As we mentioned in Chapter 1, these are exciting times. People can learn nearly anything they want from a distance, often at any time or place. The term distance education has more commonly been called online education in recent times as the use of the internet (whether by computer, tablet, or cell phone) has taken over as the primary form of distance education. Whether to reach rural learners or because of a world-wide pandemic, online education is here to stay. However, the faster version of putting face-to-face education in an online format (i.e., emergency remote teaching) isn’t necessarily the best way to utilize the tools we have at our fingertips. A well-designed course using the tools available will better prepare our learners and having interaction in that course helps lead to better socialization, collaborative learning, and well-rounded learners. 

To be an effective distance educator, using the aforementioned topics as a starting point, whether using high-tech or low-tech, you can start slowly – implementing one new thing at a time, if you wish, until they become second nature in your distance classroom. 

Since many of the extra resources and readings we’ve provided are URL links, we hope to update this book every few years. We openly ask for feedback and input on other sections you, the reader, deem necessary to better create and facilitate distance education with the reminder that the hope for this book is to be used worldwide by all levels of distance educators. The first edition of this book was written in 1997, and over the years, the tools and technology have greatly changed, and as such, this book will continue to evolve as technology evolves. This book is meant to serve as a basic introduction to distance education. We hope it can be used as a resource for teachers, teacher educators, trainers, faculty developers, instructional designers, and curriculum developers new to distance education. 

To reach the authors, please email: 

Cindy York cindy.york@niu.edu 

and

Patrick Lowenthal patricklowenthal@boisestate.edu