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Learning Shorthand at a Distance
Some of the earliest distance learning on record dates back to 1728 and offered to teach students how to write in short hand through lessons sent to their home weekly. These simple, practical lessons were commonly taught through the mail throughout the 1700′s and 1800′s and allowed anyone to gain valuable job skills even if they lived well-away from major centers of education and commerce.
www.distancelearningnet.com/the-history-of-distance-learning -
Period: to
Distance Learning: 1728 to present
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University of London Offers First Distance Learning Degree
One of the first universities to offer a distance learning degree was the University of London which established an External Programme in 1858. It was soon to be followed in 1873 by the programs at the Society to Encourage Studies at Home in Boston and the University of Australia’s Department of Correspondence Studies in 1911.
www.distancelearningnet.com/the-history-of-distance-learning -
University of Wisconsin-Madison: Correspondence Study
The University of Wisconsin System is recognized worldwide for its distance education programs, building on over 100 years of experience, leadership, and research. Its history dates to 1891 with correspondence study and to 1907 with the first radio broadcast adult education programs.
http://depd.wisc.edu/html/about.htm -
University of Louisville: Model Program Using Radio
A typical setup came in Kentucky in 1948 when John Wilkinson Taylor, president of the University of Louisville, teamed up with the National Broadcasting Corporation to use radio as a medium for distance education. The University was owned by the city, and local residents would pay the low tuition rates, receive their study materials in the mail, and listen by radio to live classroom discussions that were held on campus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_education -
The Open University: Model Untilizing Radio & Television
From 1964-1968, the Carnegie Foundation funded Wedemeyer's Articulated Instructional Media Project which brought in a variety of communications technologies aimed at providing learning to an off-campus population. According to Moore's recounting, AIM impressed the UK which imported these ideas when establishing in 1969 The Open University, which initially relied on radio and television broadcasts for much of its delivery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_education -
Jones International University: First Fully Online University
In 1996 Jones International University was launched and claims to be the first fully online university accredited by a regional accrediting association in the US.[26] Between 2000 and 2008, the undergraduate enrollment "in at least one distance education class expanded from 8 percent to 20 percent, and the percentage enrolled in a distance education degree program increased from 2 percent to 4 percent."[27]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_education -
The Birth of MOOCs
The term MOOC was coined in 2008 during a course called "Connectivism and Connective Knowledge" that was presented to 25 tuition-paying students in Extended Education at the University of Manitoba in addition to 2,300 other students from the general public who took the online class free of charge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOOC
