History of Online Learning

By msnurse5033

  • First Correspondence Course

  • Period: to

    Distance learning came into practice

    U.S. Postal Service developed

  • University of London offered distance learning degrees

  • First official correspondence education program

    Called Society to Encourage Home Studies. Founded in Boston by Ana E. Ticknor

  • Univ. of Chicago offered correspondence courses

  • Univ. of Queensland founded correspondence studies

  • State Univ. of Iowa offered radio courses for credit

  • Univ. of South Africa champion/innovator of distance learning

  • Univ. of Houston offered TV college classes

    Many of these courses aired in the evening

  • Univ. of Wisconsin provided phone-based courses

    This was a statewide program for physicians.

  • Univ. of Nebraska

    It had an accredited high school diploma via distance learning.

  • First 'virtual college"

    Coastline Community College started this program.

  • Western Behavioral Sciences Institute

    They used a computer conferencing system.

  • Electronic University Network

    Launched by Ron Gordon. Online courses were available for access on personal computers.

  • Nova Southeastern University

    First electronic classroom for accredited online graduate program.

  • National Science Foundation Network

    This was the precursor to the internet.

  • University of Phoenix

    First college to launch a fully online school offering Bachelor's and Master's degrees.

  • Michigan State University

    School developed Computer Assisted Personalized Approach (CAPA)

  • CALCampus

    First to introduce an online-only curriculum with real-time instruction and participation.

  • Arnold Pizer and Michael Gage

    They developed WeBWork. It is a system for delivering homework over the web.

  • Jones International University

    This school opened in Colorado and was the first fully web-based accredited university.

  • Interactive Learning Network

    This was adopted by several institutions and used a relational database as its foundation.

  • Blackboard Inc.

    This company developed a standardized platform for course delivery and management.

  • CourseNotes.com launched

    This site has many of the same features as Blackboard.

  • WebCT

    Over 6 million students and 40,000 instructors teach 150,000 courses yearly at 1,350 institutions in 55 countries.

  • YouTube launched

    By 2009 YouTube EDU offered thousands of free lectures online.

  • London, England

    A school was the first to use virtual scenarios in an immersive environment as training for paramedic students.

  • Over 4.5 million students

    This is the number of students taking online classes.

  • Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

    Free online course resources are available through Udacity. Enables learners to take classes at their own pace.

  • COVID-19 Pandemic

    This pandemic forced nearly every college and university to switch to online learning.

  • 93% brick and mortar colleges

    These schools are offering online courses. An increasing number of universities are offering free online classes called open courseware.