As my4ccoa mentions, distance education is certainly a viable option for those who are motivated, disciplined, and cannot (conveniently) enroll in a traditional onsite class.

My personal experience with distance learning comes from the perspective of a student, a course (college) designer, and as an instructor of online instruction. As such, I believe it’s reasonable to say I have some first-hand experience with distance leaning on different levels.

I believe that one of the critical issues that is often overlooked or undermined in the debate about distance learning is the efficacy of learning, that is, does this untraditional venue actually diminish an educational standard or reduce the effectiveness of learning, retaining, and applying the skills and knowledge from the course. In my experiences, the answer is -without hesitation- it does not.

In my view, traditionalists hold an unreasonable and untenable (lack of empirical evidence to support their rather myopic attachment to classroom instruction being the only instruction) position regarding online learning and, all too frequently, their assessment is based -not on experience- but on feelings and rigid beliefs that there is only one way for people to be educated.

However, in the last decade, brain-based researchers, learning theorists, and others associated with a curiosity regarding how we (humans) learn best, have come to some unsettling conclusions regarding traditional education (i.e., lecturing) in that it is the least effective means for effective instruction … and yet, I believe the data shows that today (2008) an astonsihing 70% of all instruction is via lecturing. That is simply absurd and a defense (by traditionalists) of the indefensible.

The other critically important part (to me) of distance learning is the vast opportunity it provides for people worldwide to have -possibly for the first time- a chance to be educated or further education even though the closest brick-and-mortar school may be hundreds of miles away. If this country (America) and other leading democracies are truly for the democratization of people, then the first thing needed is an educated populace … distance learning is that critical first step in that direction.