted instruction was important because computers could connect to external media such as television and radio and be used as key elements of wider media ecologies. The second part focuses on UNESCO’s mission in Francoist Spain. The chapter then briefly looks at some global dimensions of UNESCO’s activities in computer-assisted instruction. The focus is on how UNESCO promoted communication networks consisting of diverse media to foster “progress” and education worldwide. The chapter concludes by reflecting on how UNESCO boosted its powerful position by finding academic-commercial and political allies on a global scale. In sum, the chapter critically examines the (geo-)political, economic, financial and cultural agendas of UNESCO’s engagement with computational technologies.