Since 1989

A Timeline of Internet Pioneers

The story of how K-12 educators built the internet before the World Wide Web existed

1989

NetHappenings mailing list and EDTECH logs began (Feb). Tim Berners-Lee created the WWW (March 12).

1991 Milestone

K12 internet launched. Public legally allowed to use the internet. Berners-Lee demos WWW at Hypertext Conference.

1992

SENDIT network installed in North Dakota using FreePort on a NeXT computer.

1993

Gleason's "Hot List" announced new school websites on NetHappenings. He retired and gave the data to Karen Ellis, Educational CyberPlayGround Inc.

1994

SENDIT paper presented at Annual Conference on Rural Datafication (Minneapolis, May 22–24).

1996

Arbor Heights Elementary in Seattle, WA was the 9th or 10th elementary school with a website in the world.

1997

NetHappenings reached nearly 10,000 readers with 50–60 daily announcements. 15,000 people visited the site each day.

1998 Milestone

July 9, 1998 — ECP migrated and launched Gleason’s "Hot List" to the first public database of school websites ever built by teachers and students. Sackmann received the SIG/Tel Outstanding Service Award.

1999

Gleason Sackmann: "Educational CyberPlayGround site was nicely laid out, excellent selection of resources." MSNBC Web Picks, USA Today Best Bets for Educators.

2000 Milestone

USA Today Hot Site Award (Jan 10). New York Times Site of the Day (May). Macworld: 50 Best Education Sites.

2003

Karen Ellis has kept it going — now 30+ years of continuous operation.

2004

Gleason Sackmann retires.

2017

K12PlayGround.com rebuilt using open-source Drupal; migrated over 100,000 K12 school websites.

"We are the unknown culture makers."

30+ years of K-12 internet history, preserved by the people who built it.

Read the Full History