1 1940s

1946: First vacuum tube-based computers are developed, and universities helped in computer development effort.

2 1960s

1963: Vocational Education Act passes with new money supporting the use of technology in schools. The mainframe and minicomputers in use at this time were using batch processing methods that did not fit well with the single teacher methods in use in most schools.

BASIC, a simple high-level programming language is developed, mostly for use in universities to train programmers.

1965: Elementary and Secondary Education Act brings new money into schools for technology. Mainframes and minicomputers were put into place in some schools, but most were used for administration or for school counseling (databases for information about and for students.)

1967: High-level programming languages such as FORTRAN are being taught are in universities.

School vocational training programs begin to include computer maintenance.

3 1970s

1970: Pascal is created. Mainframes and minicomputers were in use in some schools, but were hardly used for the delivery of instruction.

1975: Some Apple 1 PCs are donated to schools. Some schools adopted mainframes and minicomputers and refused to consider PCs.

4 1980s

1983: The Apple II computer finds widespread acceptance in education because PCs better fit the teacher /manager model of instructional delivery.

1984: 31 states use 13,000 PCs for career guidance, but there are still relatively few computers in classrooms. Study performed by shows that roughly 30% of K-12 students used computers at both home and school in 1984. Same study showed that roughly 50% of college students used computers at home, work, or school.

1986: First entirely online course is offered at New York Institute of Technology November 1986, to serve those who could not attend classes on campus.

1986: 25% of high schools use PCs for college and career guidance, K-8 schools buying mostly Apple II and Macintosh computers, high schools buying mostly DOS-based clones.

5 1990s

1990: Multimedia PCs are developed, and schools are using video and compact discs to accompany textbooks and teaching. Object-oriented multimedia authoring tools were in wide use, computer aided simulations began to pick up, and well educational databases become popular.

1992: Schools are using gopher servers to provide students with on-line information.

1994: Most U.S. classrooms now have at least one PC available for instructional delivery, but not all teachers have access to a computer for instructional preparation.

1995: The Internet and the World Wide Web begin to catch on as businesses, schools, and individuals create web pages.\

1996: Many schools are re-wiring for Internet access; a few schools installed web servers and provided faculty with a way to create instructional web pages.

Late 1990’s – Early 2000’s: The growth of the internet expands far faster than most predicted. Educational software becomes more useful and interesting to students as graphics and video are incorporated. Larger computer storage capacity and the growing prevalence of CD-ROM and DVD drives in personal computers made it easier for educators to store large graphic and video and sound files for educational applications.

Nearly every classroom in the United States is equipped with a computer, and computer labs are constructed in Primary, Secondary, and Post-Secondary schools as well as universities for homework assignments and to projects.

CourseInfo, LLC and Blackboard, LLC merge to create the Blackboard virtual learning environment.

6 2000s

2004: 2.3 million U.S. college students are taking at least one course entirely online.

2006: Blackboard begins to take off and is accepted as a major method of instruction for many universities and colleges.

2009: Statistics show a continued trend in online college courses. - Approximately 5.6 million students were enrolled in at least one online course in fall 2009.

• 2009 saw an increase of nearly 1 million online students over 2008. This 21% rise in enrollment was the largest year-to-year increase recorded in 8 years.

• There was a 17% increase in online enrollment in 2008 compared to 2007.

• 75% of U.S. universities reported that the economic downturn has increased demand for online courses.

• Nearly 30% of all higher education students in the U.S. take at least one online course.

• By 2014, the number of students expected to be taking ALL of their classes online is 3.55 million.

7 Early 2010s

2010: Enrollment in online virtual classes reaches the one million mark in the United States, which is about 22 times the amount in 2000.

2011: Satellite courses are offered as a convenience for distance learning students. Courses are recorded on in a campus classroom and broadcast for viewing at remote sites.