THE HISTORY
OF
Online Learning
From silent film to online college courses
1915
1930
1923
Early Instructional Film
The earliest instructional film was developed by the School of Agriculture at the University of Nanjing to teach cotton planting methods. The film predated radio and television educational technologies in the United States. Spector & Ren (2015)
Alongside early uses of radio, television, and film in education, devices such as the magic lantern and the slide projector were widespread in educational use. Spector & Ren (2015)
The National Education Association’s Division of Visual Instruction (DAVI) was established. This marked the birth of formal recognition for educational technology. Films for the Humanities & Sciences,Infobase, & Kifaru Productions. (2010)
1931
1957
LOREM IPSUM
1933
The Wisconsin School of the Air (WSA) was founded at the University of Wisconsin. Educational radio quickly spread to other universities and K–12 settings around the world.
Education Over the Air
The University of Iowa became first American university to broadcast educational television. Ferrer (n.d.)
York University & CBS broadcast television offered college courses with a program called "Sunrise Semester" Films for the Humanities & Sciences,Infobase, & Kifaru Productions. (2010)
1937
1960s
1980s
PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) was implemented on the University of Illinois’s ILLIAC (Illinois Automatic Computer). Spector & Ren (2015)
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Computer - Based Education
Microcomputers are introduced to start offering stand-along tutorials to support a variety of courses, along with courses that had migrated from the mainframe PLATO system and other sources Spector & Ren (2015)
1983
1989
MIT launched Project Athena, which was an eight-year effort to develop new computer-based learning tools. Spector & Ren (2015)
FirstClass, developed at Bell Northern Research in Toronto and first used on the Apple Macintosh. Spector & Ren (2015)
Learning Management System Development
1990
1996
A number of systems were developed at Télé-Université’s Centre de Recherche in Montreal. Spector & Ren (2015)
LOREM IPSUM0
ANGEL (A New Global Environment for Learning) was developed and implemented at Indiana University. Spector & Ren (2015)
1999
BlackBoard and eCollege introduced. Dumbauld (2015)
LOREM IPSUM0
2003
81 % of colleges have at least 1 online class. Dumbauld (2015)
University of Florida–Online launches, becoming the first online-only public university. Dumbauld (2015)
2013
2013
References:
Dumbauld, B. (2015, June 17). A Brief History of Online Learning [Infographic]. Retrieved September 10, 2018, from https://www.straighterline.com/blog/brief-history-online-learning-infographic/
Ferrer, D. (n.d.). History of Online Education. Retrieved September 12, 2018, from https://thebestschools.org/magazine/online-education-history/
Films for the Humanities & Sciences,Infobase, & Kifaru Productions. (2010). Learning From Socrates to Cyberspace (Net.LEARNING). New York, N.Y.: Infobase.
Spector, J. & Ren, Y. (2015). History of educational technology. In J.Spector (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of educational technology (pp. 336-345). Thousand Oaks,, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781483346397.n147
