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Phillips & the Boston Gazette
Caleb Phillips advertises shorthand lessons in the Boston Gazette. According to Verduin & Clark (1991), some do not believe this is the first education correspondence because it did not include "two-way communication" (as cited in Kentor, 2015, p. 23). -
Pitman in England
Pitman started teaching shorthand in Bath, England through mail correspondence. He would mail students "postcards . . . and instruct them transcribe passages from the Bible into shorthand and to return them, by post, for corrections" (Kentor, 2015, p. 23). -
Ticknor & the Society to Encourage Studies at Home
Anna Eliot Ticknor founded the Society to Encourage Studies at Home in Boston, Massachusetts, which was the first correspondence school in the United States, and it adapted the English Society for the Encouragement of Home Study. The English society only served upper class women and used asynchronous, one size fits all instruction, while the American society included women from different classes and had more interaction and individual-based instruction. -
Illinois Wesleyan College
IWC is the first academic university to offer correspondence degrees. -
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Chautauqua Movement
John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller established a school for Sunday school teachers at a Methodist Church in New York State. Even though it was established in a church, it was not religion based.
1878: Vincent founded the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, the first education and correspondence course program for adults in the US.
1883-1892: Chautauqua University is founded and closes. Chautauqua Institute -
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University of Wisconsin
1906: University of Wisconsin-Extension was establshed as a distance-learning program. 1919: UW-E professors founded the first federally licensed educational broadcasting radio station, WHA.
"Radio Experimentation at the University of Wisconsin" -
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Radio Acts
The Radio Act of 1912 required station licenses and established interstate and international rules. Because radio broadcasts weren't included, they overcrowded the transmission. Hoover began denying licences until a federal court told him to stop. The transmissions were overcrowded again. The Radio Act of 1927 brought regulation and established the Federal Radio Commission. -
Hoover, Bell Labs, & Visual Media
Herbert Hoover, then the Secretary of Commerce, in Washington DC and associates at Bell Laboratories in New York City, participated in the first television transmission. Hoover stated, "Today we have, in a sense, the transmission of sight for the first time in the world’s history....Human genius has now destroyed the impediment of distance in a new respect, and in a manner hitherto unknown" (Kentnor, 2015, p. 26).
Video. -
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"School of the Air" Programs
The following programs delivered daily lessons on various subjects after the Great Depression:
1928: Ohio School of the Air; The Music Appreciation Hour"
1930: American School of the Air; National Advisory Council for Radio in Education; Institute for Education in Radio -
National Committee on Education by Radio (NCER)
The NCER "protect[ed] the rights of educational broadcasting,...promot[ed] and coordinat[ed] experiments in the use of radio ins school and adult education,...maintain[ed] a Service Bureau to assist educational stations in securing licenses and in other technical procedures,.. exchange of information through weekly bulletin, encouragement of research in education by radio, and serv[ed] as a clearinghouse for research" (NCER, 1931, p. 1, as cited in Kentor, 2015, p. 25-6). -
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1st Educational Television Broadcasts
Educational television programs were broadcasted at The University of Iowa in the basement of the engineering building. The station, W9XK, discontinued broadcasting before World War II.
'"University Archives: Resource Guide to University 'Firsts'" -
FCC Freezes Licenses
To solve the issues with interference and space, the Federal Communications Commission stopped awarding television licenses for new applicants. The freeze was suppose to last six months to give the FCC time to come up with a solution, but outside forces, including the Korean War, kept the FCC from meeting this deadline. -
FCC's Sixth Report and Order
Educational institutions were able to convince the FCC to "reserve television channels for the exclusive use of education" (Kentnor, 2015, p. 27). -
Public Broadcasting Act of 1967
This act founded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) as suggested by the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television. Its purpose was "to encourage the growth and development of public radio and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for instructional, educational, and cultural purposes" (US Congress, 1967, p. 1, as cited in Kentnor, 2015, p. 27).
President Lyndon Johnson and the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 -
University of Phoenix & the Online Class Boom
The University of Phoenix is the first for-profit higher education institution to offer online courses. Their success caused other brick and mortar universities to try their hands at the online education market. -
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
This foundation developed the Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN) to "explore educational alternatives for those unable to attend traditional classes in the classroom" (Kentnor, 2015, p. 27). This foundation offered monies to institutions with online programs with the goal of improving online education quality, a major concern for educators at the time.
Asynchronous Learning Networks: A Sloan Foundation Perspective -
Established Universities Enter the Online Education Race
October 1998-October 2001: New York University, NYU Online
Fall 1998: Western Governors University
November 1998: California Virtual University
