Universities experience a surge in short course enrolment

From a tin box to the clouds: A brief history of the LMS

The life of the Leaning Management System is one that may be a lot older than you think. In fact the birth of the LMS can be traced back to the beginning of the 1920s! In this blog post we plot the life of LMS technology and see where accessplanit sits today.

The great ancestor of today’s modern cloud based LMS can be found as far back as 1924 with the relatively simple typewriter style design of Sidney Pressey’s Mechanical Teaching Machine. Allowing for the answering of multiple choice questions Pressey believed that the benefit of his machine was in the students’ engagement with the process of learning. Using his machine the student was not just listening but actively responding to education.

Only a mere 5 years later and LaZerte ensured that automated teaching not only required a student to have the right answer, but also that the correct steps were taken towards finding it. His Problem Cylinder not only allowed for the answering of questions but also evaluated the answer.

1956 saw the first customisable systems with SAKI a LMS in which difficulty level of assessment could be altered to suit the learner’s current level. Four years later and Learning Management Systems entered the digital age in 1960! The launch of The University of Illinois’ PLATO system, an online LMS, allowed for the interaction of different user types. The first contact between student and teacher was heard through an LMS.

With the birth of the World Wide Web in 1982 MIT launches ‘Project Athena’ one year later, to explore the possibilities of online learning, following their example over 50 such projects sprang up throughout the year and the first versions of LMS as we know them today began to roll in with such influential platforms as CourseInfo’s Learning Network and SCORM 2004 being released over the next decade.

Now almost another 10 years on LMS has developed even further into the systems we know today. accessplanit is a cloud-based system meaning there is no software for you to install so your LMS can be accessed anywhere from any computer, but modern systems like those we offer at accessplanit still carry the genes of even Pressey’s machine. Learner engagement is still key to the LMS’ success, so our systems offer a customisable and easy to use portal interface that allows users to manage their learning and track their assessment.

Administrators using LMS’ can create individual and group profiles to identify a learner’s skills and weak spots so they get the education needed at their level. With a system like accessplanit’s LMS you can then send out the correct information, course materials and certificates in a variety of formats by email or SMS, making communication simple and easy.

The scale of possibilities available with an LMS like those offered in today’s online and wireless world by far exceeds those of its humble beginnings in the 1920s but the underlying principles and philosophy remains relatively unscathed by time, to provide engaging and effective learning with simple and easy to use tools.

But despite these similarities…………. the accessplanit Mechanical Teaching Machine won’t be available any time soon.

One Response

David Evans says:

September 20, 2013 at 2:28 pm

From a tin box to the clouds: A brief history of the LMS

The life of the Leaning Management System is one that may be a lot older than you think. In fact the birth of the LMS can be traced back to the beginning of the 1920s! In this blog post we plot the life of LMS technology and see where accessplanit sits today.

The great ancestor of today’s modern cloud based LMS can be found as far back as 1924 with the relatively simple typewriter style design of Sidney Pressey’s Mechanical Teaching Machine. Allowing for the answering of multiple choice questions Pressey believed that the benefit of his machine was in the students’ engagement with the process of learning. Using his machine the student was not just listening but actively responding to education.

Only a mere 5 years later and LaZerte ensured that automated teaching not only required a student to have the right answer, but also that the correct steps were taken towards finding it. His Problem Cylinder not only allowed for the answering of questions but also evaluated the answer.

1956 saw the first customisable systems with SAKI a LMS in which difficulty level of assessment could be altered to suit the learner’s current level. Four years later and Learning Management Systems entered the digital age in 1960! The launch of The University of Illinois’ PLATO system, an online LMS, allowed for the interaction of different user types. The first contact between student and teacher was heard through an LMS.

With the birth of the World Wide Web in 1982 MIT launches ‘Project Athena’ one year later, to explore the possibilities of online learning, following their example over 50 such projects sprang up throughout the year and the first versions of LMS as we know them today began to roll in with such influential platforms as CourseInfo’s Learning Network and SCORM 2004 being released over the next decade.

Now almost another 10 years on LMS has developed even further into the systems we know today. accessplanit is a cloud-based system meaning there is no software for you to install so your LMS can be accessed anywhere from any computer, but modern systems like those we offer at accessplanit still carry the genes of even Pressey’s machine. Learner engagement is still key to the LMS’ success, so our systems offer a customisable and easy to use portal interface that allows users to manage their learning and track their assessment.

Administrators using LMS’ can create individual and group profiles to identify a learner’s skills and weak spots so they get the education needed at their level. With a system like accessplanit’s LMS you can then send out the correct information, course materials and certificates in a variety of formats by email or SMS, making communication simple and easy.

The scale of possibilities available with an LMS like those offered in today’s online and wireless world by far exceeds those of its humble beginnings in the 1920s but the underlying principles and philosophy remains relatively unscathed by time, to provide engaging and effective learning with simple and easy to use tools.

But despite these similarities…………. the accessplanit Mechanical Teaching Machine won’t be available any time soon.