Early Form of distance Education
The very basic form of online education or distance education was originated by the idea of “correspondence method”, dated back to March 20th, 1728 when Caleb Phillipps posted “Teacher of the New Method of Short Hand” in an advertisement on the Boston Gazette, conveying that any person in the country who desire to learn could have several lessons sent to them weekly as perfectly instructed as in Boston. The programs were often in non-traditional or niche programs. Since correspondence degrees had limited methods of ensuring quality or guaranteeing that a student actually completed an appropriate level of study, they have always been regarded rather lightly. Nevertheless they persisted and provided many students with an education that would otherwise have been unavailable. It was a way to respond to institutional inequalities by reaching out to a more diverse group of students.
In 1837, Issac Pitman, a qualified teacher and taught at a private school he founded in Wotton Under Edge - The British School, developed the well-known system known as “Pitman shorthand”. “Pitman Short” system relied on the development of postal services in 19th century. Following the invention of Pitman Method, the first institutional-supported distance education was known to be the first to establish an External Program in 1858, including Post graduate, Undergraduate and Diploma Degrees.
In the United States, William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, implemented the first correspondence program in the U.S. He was a strong supporter of distance education and also predicted that students of this method would far outnumber classroom students. In 1873, Anna Eliot Ticknor, daughter of George Ticknor – president of Boston Public Library, founded the “Society to Encourage Studies at Home” with its very specific focus. Anna’s method and vision