We find ourselves in exciting times. Today, people can learn nearly anything they want from a distance, often at any time, from any place. Distance education is not new, though. It dates back well over 200 years. However, advances in technology coupled with advances in pedagogy have helped increase overall interest in and use of distance education. Enrollments in online courses^[1] alone demonstrate that distance education has in many ways become mainstream, with nearly one in three students^[2] taking an online course each year. However, online learning is just one type of distance education.

The COVID-19 pandemic quickly reminded us that distance education can come in various formats and serve many different purposes. In fact, Hodges et al., (2020) were quick to point out the differences between emergency remote teaching and online learning/teaching. But even outside of a pandemic, distance education does not need to look the same or look like the common high-tech, carefully planned, and developed online courses of today to be effective. There are many ways to develop low-tech, sometimes even low-cost, distance education learning experiences that are still interactive and effective.

Acknowledgments are due to Mary Herring and Sharon Smaldino (1997) for their original publication of Planning for Interactive Distance Education. We chose to write a new edition of this book because we think there is still a need today, as there was in 1997 when the first edition was written, for an introductory text on distance education—specifically, a text that discusses some of the fundamental building blocks for planning for interactive distance education. This book is meant to serve as a basic introduction to distance education. We hope it can be a resource for teachers, teacher educators, trainers, faculty developers, instructional designers, and curriculum developers new to distance education.