An instructional designer needs to stay abreast of new and developing technologies, but not necessarily mastering them, to keep their skills current and relevant. Being a technology "chameleon" is an important professional development skill that will keep an instructional designer's career off the chopping block during times of reorganization, reallocation, and tight budgets. One wise instructional designer once said about continually finding the cutting edge of technology: "Just stand back and watch the wagon a while, and when you're sure what direction it's going, jump on, grab the reigns, and shout, "Follow me!" A short (but certainly not complete) history of distance methodology and technology can illustrate this point quickly.

	Circa 1904 The steam engine and a national network, or infrastructure, of tracks and depots provided an opportunity for rolling classrooms. Many states had their own "corn trains," "meat trains," and "dairy trains" to bring the latest research from the land-grant system out to the rural population. Most of these trains were sponsored openly by the seed, meat, and dairy industries. In this photo an instructor and graduate assistant teach about  new hybrid corn seeds. (Has the lecture format changed much since this photo?)
	Circa 1920 Henry Ford's inexpensive Model-Ts and a growing network of paved roads inspired universities to buy fleets of cars and send them across the open country to teach classes. In this photo you can see the Model-T in the background, while in the foreground an instructor or county Extension Service agent lectures to a group of adults. Instructors would bring along folding podiums to teach from and taught how to change tires and clean spark plugs as part of their training. A 1921 Model-T Touring car cost $355.
	Circa 1940 Sometimes called the "University of the Air," higher education quickly adopted radio as a broadcast means for distance education. This is a photo of three home economic specialists hosting their weekly radio show "A Word to the Wives." Today most of these educational radio stations have converted to Public Radio affiliates but still carry informal informational programming produced at universities.
	Circa 1952 Consumers finally begin to buy home television sets and universities begin to buy Federal Communication Commission licenses, build transmitters, towers, and studios, and broadcast televised instruction through the airwaves. Families could watch a course on European history from their local college, and then change the channel to watch Milton Berle. Commercial TV begins to dominate, and university-owned stations become too expensive and cumbersome to own, or they switch allegiance over to the burgeoning Public Broadcast Service. Many of the television teaching techniques developed during this time would reappear later when satellite, videotape, videoconferencing, and streaming technology become the bandwagons of choice.
	Circa 1965 With the development of affordable private airplanes and a growing network of rural  airports, many universities invested in their own fleet of small aircraft to ferry instructors around the state on a weekly basis. Increasing fuel, maintenance and insurance costs proved this distance learning technology to be unsustainable and some instructors thought unsafe.
	Circa 1985 A worldwide network of orbiting satellites with cost-effective transponder (or satellite) time, brought about perhaps the first national network for distance learning. Many states installed a system of county-based downlink sites for remote students. Dramatically increasing costs in transponder time and in maintaining and equipping studios and uplink transmitters, combined with the dawn of the Internet, made satellite distribution financial unsustainable. Many satellite courses moved to asynchronous videotape distribution once the VCR became well established in almost every home. Today, as satellite dishes get smaller and more affordable, and digital satellite transponder time comes down in price, this delivery medium is reappearing again as a viable alternative to delivering video and high-band Internet access to distance learners.
	Circa 1990-95 States and regions begin to build fiber optic-based or phone line-based two-way interactive video and audio networks. Instruction moves out of the broadcast studio and into the teleclassroom. Advances in consumer and professional video and multimedia technology make it possible for instructors to teach both on- and off-campus students simultaneously from high-tech classrooms. Very quickly, less expensive Internet, or compressed videoconferencing technology, begins to threaten or replace these expensive-to-maintain proprietary networks.
	Circa 1997 Higher education begins to move distance learning to the Internet using homegrown or commercial course or learning management systems. The cost sustainability and learner effectiveness of these online technologies is still being tested.
	Future? Distance education technologies continue to evolve and change. It's difficult to see five years into the future, much less 20 years. But here are some prospects for what the future holds: Virtual instructors? Virtual students? Will your computer become your TV or your TV a computer? No more wires? So where do I take this course? Privatized distance education systems/networks? Is it a PC? Is it a writing tablet? Is it a book?

Now let's head into the here and now and learn how to identify the technology capacity at one's institution.

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