History of the Department

PERIOD 1946 - 1989:

The development of didactic technologies and the growing need to prepare students of teacher training faculties for specific new pedagogical skills led to the establishment of special departments in the second half of the 1960s. After a two-year period of preparation, the so-called Cabinet of Didactic Technology was opened at the Department of Extracurricular Education and Pedagogical Practice at the Pedagogical Faculty of the J. E. Purkyně University (today's Masaryk University), whose first employees started working on the basis of auditions on 1 September 1968. When, in the early 1970s, all three departments of pedagogy and psychology merged to form the so-called Department of Educational Sciences, the original Cabinet of Didactic Technology also lost its relative autonomy and became part of this Department. The teaching of the subject "Didactic Technology" was initially conducted by 4 teachers and 1 technician was in charge of service. After the separation of the Faculty Audiovisual Centre, this number was reduced to 3 staff members, whose focus was more closely linked to didactics and logic. The specialisation transformation of the didactic technology staff took place after the establishment of a new independent Department of Pedagogical Practice in 1979, which was also responsible for the training of general education students in working with audiovisual technology and teaching machines. The teaching of didactic technology for the students of primary school teachers of the first level was then carried out with the help of external experts only by 2 teachers of technical orientation from the Department of Educational Sciences, first level department. This situation has changed with the increased introduction of computer technology at the university. In addition to the informal didactic technology unit of the Department of Educational Sciences, the staff of the computer technology laboratory was newly added to the didactic and computer technology course.

PERIOD 1990 - 2000:

In 1990, the Department of Educational Sciences was reorganized internally, first by the creation of the Department of Didactic Technology and the Computer Technology Laboratory as part of the new Department of Education, later by the creation of an autonomous didactic laboratory for computer technology, and finally by the decision of the then Dean and after the approval of the Academic Senate in 1990. 1991, an autonomous Department of Didactic Technology and Computer Science was established with 11 staff members, including 5 teachers, 3 scientific and technical specialists of the Computer Technology Laboratory, 2 members of the Technical Services Cabinet with a focus on service work for other departments of the Faculty of Education, and 1 administrative staff. During 1994, the reorganised Audiovisual Centre of Masaryk University ceased to exist and part of its work, mainly for the Faculty of Education, was taken over by the Technical Services Cabinet. The Institute of Didactic Technology and Informatics was subsequently internally divided into 3 departments: Department of Information Technology,Laboratory of Computer Technology and Cabinet of Technical Services. Its staff ensured the teaching of informatics subjects in all forms and types of study and guaranteed the programme of computerisation and computerisation of the faculty, including general technical and didactic services. In order to provide these demanding pedagogical and technical tasks, the Institute had two specialised classrooms, one computer technology consultation laboratory, one computer technology technical laboratory, an audiovisual studio, a technical services cabinet, a depository, a detached multimedia programmes workplace and specialist offices. At the end of 1995, the volume of inventoried computer and didactic equipment amounted to almost 12 million EUR. Throughout its development, the Institute, in addition to its pedagogical activities, sought intensive domestic and foreign contacts, in which representatives of the Institute spoke and continue to speak at international conferences and participated in national and foreign projects.

Since 1972, when the foundations were laid for regular contacts with the Pedagogical College in Dresden, Magdeburg and Krakow, the Audiovisual Centre of the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Pedagogical Institutes of the University of Poznań and Wrocław, the Institute's staff have been presenting at periodic conferences organised by the Pedagogical Technical Department in Dresden and publishing their scientific work and pedagogical experience in the proceedings of the local college. Since 1991, foreign contacts of the Institute's staff have increased significantly. There have been mutual scientific visits and stays in England (University of Oxford, Department of Education), Scotland (University of Strathclydie, Faculty of Education; University of Paisley Scotland, Faculty of Computing Science), Belgium (University of Leuven, Department of Education), Spain (University of Barcelona, Department Didactics and School Organization), USA (San Diego State University, Germany (University of Regensburg, Philosophische Fakultät II), Poland (Jagiellonian University in Krakow) and presentations at conferences in Berlin, Regensburg, Oxford, Krakow, Klagenfurt, Leuven, Odensee, Jerusalem, etc. Within the framework of the disciplinary contacts with sister institutions in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the representatives of the Institute cooperated with their partners, e.g. from the Faculty of Education of the University of South Bohemia, the University of West Bohemia, Palacký University and the University of Ostrava, the Faculty of Education in Nitra and many others. The multimedia software development department has created unique educational programmes for primary schools, the first of which was awarded the best work in education in the national competition for the Rainbow Diskette in 1994. In addition to methodological materials for computer application, the Institute has created, for example, in cooperation with Besip, a number of other methodological aids of national importance. Representatives of the Institute sat on the editorial boards of teaching materials and methodological aids for traffic education and on the computer technology committee of the Grant Agency for Universities. The Institute was a co-founder and member of the board of the Educational Programmes Foundation, which produced a number of programmes also used by Czech Television.

