history of e learning

The word 'e-Learning'

In October 1999, during a CBT Systems seminar in Los Angeles, a strange new word was used for the first time in a professional environment – ‘e-Learning’. Associated with such expressions as 'online learning' or 'virtual learning', this word was meant to qualify "a way to learn based on the use of new technologies allowing access to online, interactive and sometimes personalized training through the Internet or other electronic media (intranet, extranet, interactive TV, CD-Rom, etc.), so as to develop competencies while the process of learning is independent from time and place2".

So the word itself is not that old. But what about the elements of e-Learning?

The development of the e-Learning revolution arose from a number of other 'educational revolutions'. Four such revolutions cited by Billings and Moursund (1988) are:

1. the invention of reading & writing;
2. the emergence of the profession of teacher/scholar;
3. the development of moveable type (print technology);
4. the development of electronic technology.