Intro to Distance Education - M1 Timeline - Randy Mahoney, Jr.

Pittman Shorthand correspondence course

1852

This distance education course was one of the first to utilize the United States Postal Service [USPS] (Casey, 2008, p. 46). Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Society to Encourage Studies at Home

1873

Anna Ticknor developed "The Society to Encourages Studies at Home," a collection of correspondence courses. These courses showed that the first users of correspondence education were women (Casey, 2008, p. 46). Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Colliery School of Mines

1890

The Colliery School of Mines is established to teach miner safety. Over the next handful of years, this school would eventually become known as International Correspondence School (ICS) and would provide distance education options for those in the railroad and mining industries (Moore & Kearsley, 1996; as cited in Casey, 2008, p. 46). Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Distance Education at The University of Chicago

1892

The first college-level example of distance learning took place at The University of Chicago. Here, students again used the United States Postal Service [USPS] to complete their work (Hansen, 2001; as cited in Casey, 2008, p. 46). Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Federal Communications Commission [FCC]: Radio Plus Distance Education

1921

The United States Federal Communication Commission [FCC] starts to issue educational radio licenses to college institutions. Some of the first recipients included: The University of Salt Lake City, The University of Wisconsin, and The University of Minnesota. (Casey, 2008, p. 46). Image courtesy of Pixabay.

University of Iowa: TV Plus Distance Education

1934

The University of Iowa becomes one of the first college institutions to broadcast their courses using television (Casey, 2008, p. 46). Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Instructional Television Fixed Service [ITFS] Developed

1963

The Federal Communications Commission [FCC] developed this service. This gave another method of broadcasting education courses through television to paying subscribers. (Casey, 2008, p. 46) Image courtesy of Federal Communications Commission [FCC] (2012).

The Open University is Developed

1969

This distance education university came about from discussions held by a higher-education-focused commission in the United Kingdom. One of the well-known members of this commission was Mr. Charles Wedemeyer (Daniel, 1996; as cited in Moore, 2003, pp. 10-11). Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Capella University is Founded

1993

Capella University – a well-known, online-only university – is founded by their CEO Mr. Steve Shank. One of their early mission statements was: “...to deliver high-quality programs that provide traditional and contemporary knowledge through flexible and innovative forms of distance learning” (Moore, 2003, p. 19). Image courtesy of 1000Logos.net (2022).

Blackboard is Established

2005

The organizations Blackboard and WebCT merge to form Blackboard. This organization still exists today as one of the leading providers for learning management systems [LMS] in distance education (Casey, 2008, p. 48). Image courtesy of Blackboard, Inc. (2017).