Throughout the entire period of existence of the Department of Didactic Technology and later Didactic Technology, individual staff members participated in many national and international research projects. The largest in scope was a five-year comprehensive research programme on automated educational management information systems, the most important parts of which, "Annual Curricula", "Timetables" and "Typology of Classrooms and Aids", have been routinely applied in national practice. The international research on the effectiveness of the application of didactic technology, carried out jointly with our sister institutes in Dresden and Krakow, which resulted in the convergence of curricula and several joint publications, has also been internationally acclaimed. Research into the issue of preparing students of pedagogical faculties for traffic education found its way into the curricula for general and civic schools in the Czech Republic, which also resulted in two national teaching aids with methodological manuals and the didactic basis for two interactive multimedia programmes. Between 1991 and 1995, two international projects addressing general issues of democratisation of European education were coordinated by the Institute within the framework of Tempus projects involving universities from England, Spain, Germany and Poland (Developing Schools for Democracy in Europe; Intormation Technology in Teacher Education). In addition to the research papers, partial reports were also presented to the professional public at the IGIP conference in Klagenfurt in 1992. All major and extensive scientific and research work was also reflected in publications. In addition to dozens of minor contributions to professional journals and faculty proceedings, several papers were published in the field bulletin in the former GDR and in the highly specialized journal CHIP. Among the more substantial publications can be counted, for example, the English version of didactic technology textbooks for foreign students of the Military Academy in Brno, a monograph with didactic theory of classrooms and a professional publication on teacher education.

In 1998, after the adoption of the new Higher Education Act, the Department of Didactic Technology and Informatics was reorganized in accordance with the new legislation and renamed the Department of Didactic Technology. The scientific and pedagogical work of the department was still maintained and developed after this reorganization, especially in the field of computer support for teaching with a practical focus on traffic education. The Department of Didactic Technologies also became the guarantor of the operation of the faculty-wide computer network and in this area it performed tasks of a faculty-wide and university-wide nature, especially the transition to the electronic management system - the Masaryk University Information System. In this area, she acted as a faculty coordinator during the actual start-up of the new system at the faculty.

PERIOD 2001 - PRESENT:

Since 1 January 2003, on the initiative of the Faculty management and after approval by the Academic Senate of the Faculty, the Department of Didactic Technologies was separated from the Department of Didactic Technologies into a separate Information Technology Centre and the Cabinet of Technical Services was abolished. The new Information Technology Centre took over the coordination of the operation of the computer network of the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University and as a non-teaching department it takes care of the operation of electronic computer systems.

After this reorganization, the Department of Didactic Technologies is engaged in pedagogical work oriented to full-time and combined studies and to the subjects of the common basis of structured studies and studies of teaching for the first stage of primary school, bachelor studies of masters of vocational education and teachers of vocational subjects, courses of lifelong learning, etc. In the field of research and development, the staff of the Department is involved in a number of transformation and development projects and grants. The Department also has ambitions to become a testing centre for the ECDL, particularly with a focus on teaching staff.

On 1 October 2012, the Department of Chemistry was merged with the Department of Physics and the Department of Chemistry. The head of the newly established department (Department of Physics, Chemistry and Vocational Education) became Assoc. P. Sládek. The Department of Didactic Technologies continues to operate as the Section of Vocational Education.