Remember going to school? You went every day, sitting in the same room, at the same time. A very traditional educational approach, right? Well, in a distance education setting, a student doesn't necessarily have to be in the same place as other students or have to meet at the same time with others. A major difference between traditional and distance education is that students do not have to be place-bound or time-bound.

A traditional class is developed to be a synchronous experience, meaning that students meet at a regularly scheduled time, in a regularly scheduled place to complete the course. Sometimes a distance education course is set up in a synchronous way, especially when students take live videoconference classes; students have to meet in a specified location and at a specific time where they can receive the live videoconference. 

However, more distance education courses are being taught that are asynchronous, which means that students can take the class at their own time and in a location of their choosing. They can watch a videotape playback of a class at 11 p.m., as opposed to 8 a.m., when the "traditional" classroom meets. Students can take a laptop computer to a friend's house and "plug into" a Web-based course from there.

The promise of asynchronous delivery of courses is driving the concept of "on-demand" education: students get to choose when and where the course content is received. This is definitely different from the synchronous concept that we're used to.

Another difference is the characteristics of the learners.

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