the Bible to students, who would send it back in full transcription. The success of the course resulted in the foundation of the phonographic correspondence society in 1843. The pioneering milestone in distance language teaching was in 1856 by Charles Toussaint and Gustav Langenscheidt, who began the first European institution of distance learning. This is the first known instance of the use of materials for independent language study. Multimedia teaching: The emergence and development of the distance learning idea The concept of e-learning began developing in the early 20th century, marked by the appearance of audio-video communication systems used for remote teaching. In 1909, E.M. Forster published his story 'The Machine Stops' and explained the benefits of using audio communication to deliver lectures to remote audiences. In 1924, Sidney L. Pressey developed the first teaching machine which offered multiple types of practical exercises and question formats. Nine years later, University of Alberta's Professor M.E. Zerte transformed this machine into a problem cylinder able to compare problems and solutions. This, in a sense, was "multimedia", because it made use of several media formats to reach students and provide instruction. Later, printed materials would be joined by telephone, radio broadcasts, TV broadcasts, audio, and videotapes. The earliest networked learning system was the Plato Learning Management system (PLM) developed in the 1970s by Control Data Corporation. Telematic teaching In the 1980s, modern telecommunications started to be used in education. Computers became prominent in the daily use of higher education institutions, as well as instruments to student learning. Computer aided teaching aimed to integrate technical and educational means. The trend then shifted to video communication, as a result of which Houston University decided to hold telecast classes to their students for approximately 13–15 hours a week. The classes took place in 1953, while in 1956, Robin McKinnon Wood and Gordon Pask released the first adaptive teaching system for corporate environments SAKI. The idea of automating teaching operations also inspired the University of Illinois experts to develop their Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations (PLATO) which enabled users to exchange content regardless of their location. In the period between 1970 and 1980, educational venues were rapidly considering the idea of computerizing courses, including the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute from California that introduced the first accredited online-taught degree. Teaching through the internet: The appearance of the first LMS The history of the application of computers to