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In 1962, J.C.R Licklider from MIT wrote a series of memos describing his "Galactic Network," the earliest recorded description of "the social interactions that could be enabled through networking."
(Image is of J.C.R. Licklider from his Wikipedia page.) -
In late 1966, MIT researcher Lawrence G. Roberts went to DARPA (the US Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) at put together a plan for one of the earliest forms of the Internet, ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). This plan was soon published in 1967.
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On October 29, 1969, ARPANET delivered its very first message: "a 'node-to-node' communication from one computer to another." The message was sent from UCLA to Stanford and was supposed to read "LOGIN." However, only "L" and "O" were sent to the Stanford computer before the system crashed.
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In 1971, the first e-mail was sent by Ray Tomlinson between two computers on the ARPANET.
(Image is of an email icon created by Canva.) -
In 1991, the "world-wide web" (the "www." at the start of most URLs) was introduced. The world-wide web was developed by Tim Berners-Lee who was working at CERN. According to yourhtmlsource.com, "Tim saw the need for a standard linked information system accessible across the range of different computers in use." The program needed to be able to work on simple computers, as well as the "high-end graphical X-Window platforms."
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In 1993, the first web browser (called "Mosaic") was released. However, this project was discontinued four years later.
(Image is of Mosaic's logo, found on its Wikipedia page.) -
The 2000s showed a significant growth in social media websites. MySpace was the first social media site to reach a global audience and was the largest social networking site from 2005 to 2009. Soon, many other social media/networking sites launched and saw quick growth in popularity, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.
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In 2007, the Internet went mobile with the release of Apple's iPhone. Though some smartphones before the time had the capability to access the Internet, Apple changed the game with a new operating system (Safari) that could render full websites instead of only sites designed specifically for mobile phone use.
(Image is of a 1st-gen iPhone found here.) -
In the 2000s and 2010s, many school Learning Management Systems (LMSs) were created. I first witnessed this technology integration when I was in school in the early 2010s when my school first used the LMS Engrade. Later on, my school district would switch to Schoology, which is still used today.