In the late 1980s and early 90s, the Apple Macintosh replace the Apple II in many educational settings and became a favorite among teacher-developers because of the support of HyperCard, a powerful but easy-to-use authoring program. The Mac had built-in sound, making it easier to work with than PCs which had incompatible proprietary boards competing with one another. Early Macs (and HyperCard) did not support color, however, so commercial programs continued to appear for PCs. The PC market was also dominant in most countries outside the US because the machines could be obtained much more cheaply than Macs.

During this period, the use of the computer as a tool increased as teachers developed innovative techniques for using email and word processors became integrated into writing classes. Some teachers helped students develop their own HyperCard projects or ones in similar applications developed for the PC, such as ToolBook. It was noted that building collaborative projects around the computer and using computer mediated communication (CMC) had a strong effect on some students' motivations and seemed to make it easier for shy students to become involved. Some teachers built assignments around student interactions in multi-user domains (MUDs), the precursors of today's chat rooms.

Two major changes came starting in the mid-1990s. One was the dramatic increase in commercial multimedia for language learning as CD-ROMs became standard in home computers. The other was the development of the world wide web. Because of the web and increased access to the Internet in general, the past five or six years have seen a major shift toward tool uses, and many newcomers to CALL define the field almost entirely in those terms.

TEACHER ROLES

Teachers interested in CALL can get involved in a number of different ways. Here are some possibilities.

As researchers: into second language acquisition, human-computer interaction, what works for CALL
As consumers of CALL software for class use or building web activities into course work
As directors, helping students find and use supplementary CALL materials or web resources
As managers of computer-mediated communication among learners in and out of class
As software or web developers, either "from scratch" or adding new materials to existing templates
As coaches to help students develop software, websites, and general computer literacy
As CALL experts for your program, helping other teachers and administrators with CALL implementations
As CALL professionals, consulting on external projects, doing software reviews for journals, making conference presentations, writing papers, interpreting and applying CALL research, and/or  providing input to the field at large.
Those who are more serious about making CALL a specialization can look to link their background in language teaching with an MA in Stanford's Learning, Design, and Technology program in the School of Education or an MA in CALL itself available from institutions like Carnegie-Mellon.  Other CALL courses are listed on Graham Davies website