Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Medienwissenschaft

One of the major figures of German cybernetics, Helmar Frank envisioned and propagated a "cybernetic pedagogy" which employed the use of so called teaching machines. Despite the backing of computer-industry-heavyweight Heinz Nixdorf, Frank's attempts to establish a cybernetic pedagogy utilizing teaching machines faltered. The talk attempts to showcase some of Frank's machines and to position them in a wider discourse of teaching machines of the 1960s and 70s and the surrounding pedagogical discourse in order to pinpoint the frictions and problems Frank's ideas and machines faced and what led to their demise.