For the many thousands of people all over the world who have already realized the numerous advantages of Distance Learning over more traditional methods of educational instruction, it is an idea whose time has come. In this hurried, harried and frenetic world that we live in today, time is more valuable than ever and often we find that there is simply not enough hours in the day for us to accomplish all the various tasks, jobs and chores that we need to do on a daily basis.

As tedious as these mundane tasks are, they still need to be done in order to secure a decent means to make a living, to be of service to our family or simply to make our lives more comfortable. There is no getting around them, that much is a given fact, but what about the personal goals and plans that we may have for ourselves such as career advancement or simply even a better paying job? A good education is one of the best things that we can have on our side in the pursuit of such goals, but as you may have realized for yourself, a good education from a reputable learning institution can be quite time consuming, not to mention extremely cost prohibitive. More and more people who find themselves having to deal with these very issues are turning to Distance Learning as a means to circumvent the obstacles that these pursuits may present.

Distance Learning is admittedly a relatively young method of instruction and as such there remains a few imperfections and drawbacks. It is also encountered its fair share of critics mostly from the traditional education sector who question the effectiveness of online instruction. The initial resistance that these people display towards Distance Learning is quite understandable given the widespread impact this has on education as a whole and will most likely continue to have for the next several years. It is changing the face of education as we know it today, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

Given the dependence of Distance Learning on technology, traditional educators are noticeably concerned about their diminishing role in the learning process as the method gradually comes into age and gains more adherents. It is understandable that they are becoming more concerned about the threat that this poses on their careers in the future and for them there is the ever-present danger of people like them being phased out. Some of their other concerns deal with issues such as the possible deterioration in the level of instruction and the loss of human contact, which is arguably an important facet of human learning and instruction.

For better or worse though, Distance Learning is addressing a very real need for many people and as such it is likely to stay with us for good. The good news in all this is, Distance Learning can be--and in fact has been--combined with traditional teaching methods giving the advantages of both methods to the student.