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This timeline will be a History of Online Education which is the Fastest Growing form of Distance Education
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The first correspondence course was offered by Caleb Philips. He advertised his course in the March 18 to March 25, 1728 issue of The Boston Gazette. -
In the 1840s Pitman offered instruction in his shorthand system by correspondence course. This was the first widely adopted practice of distance education ~Phonographic Correspondence Society. -
The University of London was the first university to offer distance learning degrees, establishing its External Programme in 1828….the External Programme was chartered by Queen Victoria in 1858, making the University of London the first university to offer distance learning degrees to students.
https://www.tonybates.ca/2016/09/17/who-are-the-founding-fathers-of-distance-education/ -
The Society to Encourage Studies at Home was founded in 1873 by Anna Eliot Ticknor (1823–1896), daughter of George Ticknor, historian and Harvard professor. Its purpose was "to induce among ladies the habit of devoting some part of every day to study of a systematic and thorough kind." -
The International Correspondence Schools of Scranton, Pennsylvania (ICS) was founded in 1891 in the pages of Colliery Engineer and Metal Miner, a mining journal published in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania to help coal miners become State mine Inspectors. Enrolled 2,500 and matriculated 72,000 in 1895.
https://digitalservices.scranton.edu/digital/collection/ics/custom/history -
The University of Queensland established the First Dept. of Correspondence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Queensland -
Other iterations of distance learning included radio, in 1923 when 10% of operating radio stations were owned by educational institutions to educate students over the radio. With the widespread development and use of the television, institutions like the University of Wisconsin Madison pioneered televised instruction that was duplicated in other countries.
http://www.clarkemuseum.org/blog/new-exhibit-1920s-distance-learning -
Professor C. C. Clark at New York University had
conducted a class from his home using shortwave radio. Because the radio was two-way,Professor Clark was able to take questions from the class being the first in history to accomplish this feat.
. https://dro.dur.ac.uk/22900/1/ p.5 -
Founded in 1938, the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) has its permanent secretariat in Oslo, Norway.
A Global membership organization for online, open, distance and flexible education.
https://www.icde.org/ -
The 1st ICCE International Conference attracted 87 delegates from 5 countries. It took place on 22, 23 and 24 of August 1938 at Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The conference ended with the appointment of the first Executive Committee: "to hold office until the Second International Conference is held",
https://www.icde.org/icde-history-articles/icde-conferences-throughout-history#:~:text=1938,Second%20International%20Conference%20is%20held%22. -
In 1946, UNISA was given a new role as a distance education university, and today it offers certificate, diploma and degree courses up to the doctoral level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_South_Africa -
Charles Wedemeyer, W.H. Lighty Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is considered a father of modern distance education.
As Director of the Correspondence Study Program (1954-1964), Wedemeyer initiated a number of research projects which advanced a new discipline in the field of education called Distance Education.
https://www.tonybates.ca/2016/09/17/who-are-the-founding-fathers-of-distance-education/ -
Donald L. Bitzer is an American electrical engineer and computer scientist. He was the co-inventor of the plasma display, is largely regarded as the "father of PLATO", and has made a career of improving classroom productivity by using computer and telecommunications technologies,
https://ece.illinois.edu/newsroom/news/3307 -
3 European Schools to establish online programs:
1970 - Athabasca University - opens Canada's Open University
1972 - Spain's National University of Distance Education
1974 - Germany - Fer Universitat
1975 - University of Phillipines Systems
https://www.athabascau.ca/
https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/english/ -
The National Technological University started using satellite TV to deliver a combination of live and recorded course material. It also let students call their instructors by phone and get questions answered on-air in real-time.
https://daily.jstor.org/three-centuries-of-distance-learning/ -
Phoenix started online classes in 1989, long before most other universities were doing it. John Sperling had an idea and A decade after opening, Phoenix had 6,000 students -- more than many colleges in America.
https://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/tomorrows-college/phoenix/story-of-university-of-phoenix.html -
The first online private school in theUnited States began in 1991 (Laurel Springs School, 2011). The first full-time online public
schools began around 1994 in California (Darrow, 2010)
https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1202&context=ced_fac -
In 1992, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation established the Learning Outside the Classroom Program. The name was changed soon after to the 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.
Evaluation-of-Anytime-Anyplace-Learning-Program.pdf -
Soon after that came the technology we associate with distance learning today—the World Wide Web. Jones International University, the first completely internet-based higher education institution accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, opened in 1993.
https://daily.jstor.org/three-centuries-of-distance-learning/ -
In 1996, Post College became the first college in Connecticut to offer fully online accelerated and accredited degree programs. In 2006, the school offered its first online master’s degree program and in 2007, Post University became the first in the state to offer a fully online Master of Business Administration degree program. In 2009, their Master of Education degree program was offered fully online. https://www.onlineschoolscenter.com/post-university/ -
In 1996, a roundtable of educational and business professionals sponsored by Educom and IBM issued a report on the virtual university. Deciding to embracing the potentials created by the future, by the technological age. Almost every K-12 to University now offers some form of online education.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jahc/3310410.0004.202/--education-as-commodity-the-ideology-of-online-education?rgn=main;view=fulltext -
Pilkington,M. (2014) The personal computers of the1980s.PCGamer.
Society to Encourage Studies at Home. (1897).Society to encourage studies at home. Cambridge,MA: Riverside Press.
Teaching by short waves(1935)Shortwave craft: The radio experimenter’s magazine, April, 712,741.
University of Illinois. (2017). Donald L Bitzer introduced Plato in 1960, helped form one of the first online communities. Celebrating our sesquicentennial 1867-2017: Timeline.