Defining Distance Education
What do we mean by "distance education?" It really depends on who's talking:

• To students in remote regions throughout the world, distance education has meant regular dates with the shortwave radio.
• To some farmers for much of the 20th century, distance education has meant postal delivery of materials for a correspondence course offered by the state university agricultural extension service.
• Today, to a student in a school with limited resources, distance education might mean a unique opportunity to practice a foreign language, via telephone or two-way video, in a class not offered locally.
• To a group of volunteer firefighters, distance education might mean a video demonstration/lecture on toxic materials clean-up, delivered via satellite to a training session held after-hours in the local public school library.

So how can we define distance education? One simple definition might be "learning and teaching that occurs when the student and teacher are not necessarily in the same place and/or interacting at the same time." And today, the array of technologies that support distance education also includes the Internet. Our focus here will be on this new form of distance learning, distributed over the Internet's World Wide Web.

Your Own Distance Learning Experience
You are now involved in an experience of "learning by doing," participating yourself as a distant learner using the Internet. In this session, we'll explore examples of various forms that distance education takes in an Internet world, and learn about the common characteristic they share:

Varieties of Online Resources

Their Common Characteristic: Separation

Compensating for Separation through Instructional Design

Activities