Distance Education has traversed four to five 'generations' of technology in its history.These are print, audio/video broadcasting, audio/video teleconferencing, computer aided instruction, e-learning/ online-learning, computer broadcasting/webcasting etc. Yet the radio remains a very viable form, especially in the developing nations, because of its reach. Australian children in extremely remote areas have been participating in the "School of the air" since the 1940s using 2 way radio. In India the FM Channel is very popular and is being used by universities, to broadcast educational programs of variety on areas such as teacher education, rural development, programs in agriculture for farmers, science education, creative writing, mass communication, in addition to traditional courses in liberal arts, science and business administration. The increasing popularity of mp3 players, Pads and Smart Phone has provided an additional medium for the distribution of distance education content, and some professors now allow students to listen or even watch video of a course as a Pod cast. Some colleges have been working with the U.S. military to distribute entire course content on a PDA to deployed personnel


There has always been a lot of debate as to whether an online college education is as good as a traditional college education. The answer to this is quite simple; there are good institutions that offer an online college education and there are bad establishments that offer an online college education. So, you need to do your research in the same way when you are looking for the best place to pursue your online college education with as you would an offline course. Of course you are not going to particularly bother finding out about the location of the colleges that offer an online college education because it really doesn't matter. However, a lot of the other points that you would consider before attending a college should also be taken into consideration before you enrol with an organisation offering an online college education.
The growth in the numbers of people pursuing an online college education has led to increased competition amongst institutions to attract students. The best way to assess the credibility of a site advertising the best online college education is to ask about the accreditation of its courses. Accreditation means that a governing body for a particular field has endorsed the course and this is extremely important in helping you to decide who to trust with your online college education. If a course is not accredited then you need to find out why.

may be a number of courses that have not yet received accreditation from an appropriate association or governing body but still offer a good online college education. For example, the establishment may have applied for accreditation but not yet been assessed, in which case you can actually check with the particular body that they are in the process of assessing the application for accreditation. Another reason may be that there is no appropriate body that the course can be accredited to. This is less likely but is, nevertheless, a valid reason and does not indicate that the course offered is not going to be worth taking to advance your online college education. If, however, you find that the online college education institution has been refused accreditation they are likely to try to tell you that accreditation is not important. This is quite simply untrue. An online college education from a non-accredited institution is not going to be viewed as highly as one from an establishment that is accredited. Choose where you gain your online college education from with care to ensure that you are not wasting your time and money by having an almost worthless qualification.