1971
Three teachers invent the Oregon Trail computer game to teach students history and math skills while navigating the hardships of 19th-century pioneer. It infiltrates schools one floppy disk at a time.
1983
In a foresighted move, Steve Jobs’s young company donates an Apple IIe each to roughly 9,000 California public schools; its products have been classroom mainstays ever since.
1988
Bill Gates packages Word, Excel, and PowerPoint together to create Microsoft Office, a program that eventually claims more than one billion users worldwide—many of them students who quickly become accustomed to grade-saving tools like spell-check.
1991
Buh-bye, chalk. The digital Smart Board allows teachers to display interactive information from their computers.
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