Historical Review of Distance and Online Education from 1700s to 2021 in the United States
basis commensurate with the length of time and the amount of content in the course or competency ; and
( ii ) Monitoring the student ’ s academic engagement and success and ensuring that an instructor is responsible for promptly and proactively engaging in substantive interaction with the student when needed on the basis of such monitoring , or upon request by the student . ( U . S . Department of Education , 2020 , p . 54809 )
The Federal Register defines a correspondence course as :
( 1 ) A course provided by an institution under which the institution provides instructional materials , by mail or electronic transmission , including examinations on the materials , to students who are separated from the instructors . Interaction between instructors and students in a correspondence course is limited , is not regular and substantive , and is primarily initiated by the student .
( 2 ) If a course is part correspondence and part residential training , the Secretary considers the course to be a correspondence course .
( 3 ) A correspondence course is not distance education ( U . S . Department of Education , 2020 , p . 54809 )
The effective date for the Distance Education and Innovations final regulations is July 1 , 2021 ( U . S . Department of Education , 2020 , p . 54742 ).
Mobile Devices , Social Media , and Applications
Between 2010 and 2020 , advancements in technology greatly supported the increase of online education offerings in the United States . The ubiquity of computers , mobile devices ( e . g ., laptops , smartphones , tablets , eReaders , smart watches ), and applications , coupled with wireless internet , allowed IHEs to expand online and offer blended course and program formats . This expansion also led to international collaborations and domestic consortia among most universities .
The emergence of new educational platforms continued to evolve during 2010-2020 . In 2014 , Google launched Google Classroom as an alternative to the LMS platform . Within just one year , Google estimated that approximately 10 million students and teachers were using it ( Siu , 2016 ). Voiceover Internet Protocol ( VoIP ) services and software became more prevalent in online education , supporting student-to-instructor and student-to-student engagement . Video conferencing pioneers , such as Skype , increased competition with the emergence of Google Hangouts , Zoom , WebEx , JoinMe , GoToMeeting , WhatsApp , and more . Social media applications such as Twitter , Instagram , Mastodon , Reddit , and others provided dynamic ways for students to stay connected within and outside of the online classroom . Learning
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