History of Virtual Learning Environments - Pre-1940s

Pre-1940s

• 1728: March 20, Boston Gazette contains an advertisement from Caleb Phillipps, "Teacher of the New Method of Short Hand," advising that any "Persons in the Country desirous to Learn this Art, may by having the several Lessons sent weekly to them, be as perfectly instructed as those that live in Boston."
• 1840: Isaac Pitman begins teaching shorthand, using Great Britain's Penny Post.
• 1874: Institutionally sponsored distance education began in the United States in 1874 at the Illinois Wesleyan University.
• 1890: International Correspondence Schools (ICS) is launched by newspaperman Thomas J. Foster in Scranton, Pennsylvania and becomes the world's largest study-at-home school.
• 1883: The Correspondence University of Ithaca, New York (a correspondence school) was founded in 1883.
• 1892: The term “distance education” was first used in a University of Wisconsin–Madison catalog for the 1892 school year.
• 1906–7: The University of Wisconsin–Extension was founded, the first true distance learning institution.
• 1909: The Machine Stops a short story by E. M. Forster, which describes an audio/visual communication network being used to deliver a lecture on Australian music to a remote audience.
• 1920s: Sidney Pressey, an educational psychology professor at Ohio State University, develops the first "teaching machine." This device offered drill and practice exercises, and multiple choice questions.
• 1929: M.E. LaZerte, Director of the School of Education, University of Alberta, developed a set of instructional devices for teaching and learning. For example, he "developed several devices and methods to minimize instructor/testor involvement, so as to increase the likelihood of gathering data in a consistent manner." One mechanical device that he developed was the "problem cylinder" which could present a problem to a student and check whether the steps to a solution given by the student were correct.