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The following HTML text is provided to enhance online readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML. Please use the page image as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy. Page 27 was available anytime, anywhere, but they also increased accessibility to learning by reducing costs. Books effected major changes in both the techniques and, notably, the objectives of instruction. Curriculum and syllabi were altered to take advantage of the availability of the learning content in books. Moreover, books contributed to the rise of a middle class that, in turn, increased the demand for more access to learning content through more books. Computer technology may now be effecting a third revolution in instruction. This technology makes both the content and the interactions, the tutorial give-and-take, of learning widely and inexpensively accessible. Computer-based instructional materials are available anytime and anywhere, but they also provide relevant and appropriate instructional interactions. They can be designed to adapt and respond to the needs and intentions of individual learners on a microsecond to microsecond basis. They may foment a third revolution in instruction that is at least as significant as the previous two. We might, therefore, ask if there is any evidence that this revolution is occurring and what role technology-based assessment has played in this activity. WHAT ARE THECONTRIBUTIONS OF TECHNOLOGY TO INSTRUCTION?Computer technology has from the beginning been used interactively to tailor the pace, content, difficulty, and sequencing of instructional material to the needs of individuals. Research, development, use, and assessment of computer applications in instruction began in the mid-1950s. Relevant research and development were well underway by the late 1950s and early 1960s in universities (Holland, 1959; Porter, 1959; Bitzer, Braunfeld, & Lichtenberger, 1962; Suppes, 1964 ), industry (Uttal, 1962), and the military (Fletcher & Rockway, 1986). We know that substantial improvements in instructional effectiveness may be obtained by tailoring instruction to the needs and capabilities of individual learners. One widely cited discussion was based on studies performed by Benjamin Bloom and his students (Bloom, 1984), who compared the achievement of individually tutored students (one instructor for each student) with that of classroom students (one instructor for every 28-32 students). It is not surprising to find that individual tutoring in these studies increased the achievement of students. What is surprising is the magnitude of the increase. Bloom reported that the overall difference in achievement across three studies was about two standard deviations, which means, roughly, that tutoring improved the achievement of 50th percentile students to that of 98th percentile students. Two standard deviations is a large difference. Bloom posed it to educators as a 2-sigma challenge. Why is this 2-sigma difference such a challenge? Why don't we simply provide one-on-one tutoring for all our students? The answer is straightforward and obvious: We can't afford it. The provision of one instructor for each student is, in most cases, prohibitively expensive. Individualized, tutorial instruction seems both an instructional imperative and an economic impossibility. We may now have the means to break out of this dilemma. Gordon Moore's (famous) law states that the power and memory of computers double about every 18 months (Brenner,
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