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First correspondence course
Caleb Phillips places advertisement in the Boston Gazette for a weekly correspondence course marking one of the first times postal technology was sufficiently advanced to begin reliable distance learning. -
BBC beginns first public TV transmission
The BBC begins the first public television broadcast, while not the first TV broadcasts these would become known as BBC One and is claimed to be the longest running TV station. -
Cone of Experience
Edgar Dale presents the cone of experience as an argument for the introduction of more visceral experiences to instruction and gives a start to the definition of the field of Educational technology -
US Educational TV set aside
The FCC sets aside 242 television channels for education purposes which leads to the rise of public television channels that produce a variety of educational programming -
Computers begin to enter schools
Elementary and Secondary Education act brings money to some schools in order for mainframes and mincomputers to be bought. -
Sesame Street Airs
The first episode of Sesame Street, the longest running English language childs education TV program, airs. First episode of Sesame Street -
ARPANET adopts modern protocols
Host-to-host protocols are installed on the ARPANET making it the first fully functioning forerunner of modern internet infrastructure History of the Internet -
MITS Altair 8800 Released
The MITS Altair 8800 is the first personal computer that is produced for general consumption. Bill Gates and Paul Allen would go on to write a BASIC compiler for the Altair and found Microsoft. -
Computers begin to penetrate public education
Computers have found use in more than 40% of all US elementary schools and 75% of secondary schools -
Internet is formally defined
The Federal Networking Council defines the internet to be based on unique IP’s and TCP/IP communication structures
Definition of the Internet -
First Public Virtual School tested
Florida Virtual School was founded as a pilot program to study e-learning in a high school environment. In 2000 it became a full independent educational entity like any county school system. FLVS description -
WEBC is founded
With the passing of title VIII of the Higher education amendment of 1998 the Web-based Education Commission(WBEC) is founded. -
First "Virtual" university is accredited
Jones International University becomes the first entirely “virtual” institution in the US to earn accreditation by the Higher Learning Commision and eventually the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education(NACTE). Jones University history -
WBEC reports its findings
WBEC encourages the congress "to embrace an e-learning agenda as a centerpiece of our nation's Federal education policy" (Web-Based Education Commission [WBEC], 2000, p. 12) as well as suggesting that they institute the 50% rule so that no institution may offer more than 50% of their classes online . WBEC full report -
MIT Opencourseware begins
MIT OCW history
MIT begins their Opencourseware program which currently has over 2250 courses published -
First widely recieved Smartphone
Blackberry releases their first smartphone, while not the first smartphone ever released it is the first to receive worldwide acceptance. Blackberry 6210 Specifications -
Mobile devices become primary portals to the internet
For the first time since their release mobile computing devices such as smartphones and tablets overtake computers for the most data accessed. This will mark a trend that continues today as mobile computing devices become more easily available and wireless internet systems become more ubiquitous in poorer areas of the world. CNN article
