Chapter 2: The Internet in Education: The Past, the Present and, Hopefully, the Future

Any comprehensive overview on e-learning must also include the historical perspective on the topic. This chapter describes the most significant events in the evolution of Internet-based education and follows two convergent threads. The first one is the development of distance education, which began as soon as the end of the 19th century. Today, distance and open universities are spread all over the world and serve and unite more than ten million students as well as numerous experts and professional organizations from most countries. The second historical thread is the development of computer and multimedia technology, and of worldwide computer networks, namely the Internet. Throughout the past two decades, distance education and computer technologies have grown together into what we now call e-learning.

A very important aspect of this evolution is the introduction of computer and communication technologies into schools and higher education, which is, above all, a question of funding. One reliable solution is provided by the free software movement, which is quite fruitful, especially in Eastern European countries such as Romania.

The state of the art in the field of e-learning and Internet-based education is pointed out in the other chapters of this book. As for the future, we can assume that deep change will take place in schools and especially in higher education institutes. These may include extremely wide access to learning resources, leading to global learning and, at the same time, personalized learning environments.