Early History of eLearning

  • Assignments via Mail

    Assignments via Mail
    A Stenography course by Isaac Pitman was conducted with assignments sent via mail to/from teacher/students. This helped them learn shorthand, useful for note-taking professionals.
  • "Automatic Teacher" Machine

    Sidney Pressey created the Automatic Teacher, a testing machine that allowed four choices and would not proceed to the next question until the correct answer was chosen.
  • GLIDER Teaching Machine

    GLIDER Teaching Machine
    BF Skinner created GLIDER for programmed instruction - teaching as opposed to testing.
  • PLATO Teaching Machine

    PLATO Teaching Machine
    PLATO advanced the state-of-art by including graphics, free text, and feedback and is arguably the beginning for the diverse delivery methods that we now use in modern online courses.
  • Period: to

    Computer-Based Education

    Electronic learning had many "founders" and activities converging at the same time.
  • Computer-Based Math and Reading Teaching

    Patrick Suppes and Richard Atkinson teach elementary math and reading using computers in Palo Alto.
  • 20,000 Learners Taught on IBM Network

    The IBM 1500 Network was used to allow up to 32 concurrent student work sessions, effectively becoming an online course.
  • ARPANET Created

    ARPANET Created
    The U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the beginning of the internet.