-
In 1982, computer conferencing was provided for distance education programing for business executives at the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (Thompson, 2021). This format allowed business executives to attend professional development to further enhance their craft.
https://thebestschools.org/magazine/online-education-history/ -
In 1989, The University of Phoenix became the first higher education institution to offer fully online Bachelor's and Master's degree programs. The institution started using one of the first known online services known as CompuServe to support online learning (Palvia, Aeron, Gupta, Mahapatra, Parida, Rosner, & Sindhi, 2018).
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1097198X.2018.1542262?needAccess=true -
Jones International University, founded by Glen Jones and Bernard Luskin, became the first accredited and fully web-based university (Online Schools, 2022). https://www.onlineschools.org/visual-academy/the-history-of-online-schooling/ -
In 2008, the first MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) was developed my David Wiley and Alex Couros from Utah State University and the University of Regina respectively (Rollins, 2018). MOOCs are online education courses that are free to anyone who enrolls. Students can take classes of interest to them without having to commit to a degree program.
https://elearningindustry.com/whats-a-mooc-history-principles-characteristics -
In 2009, President Obama and his administration announced that 500 million dollars of federal funding would be allocated towards the development of new online and course materials (Stern, 2009). "The online education sector grew 13 percent last year and had been growing at about 20 percent in previous years. Nearly one in four students take at least some college courses online, up from one in 10 in 2002" (Stern, 2009, p.1). -
Between 2007 and 2010, higher education institutions in the United states have seen an increase in student enrollment from 18.2 to 21 million with an increase from 3.9 to 6.1 million students taking at least one course online (Kentnor, 2015). https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=law_facpub -
In 2011, Google launched a Chromebooks for Education initiative for allowing K-12 students to have a personal device for completing their work. Chromebooks are a good choice for students, teachers, and administrators because they are fast and have access to the web’s education and collaboration resources. (Google Chrome, 2011). According to Kajeet (2019) "85 percent of schools and school districts across the United States have a Chromebook program in place" (p.1). -
In March of 2020, students and teachers had to abruptly transition to remote instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "Prior to the pandemic, the best estimates were that there may have been anywhere from 5% to 8% of all K-12 students that were engaged in online learning" (Barbour, 2021, p. 920).
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11528-021-00670-0.pdf -
As K-12 school districts and higher education institutions are transitioning back to pre-pandemic conditions, they continue to use online learning within their instructional program (i.e. asynchronous and/or blended learning) to support the differentiated needs of students. Todorov (2022) articulates that the e-Learning industry has a current estimated worth of 243 billion dollars.
https://thrivemyway.com/online-learning-stats/