by Ernest Rice
Ph.D. student, University of Florida

Ernest Rice

If you haven’t taught an online course yet, you probably will be sometime soon.

In 2012, the US Department of Education estimated that 6.7 million students were enrolled in online classes in the US, while the number of online classes as well as online only degrees is growing constantly.

Online education began as distance learning, which is a way of educating students who are not in the physical presence of the instructor.

Distance education as we know it began in England in the 1840s when Sir Isaac Pitman started promoting correspondence courses on shorthand in newspaper advertisements as well as through door to door sales.  In the 1920s and 30s several schools experimented with distance learning using radio where students listened to lectures and mailed-in assignments. In the 40s U.S. military troops were shown training films and movies, and in the 50s and 60s television was used to do the same thing.

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