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It all began over 170 years ago..
It's origins date back over 170 years ago; beginning in Great Britain. The instructor sent/received lessons and completed assignments from students through the mail. -
The University of Illinois
The University of Illinois created an Intranet for its students in 1960. It was a system of linked computer terminals where students could access course materials as well as listen to recorded lectures. -
Apple II introduces 'Lemonade Stand'
Lemonade Stand was released in 1979 for Apple II. The game was included with Apple software packages throughout the 1980's. "It introduced a generation to the idea of learning with computers and, more specifically, to the idea of learning in virtual environments" ("Brief History Of Video Games In Education," 2017). -
CALCampus
"CALCampus originates from the Computer Assisted Learning Center (CALC), which was founded by Margaret Morabito in 1982 in Rindge, New Hampshire, as a small, offline computer-based, adult learning center. The center was based on the same premise as today: to provide affordable, quality instruction to individual learners through the use of computers" (Morabito, 1986). -
Electronic University Network (EUN)
EUN offered its first online course in 1986 for use with DOS and Commodore 64 computers. The idea was to help colleges and universities expand the availability of online courses. This happened prior to the World Wide Web and students had to use proprietary software and communicate over telephone lines. -
EUN continues to assist with offering services to colleges and universities
The EUN began collaborating with America Online in 1992, serving as its higher education coordinator. -
Introduction to the Internet
Access to the Internet began to explode with companies such as; America Online, Delphi, CompuServe and a host of other local Internet providers transforming stand-alone desktop computers in people’s homes into windows to the world. -
CALC - CALCampus offers first 'online' courses
"CALC (Computer Assisted Learning Center), which evolved into CALCampus, offered the first courses that we would recognize as ‘online’ with real-time instruction and interaction (source) over the Internet"(Morabito, 1986). -
California Virtual University (CVU)
"CVU was established in 1997 as a clearinghouse to provide information about all online courses available from accredited California colleges and universities. While it would ultimately fold in 1999 for political reasons, the concept spurred numerous online resources providing students with information about online education opportunities, such as California Virtual Campus" ("CVC-OEI," n.d.). -
OpenCourseWare Project
"MIT begins offering lectures and course materials online through its OpenCourseWare project in 2002, most of which is provided free of charge to anyone in the world. The goal is to offer these materials for all MIT courses." ("MIT OpenCourseWare," n.d.). However, the materials are released under a Creative Commons license. -
5.5 million students worldwide taking online classes
"The number of students taking online courses jumped a whopping 187%, and there were about 5.5 million students worldwide who were taking at least one class online" ("Brief History of Online Learning [Infographic]," 2015). -
MIT offers online materials
MIT offered materials for over 2000 undergraduate and graduate courses online -
Online Education today..
"Accredited online schools and colleges cover over 29,988 fully online degrees at the associate, bachelor's, master's, doctoral and certificate levels" ("2019 Accredited Online Colleges & Schools," n.d.).
