-
The earliest known reference to correspondence education
A man by the name of Caleb Phillips placed an ad in the Boston Gazette offering to teach shorthand by way of the Postal Service. (Kentnor, 2015) -
Foundation of The Chautauqua Correspondence College
-
Period: to
Foundation of The Chautauqua Correspondence College
The Chautauqua Correspondence College was founded in 1881, which allowed adult learners to be taught through the mail. In 1883, the college was authorized to offer collegiate instruction by correspondence and to award diplomas and degrees (Moore, 2003). -
Foundation of the University of Wisconsin-Extension
The University of Wisconsin-Extension was founded as a distance-teaching unit. In 1919, the University of Wisconsin created the first federally licensed radio station dedicated to educational broadcasting. (Kentnor, 2015) -
Period: to
The Use of Radio Broadcasts in Education - "By the end of the 1920's, 176 educational institutions had broadcast licenses," (Kentnor, 2015).
Radio broadcasts are recognized as a method of "indirect" distance education.
Benefits of broadcasts include:
Acting as a "master teacher" with the ability to reach thousands of students.
Ability to relay educational information promptly, cheaply, and widely.
Brought education to farmers and adults who would not have access to a traditional classroom (or the desire to attend school, for various reasons).(Keeler, 2016) -
The First Live Video and Voice Transmission
Herbert Hoover and Bell Laboratories held the first long-distance, live, video and voice transmission, which paved a path for commercial television to become part of the public domain. (Kentnor, 2015) -
Educational Courses Broadcast by Television
In 1934, the University of Iowa was the first institution to broadcast educational courses by television. (Casey, 2008) -
Shortwave Radio
C.C. Clark uses shortwave radio to conduct a class, which allowed students to send and receive messages without leaving their homes. This gave hope that classes could one day be conducted via television. (Casey, 2008) -
Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS)
The Federal Communications Commission supports the expansion of distance learning by creating the ITFS, "a band of 20 television channels available to educational institutions to provide a low-cost, fixed-range, subscriber-based system, capable of of being utilized for the distribution of broadcast courses," (Casey, 2008). -
The World Wide Web
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8hzJxb0rpc The World Wide Web, created by Berners-Lee in 1989, has since evolved into a virtual environment that allows users to read, interact, collaborate, and create/publish knowledge. (Guthrie, 2013). -
University of Phoenix
Following the creation of the WWW, the University of Phoenix became one of the first to offer online educational programs through the Internet. This lead to a movement in the field of online program offerings, and by 1998, a rapid growth of online education was visible across the country. (Kentnor, 2015) -
Asynchronous Learning Networks
Developed by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN) was created to explore educational alternatives for those unable to attend traditional classes. The Foundation offered funding to institutions to use towards the improvement of their online education programs.
(Kentnor, 2015) The foundation, founded in 1934, is a non-profit, philanthropic, grant making institution, which still exists today. -
YouTube
"YouTube has become the second-largest search engine on the Internet and... is being used by educators as a resource to achieve curriculum outcome goals," (Guthrie, 2013). YouTube offers videos on almost every subject category, including both informational and tutorial videos. "Video-enhanced curriculum can be influential in expanding the learning experience," (Guthrie, 2013). -
Twitter
"Twitter has been incorporated into the classroom of many educators who use it for an open discussion in class that can be continued out of class," (Guthrie, 2013). Twitter is one example of how social media has, and continues to, influence distance education.
