Any formal approach to learning in which a majority of the instruction occurs while educator and learner are at a distance from one another. For the purpose of this primer, this definition is adequate. However, distance education practitioners have discussed the question of what exactly defines distance education at great length.
Distance education is practiced in many settings in many ways.
It's easy to mentally construct a picture of a distance education class that suits the above definition, but that picture cannot do justice to the diversity of distance education. Distance education was once clearly differentiated from traditional education. This is no longer the case. History Distance education has been a part of the educational experience for well over 100 years, with the introduction of print-based correspondence study in the late 1800s. It may surprise the reader to see correspondence study included in this discussion, but it is important to understand that what we now commonly refer to as distance education is actually an electronic version of the original print-based curriculum.