As one who took this art of shorthand in person, it appears to be one that would be difficult to learn in letters sent back and forth. There goes on to be the next time a virtual learning environment is shown is in 1840, when Isaac Pitman began teaching shorthand, using Great Britain’s Penny Post.
There was a period of 112 years between the two postings. It would seem that it did not catch on to teach people in this manner. It had, there would have been many more postings of people teaching people through the mail, or by courier before 1840.
Whether it was due to the fact that the wealthy people could afford to hire someone to come to the home to teach them and that many of the people without a lot of money, were also without a lot of education. Some may not have been able to read well, so sending anything by correspondence would have been futile as non readers cannot learn in a correspondence manner without being able to read. (Lambert, T.)
Britian was becoming more literate in the 1700’s, although more was happening in Scotland than England. IN that 100 years, Scotland’s literacy rate went from 45% to 85%, while Englands literacy rate went from 45% ro 63%. (Smith, F. 2004)
In America, most education was in the home for rich families and and poorer families went to town schools. The boys in the south sometimes went to school outside under the trees.
It is very interesting to see the one advertisement for learning through the mail in the 1700’s (the 18th Century), then, 112 years later, there is another documentation of teaching through the mail. 34 years later, another one appeared, followed by another one only 9 years later, and one more 9 years later. Those 4 took place over a 52 year period, from 1840 – 1892, the 19th century. The next one appeared 14 years later, in the 20th century.
The 20th Century is broken into various periods, due to the amount of listings becomes greater. From 1906-1929, 23 years, there are 4 contributions.
Nothing is listed in the 1930’s, then, there are 2 listings for the mid 1940’s, (1945 and 1948).
1953, in the midst of baby boomers being birthed, is the first college TV classes for credit. They ran 13-15 hours per week, and by the mid 1960’s, they had clocked more than 100,000 hours for education on the television station. This happened in the first public TV station in the USA, at the University of Houston. Over the next 6 years, there were 6 more documentations of TV learning, machines and articles devoted to learning in various ways.
The 1960’s has so many things that happened, there are paragraphs for the various year. 1963 and 1943 have 3 for each; 1965 has 5, 1966 and 1967 have 3 and 1967 has 3, 1968 has 4 and 1969 has 8. That is 29 contributions in 10 years.
The 1970’s has things for every single year, totaling 44. The 1980’s totals 70 things. The 1990’s growth is primarily due to the internet and the world wide web. At this point, how does one count all the things that are happening on the internet? It would be almost impossible to count all the growth on the internet. Much more than we can possibly imagine, as all groups are reaching out, trying to figure how the internet can be a part of their world.
The year 2000 has 20 listings, 2001 has 15, 2002 has 13. 2003 has 4, 2004 has 9 and 2005 has 14 listings. 2006 has 8 and 2007 has 9. The information in this website (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virtual_learning_environments)
stops at this point.
When one looks at the numbers alone, it shows how slowly the virtual world of teaching information began 300 years ago and how it began moving along at such a pace that when the internet became a part of it, there was no way to keep up with that part of it.
The world has continued to find ways to teach and as one looks through their email each day, one can see even new things showing up in one’s own email letters. When people say this is a new way to go to school and get an education, it is a slight understatement.
Lambert, T. Local Histories, !6th Century Education, Education in the 17th Century.
Retrieved June 4, 2010, http://www.localhistories.org/education.html.
Smith, F. (2004). MacroHistory and World Report. Britain in the mid-1700;’s.
Retrieved June 4, 2010. http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h29-fr.htm.
Retrieved June 5, 2010. This site has over 70 references and I’m
unsure of how you document this one.
Means, B.; Toyama, Y.; Murphy, R.; Bakia, M.; Jones, K. (2009), Evaluation of Evidence-Based.
(2010). retrieved August 3, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-learning.
"As one who took this art of shorthand in person, it appears to be one that would be difficult to learn in letters sent back and forth. There goes on to be the next time a virtual learning environment is shown is in 1840, when Isaac Pitman began teaching shorthand, using Great Britain’s Penny Post.
ReplyDeleteThere was a period of 112 years between the two postings. It would seem that it did not catch on to teach people in this manner. It had, there would have been many more postings of people teaching people through the mail, or by courier before 1840. "
@ Karen, I did not realize that the period between the two postings was 112 years! I briefly discussed Pittman's use of shorthand as a means of distance learning, but only to define the contextual use of the word and how it has transfigured into it's current meaning of virtual distance between people, but learning synchronously. What resonated with me about the calculation of the time between the two postings is that through the use of technology time seems to be used quicker, but via our readings, I found it not used entirely wisely. I wonder exactly how long the time could be calculated when such learning platforms, LMS not CMS, will be used effectively, and have the ability to correctly assessed to ensure that tchnological advances, not only happen quicker, but adequately. Learning over distance is more important than conquering the distance itself.