GB1271456A - Teaching machines - Google Patents

Abstract

1,271,456. Teaching machines. MOSKOVSKY GOSUDARSTVENNY PEDAGOGICHESKY INSTITUT INOSTRANNYCH YAZYKOV IMENI MORISA TOREZA. 10 July, 1969 [10 July, 1968], No. 34798/69. Heading G5G. In a teaching machine, particularly one for teaching languages, of the kind in which the user is presented with a series of multi-choice questions, a window through which the set of possible answers to each question is viewed is covered by a plug-in frame 9. The machine housing (Fig. 1, not shown) contains a sequence of questions on a tape which is advanced stepby-step by the user, who has push-buttons for selecting his answers. Control circuitry is provided, and though this is not disclosed in detail, a block diagram (Fig. 2, not shown) indicates its function, viz. to identify and record correct answers. The machine provides a different pattern of correct answers for each of a plurality of different teaching programmes. Completion of the control circuitry is by way of the plugs 24 of the panel 9 and corresponding sockets 25 in the machine housing. Each panel 9 corresponds to one of these programmes, the panels for different programmes having different length plugs so that different socket contacts, and hence different correct-answer patterns, correspond to the different panels. In addition to the plugs making electric contact, the panels are mechanically retained by spring slips (Fig. 4, not shown). The machine may be used for self-instruction (in which case the user may keep selecting answers to a given question until he eventually gets a "correct " signal or alternatively may push a " prompt " button to be informed of the correct answer if his first answer was incorrect); or for test purposes, the machine counting correct (first) answers to each question. In the latter case an attempt to open the machine housing's lid, and thereby see the identified correct answers on the tape, operates a switch which causes the machine to register a " failed " test result.