Timeline: The Journey of Online Education

1728

First Well-Documented Example of a Correspondence Course

"The first well-documented example of a correspondence course ran as an ad in the Boston Gazette, where a man named Caleb Phillipps offered to teach shorthand to students anywhere in the country by exchanging letters" (The History of Distance Learning: An Online Education Timeline 2021)

1840

Commercial Correspondence Colleges

"A resource offered that helped students to virtually complete their coursework" (The History of Online Schooling)

1873

Society to Encourage Studies at Home - First Correspondence School

1892

University of Chicago - First School to Offer Correspondence Course in the U.S

"The University of Chicago to begin offering correspondence courses, becoming the first traditional educational institution in the U.S. to do so" (The History of Distance Learning: An Online Education Timeline 2021)

1919

Radio Station Dedicated to Educational Broadcasting

"University of Wisconsin began using radio station as educational broadcasting resource"(Kentnor, 2015)

1953

University of Houston - Televised Broadcast Offered for College Credit

"University of Houston offered televised classes for college credit" (The History of Distance Learning: An Online Education Timeline 2021)

1960

First Instances of Online Learning

The first instance of Online Teaching can be tracked back to 1960 where the "University of Illinois through student terminals interlinked to form a network offered online learning as the internet was not invented as yet" (Sarkar, 2020)

1960

First Computer Based Program Introduced - PLATO

"First Computer-Based Training Program Introduced to the world - the program was known as PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations"(E-Learning Concepts, Trends, Applications 2014)

1976

Coastline Community College - First Virtual College

"Coastline Community College - first Virtual College to offer a wide variety of telecourses"(The History of Distance Learning: An Online Education Timeline 2021)

1989

University of Phoenix - First to offer Online Education Program through Internet

"University of Phoenix became first institution to offer virtual educational program using software CompuServe"(Kentnor, 2015)

1991

World-Wide Web Unveiled

(Kentnor, 2015)

1992

Asynchronous - Anytime, Anyplace Learning Program

"The purpose of which was to explore educational alternatives for people who wanted to pursue higher education but who could not easily attend regularly scheduled college classes"(Picciano, 2013)

1997