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History of Distance Education

By sgrant1295@gmail.com

  • Correspondence Education Begins

    Correspondence Education Begins
    One early instance of distance learning occurred in 1728 in Boston, where students learned about writing through the mail. Source

  • Chatauqua Correspondence College

    Chatauqua Correspondence College
    The first distance learning higher education institution was established by mail in New York (Moore, 2003, pg. 6).

  • First Distance Degree Program

    First Distance Degree Program
    William Harper founded the Extension Department at University of Chicago, inspiring other midwest colleges to follow suit (Moore, 2003, pg. 6).

  • First Educational Radio Broadcast

    First Educational Radio Broadcast
    The State University of Iowa broadcast an educational program on the for the first time, and by 1939 had broadcasted 400 programs (Moore, 2003, pg. 6).

  • Rise of correspondence studies

    60 universities now had correspondence study departments; about 3 million Americans studied by correspondence (Moore, 2003, pg. 6).

  • Nova University

    Nova University
    Nova University of Advanced Technology was one of the first distance learning institutions in the US, founded in Florida as a nonprofit organization.

  • Articulated Instructional Media Project

    AIM was founded in 1964 by Charles Wedemeyer at the University of Wisconsin. The quality of distance learning courses increased, while their cost decreased as a result of the modern manufacturing industry. A variety of media was now used to suit needs of learners (Moore, 2003, pg. 6).

  • Rise of Educational TV

    Rise of Educational TV
    The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created as a result of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Educational stations were created as part of the Educational Television Facilities Act

  • Open University

    Open University
    Charles Wedemeyer worked with the British government to setup an "independent, large-scale system dedicated entirely to distance education". OU now has over 120,000 students and enrolls more of 1/3 of all part-time students in Britain (Moore, 2003, pg. 10). OU led to the establishment of many more international distance learning institutions.

  • ARPANet

    The US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency created a network to link universities, the military, and defense contractors; it was eventually used for email and data transfer. It is one of the earliest instances of exchanging educational information over the internet in the US (Moore, 2003, pg. 16).

  • ADDIE Model

    ADDIE Model
    Arguably most well-known instructional design framework, ADDIE (Analyze, Develop, Design, Implement, Evaluate). One of the first instances of instructional design/development is used at Florida State University to train military personnel. Source

  • National University Teleconference Network

    National University Teleconference Network
    Teleconferencing by satellite grew more popular in education in the 1970s in the United States. In the 1980s, the NUTN quickly grew to being used by 250 different programs and up to 600 people at a time (Oberle, 1990). By 1987, half of Fortune 500 companies used videoconferencing (Moore, 2003, pg. 13).

  • Adult Learning Service

    Adult Learning Service
    The first Adult Learning Service courses were distributed by PBS in 1981 on TV. 500 institutions offered credits to roughly 20,000 students. Source This service eventually extended to over 1,000 institutions and 600k adult students, especially with the rise of cable systems (Moore, 2003, pg. 13).

  • Electronic University Network

    Electronic University Network
    The Electronic University Network was developed in 1983 by Ron Gordon. This was one of the first examples of computer-based distance education in the US. An undergraduate degree could be earned by taking courses designed at 19 universities with degrees awarded by Thomas Edison College (Moore, 2003, pg. 14).

  • Global University Consortium

    Global University Consortium
    The Global University Consortium connected universities internationally via computer, telephone, and television (Moore, 2003, pg. 14).

  • First Learning Management System

    First Learning Management System
    The first Learning Management System (LMS), EKKO, was developed in Norway. Source

  • First Web Browser

    First Web Browser
    Tim Berners-Lee is credited with conceptualizing the World Wide Web, where the Mosaic web browser allowed professors to communicate through images and learning programs (Moore, 2003, pg. 16).

  • Internet 2

    Internet 2
    Internet2.edu was a nongovernmental organization was a new, faster "data pipeline" that allowed institutions to exchange data 45000x faster. Possibilities for virtual learning expanded rapidly. (Moore, 2003, pg. 17)

  • Rise of Online Universities

    Temple, NYU, and Cornell were among many universities that upgraded their for-profit virtual learning initiatives in the early 2000s with the rise of faster internet (Moore, 2003, pg. 18).

  • Blackboard LMS

    The Blackboard Learning Management System was used by about 70% of American universities and colleges Source

  • Instructure LMS

    In 2013, more than 300 higher educational institutions used Canvas LMS by Instructure as a replacement for Blackboard or Moodle. Source.
    Canvas now has 30 million global users Source

  • COVID-19 Pandemic

    COVID-19 Pandemic
    COVID-19 spawned a massive increase in the use of LMS and virtual learning in K-12 and higher education. LMS and videoconferencing (e.g. Zoom or Teams) are now standard in educational institutions.