* Content adapted from Maddux, C. D., Johnson, D. L., & Willis,
J. W. (1997). Educational computing: Learning with tomorrow's
technologies. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. During much of the 1970s
and 1980s, when computers were being placed in the classrooms of
many schools for the first time, behavioral theories were very
popular. As earlier innovation, programmed instruction (PI) was
also based on behavioral theories. Today tens of thousands of
educational software products such as Word Gallery are based on
behavioral models of instruction. Recent software such as Word
Gallery takes advantage of technological advances that were not
even dreamed of in 1961, but the underlying theory of learning
is the same. The examples below illustrate some of the types of
programmed instruction programs available today. You can read
the explanation of how these programs work or download a version
of the program to try it out on your computer. This program
allows users to learn Spanish, French, German, and Italian. It
has built-in t