Connected Education - also known as Connect Ed - was a pioneering

online education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually i ...

organization founded and administered by Paul Levinson and Tina Vozick. Operating from 1985 to 1997, Connect Ed offered the

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

degrees in

Media Studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostl ...

(through

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) and

Creative Writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

(through the Bath College of Higher Education in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

). Connect Ed also worked with Polytechnic University in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

and

Pacific Oaks College Pacific Oaks College is a private college with its main campus in Pasadena, California and online degree options. The college draws on Quaker principles and focuses on social justice. It offers full and part-time undergraduate and graduate courses ...

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. ...

. Technical services were provided by the New Jersey Institute of Technology on their "Electronic Information Exchange System" (known as "EIES") administered by Murray Turoff and Starr Roxanne Hiltz, and by the

Unison In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm. Definition Unison or per ...

Participate system. In an age before easy dissemination of images and sounds on the Web, Connect Ed classes were conducted entirely in text. Features of the electronic campus included the "Connect Ed Cafe," for casual conversation; an online book ordering service; the "Connect Ed Library"; and an e-text publishing arm, "Connected Editions". Courses included "Computer Conferencing for Business and Education," "Artificial Intelligence and Real Life," "Ethics in the Technological Age," "Science Fiction and Space-Age Mythology," "Popular Culture and the Media", "Book Publishing for the 21st Century," "Technological Forecasting," "Philosophy and Technology," and "Technology and the Disabled". Students were enrolled in online classes from 40 states in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and 20 countries around the world. Faculty and special lecturers included Michael A. Banks,

Gregory Benford Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941) is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is professor emeritus at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is a contributing editor of ''Reas ...

, William Benzon,

Harlan Cleveland Harlan Cleveland (January 19, 1918 – May 30, 2008) was an American diplomat, educator, and author. He served as Lyndon B. Johnson's U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 1965 to 1969, and earlier as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International ...

, Ari Davidow, Sylvia Engdahl, Keith Ferrell, David Gaines (who taught the first online graduate music course),

David Gerrold David Gerrold (born Jerrold David Friedman; January 24, 1944)Reginald, R. (September 12, 2010)''Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Volume 2'' Borgo Press p. 911. Archived at Google Books. Retrieved June 23, 2013. is an American science fic ...

, Tom Hargadon, David G. Hays, Michael R. Heim,

Nicholas Johnson Nicholas Johnson (born September 23, 1934) is an American academic and lawyer. He wrote ''How to Talk Back to Your Television Set'' and was a Federal Communications Commission commissioner from 1966 to 1973. He is retired from teaching at the U ...

Lionel Kearns Lionel John Kearns (born February 16, 1937) is a Canadian poet and teacher He was born in Nelson, British Columbia, and attended the University of British Columbia, where he was a student of Earle Birney. He later taught at Simon Fraser University ...

, Paul Levinson, Brock N. Meeks,

Frank Schmalleger Frank Schmalleger (born August 28, 1947) is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He holds degrees from the University of Notre Dame and The Ohio State University, having earned both a master's (19 ...

J. Neil Schulman Joseph Neil Schulman (; April 16, 1953 – August 10, 2019) was an American novelist who wrote ''Alongside Night'' (published 1979) and ''The Rainbow Cadenza'' (published 1983) which both received the Prometheus Award, a libertarian science ficti ...

, Rusty Schweickart, Donald B. Straus, Gail S. Thomas, and

Harvey Wheeler John Harvey Wheeler (October 17, 1918 – September 6, 2004) was an American author, political scientist, and scholar. He was best known as co-author with Eugene Burdick of '' Fail-Safe'' (1962), an early Cold War novel that depicted what coul ...

among others.

References

Distance education in the United States Virtual learning environments {{US-edu-stub