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Blended learning has co-evolved with the advent and developments within computing technology, whose beginnings stem back to the 1960s but the concept of a ‘wireless university’ was proposed by educationalist John Stobert in 1926 while working for the BBC (The Open University, n.d). During the 60s the most rudimentary computers were developed. The mainframes during that time were put to good use when instructor-delivered training was substituted by computing technology. The primary motivation for the shift was scale. Technology-based training offers a much higher capacity than those administered by instructors. The

number of trainees/learners who could be accommodated by technology-based training was substantially higher. Hence, technology transfer was more quickly diffused and widespread.

The first educational system was the Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations, abbreviated as PLATO. The “first virtual community” was instigated in the 1960s by Professor Don Bitzer at the University of Illinois to provide a training system - PLATO (Wolley, 1994). PLATO was initially developed in response to increasing student numbers requiring education. PLATO featured the first versions of chat rooms, e-mail, instant messaging, gaming programmes and other tools we are familiar with used in todays technological era. PLATO became commercially available in the mid 1970s (now PLATO courseware) with in excess of 3,500 hours of training materials across more than 100 subject areas available by 1976 delivered using text, graphs, drawings, and coloured photographs (Figure 2.1) and PLATO learning/courseware is still available today (Smith & Sherwood, 1976). PLATO and similar teaching platforms represent the beginning of the evolution of the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning (Bersin, 2004). PLATO has gone through a long list of revisions and improvements since it’s nascent to the now developed version (http://www.plato.com). In the present higher educational setting PLATO has been actively utilised in delivering standards of the UK General Medical Council (Brown and Bullock 2014).

Figure 2.1 Schematic for PLATO system (Thompson, 2010).

Due to the limitations that PLATO had in regards to human-computer interfacing, especially amongst those who were not computer-literate, another wide-reaching communications technology became integrated with education. ‘White Heat of Technology’ era proposed by the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson in 1963 lead to the a period of concept development of University of the Air project, Open University TV was launched in 1969 (The Open University, n.d). Since then the Open University has served as a reliable method of transferring academic knowledge to the masses via broadcasting. During this period satellite feeds have gradually became popular in the 1970s for example EDUSAT. EDUSAT has been used in India since the 1970s utilising Conventional and Interactive Radio and Television (live broadcasting, phone-in, video on demand), Exchange of data, video conferencing, Audio conferencing and computer conferencing, and web-based education to deliver learning and teaching materials (Pallai, 2013). The shift to live video feeds largely addressed the acceptance of the new learning technology amongst those who were not adept at computers. Learners need not have

knowledge about computers in order to be engaged in the learning experience. However, satellite technology is more expensive because of the costs entailed in broadcast communication (Pallai, 2013).

From the prototypical system explored by the ARPANET (Advance Research Projects Agency Computer Network), the true emergence of the internet was kicked off in 1982 with the standardisation of the Internet Protocol TCP/IP. This paved the way for real internetworking of computers, as we know it today.

During the 1990s the world wide web (www.) has grown tremendously while the price of personal computers dramatically went down to levels, which are affordable by the masses. This accelerated the uptake of computing technology. The parallel development of the personal computer made the possibility of networking even closer. With the emergence of personal computers from the 1980s to the mid-1990s the wider population was able to access to computer based educational content (Holmes & Gardner, 2006). As with all technology mass production allowed the price drop and technical developments in the 1990s made it possible to produce highly interactive and media rich computer based educational content. Also during the 1990s the world wide web was developed by Tim Berners-Lee with Robert Cailliau from Tim’s ENQUIRE 1980 software as a web of ‘hypertext documents’ that can be browsed (Berners-Lee & Cailliau, 1990), from this the internet as we know it today was born. Highly portable ‘CD-ROM’ technology emerged in the mid 1980s allowing media rich digital delivery of interactive multimedia educational materials through the integrating of high

quality audio and video, images (2-d, 3-d, 4-d), animations and text along with the capacity to support user interaction (Bersin, 2004).

Within a decade billions of homes around the world adopted the personal computer, use of CD-ROM and became connected to the world wide web. Initial limitations of CD-ROM-based educational courseware were 1) prohibitive developmental, maintenance and distribution costs and 2) tracking who was using the materials, how well they were doing, and what was being completed of the course (Bersin, 2004). The increased presence of networks allowed tracking of learning activities through the implementation of learning management system (LMS) software. Early forms of LMS software simply stored and track users’ CD- ROM data.

The prospect of learning through the internet has now emerged as a real alternative to expensive satellite-based technology used heavily in India since the 1970s (Pallai, 2013). The internet was now on the verge of revolutionising education. The possibility of delivering knowledge across space and time in a more affordable manner was opened and as they say “the rest is history”.

The development of online tools has accelerated. The internet has served as the backbone upon which further improvement of tools were built. The throughput of communication from one computer to another was the issue through the 2000s. By addressing speed and bandwidth a number of learning management systems became possible (Bersin, 2004). Video of lectures, which includes live and recorded forms, was easier to transfer (The Open University, n.d). Online access

tools also boomed throughout the decade. Protocols improved considerably to allow faster and more reliable teleconferencing, videoconferencing, sharing of files, and so forth (Boulos, Maramba, & Wheeler, 2006). Due to improvements in the networking capability of computers, the emergence of virtual learning came along. The preponderance of learning management systems originated from the effort at integrating computing technology for enhancing educational systems. The primary objective was to enhance many features of the usual teacher-student relationship within the classroom setting leading to learning environments such as: Virtual Learning Environment, Managed Learning Environment and Personalised Learning Environment.

The 2010s saw the development in the hardware aspect of the online learning system, and opportunities for blended learning (Bersin, 2004; Ofcom, 2014). The personal computers improved in both portability and data storage capacity. Apple Inc. and Samsung largely paved the way for the design and development of tablet technology, smartphones, and other hand-held telecommunication hardware. The connection of such devices to the internet was also made more convenient as time has passed 16% of UK homes in 2004, 77% in 2014 (Ofcom, 2014). Human- computer interaction progressed substantially, 44% of adults in the UK own a table device by 2014 (Ofcom, 2014). Website management also became easier as templates became available for the novice users. Computer literacy has also gone up to the highest levels to date. The generation born into the internet were exposed to modern information and communications technology. Thus, the problem of technology acceptance has slowly become less of a problem. Further

technological progress in telecommunications has paved the way for even more interactive versions of virtual learning environments.