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The widespread academic study of educational technology blossomed in the years following the development of the microprocessor. Of course, that is not to say that education was technology-free before the 1970s: the telephone, wireless radio, cinema, television, and mainframe computers had all in their time been heralded as educational marvels. But the scale of change, and the academic practices that responded to it, became of an entirely different order with the arrival of personal computers, promising as they did access for ordinary people to cheaper, faster, and smarter benefits of science and technology. From that historic moment onwards, it was increasingly common to hear educationalists, computer experts, journalists, and politicians proclaiming that these new technologies would transform the world of education, for better or for worse.-