History
The roots of asynchronous learning are in the end of the 19th century, when formalized correspondence education (or distance learning) first took advantage of the postal system to bring physically remote learners into the educational fold. The 1920s and 30s saw the introduction of recorded audio, desynchronizing broadcasting and revolutionizing the mass dissemination of information. The first significant distribution of standardized educational content took place during World War II; the branches of the US military produced hundreds of training films, with screenings numbering in the millions.
Online asynchronous learning began with schools’ and universities’ substantial investment in computer technology in the early 1980s. With seminal applications such as Seymour Papert’s Logo (programming language), students were able to learn at their own pace, free from the synchronous constraints of a classroom lecture. As computers entered more households and schools began connecting to the nascent Internet, asynchronous learning networks began to take shape. These networks augmented existing classroom learning and led to a new correspondence model for solitary learners.
Using the Web, students could access resources online and communicate asynchronously using email and discussion boards. The 1990s saw the arrival of the first telecampuses, with universities offering courses and entire degree plans through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous online instruction. Today, advanced multimedia and interactivity have enhanced the utility of asynchronous learning networks and blurred the divide between content-creator and content-consumer. New tools like class blogs and wikis are creating ever-richer opportunities for further asynchronous interaction and learning.
Read more about this topic: Asynchronous Learning
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)