The History Of K-12 Online Education???

Last week I had someone send me a link to The History of Online Education – essentially a visual representation of the history of online education in higher education.  As I sized this up, I was wondering what a visual history of K-12 online education might look like?

What are some of the significant events and dates that should be included?  Let’s just focus on the United States for right now, I’ll start us off with eight that immediately come to mind:

• 1993 – first district-based programs appear in California
• 1994-95 – the Utah eSchool begins operation
• 1996-97 – The Florida Virtual School and the Virtual School Global Consortium begin operation
• 2000 – Clark estimates there are 40,000-50,000 K-12 students taking online courses / first national virtual high school symposium
• 2002 – a planning committee is established to create a national group for those involved in virtual schooling
• 2004 – first Keeping Pace report
• 2006 – Michigan becomes the first state to mandate an online learning experience as a graduation requirement
• 2009 – Picciano and Seaman report approximately 1,000,000 students enrolled in online courses

What are some of the other events that have happened in the United States that would need to be included in this list if we were developing a history of K-12 online education for that country?