Kye's Vocabulary for Diatance Education

Distance Education:
Distance education refers to education in which learning occurs with no close proximity between students and a teacher.

Distance Learning:
Distance learning occurs with no close proximity between students and a teacher

Online Learning:
It refers to a particular type of distance learning where the medium that makes distance learning possible is the Internet-based online technology.

Web-based Learning:
It refers to a particular type of online learning where students go online by the Web.

Hybrid Learning:
It refers to learning whereby students learn both in distance and face-to-face learning environment.

E-learning:
It refers to learning whereby students learn electronically, but it also means online-learning.

Blended Learning:
It refers to learning in which more than one instructional setting are used.

Distributed Learning:
It refers to learning in which students, a teacher, and resources are distributed over time and place whereas centralized learning refers to learning that occurs at fixed times and places.

Flexible Learning:
It refers to learning in which students and a teacher have flexible schedules for learning and teaching.

Open Learning:
It refers to learning in which students can access to courses and resources freely whereas many courses in colleges are closed and offered only for enrolled students with fees. The first major such example is MIT open course ware.

Synchronous Learning and Asynchronous Learning:
Synchronous learning refers to learning environment in which students and a teacher share time and place to learn and teach, whereas asynchronous learning is not bound to the common time and place.

We may consider self-paced learning

Why are there so many definitions for distance education?

There are many ways to break away from traditional, face-to-face learning and to go with distance learning. The traditional learning environment has assumed the centralized (place) and synchronous (time) gathering of students and the teacher. If we relax the constraint of place while keeping the time, there would be TV-based learning and video-conference learning. On the other hand, if we relax time while keeping the place, there would be flexible learning and self-paced learning on campus.

There are also many media whereby we break away from the constraints of time and place. The most popular medium today is the Internet with which students and the teacher can easily relax time and place constraints. We may further differentiate distance learning by the degree to which it eases up time and place constraints. For example, face-to-face learning lies on one extreme of the spectrum and asynchronous, online learning places itself on the other extreme of the spectrum whereas hybrid learning falls in the middle.