History of Distance Education

Education by Correspondence

Feb 20, 1873

Correspondence courses became the earliest instructional delivery system within the rubric of distance education. Anna Ticknor establishes the Society to Encourage studies in home. This Boston based program offered educational opportunities for women across class boundaries by providing correspondence instruction to 10,000 members of a 24 year period. (Casey, 2008)

Chautauqua Correspondence College

Mar 20, 1881

Chautauqua Correspondence College was founded and offered collegiate instruction by correspondence to award diplomas and degrees (Moore, 2003)

Worlds First Formal program of Distance Education

Mar 20, 1892

William Rainey Harper and Richard Moulton initiate the worlds first formal program of University distance education (Moore, 2003).

Radio and Education

Jan 20, 1921

Radio used for educational purposes and first educational radio licenses were granted to Universities of Salt Lake City, Universities of Wisconsin and University of Minnesota (Casey, 2008)

Correspondence teaching continues to grow

May 20, 1930

By 1930s correspondence teaching is offered by 39 American Universities (Moore, 2003).

Educational Television Programs are Broadcasted

Jan 20, 1934

State University of Iowa became first university to broadcast educational television programs (Casey, 2008)

Unites States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI)

Jun 20, 1943

1943 United States Army institute is transformed to United States Armed Forces institute (USAFI) located in Madison Wisconsin headed by William Young provides correspondence courses to military personnel world wide throughout WWII and post war year until closure in 1974 (Moore, 2003).

Creation of the Microprocessor

Aug 20, 1971

Intel Corporation creates the microprocessor. The computer was the missing piece of the the educational puzzle that would facilitate the free flow of information between teacher and learner (Casey, 2008).

Universities offer online education and degree programs

Jan 20, 1990

In the 1990s, a number of universities started
running Web-based distance education programs,
many setting up a separate management
unit to be responsible for online education. Early
examples of providers of entire degree programs
being offered through the Web include the
Online Campus of the New York Institute of
Technology, Connect Ed in partnership with the
New School for Social Research in New York,
and the International School of Information
Management (Moore, 2003).

World Wide Web

Jan 20, 1991

The World Wide Web developed by Tim Berners lee provided a potential linkage for all of the computers in world and in 1991 information superhighway is born. The web increased possibilities for distance learning experiences (Casey, 2008).