For more and more IHs, the answer is distance learning.
Nobody expects to see the traditional classroom setting disappear anytime soon.
But given these and other limitations, plus the ever-expanding range of technology options, IHs are increasingly looking for other ways to exchange much needed information and expertise with employees and each other. Although DL sounds new, the concept has been around for a long time. Correspondence courses have been advertised in everything from respected professional journals to the backs of matchbooks for years. Many IHs of the baby boomer generation got their first taste of DL in school when they watched science and history programs beamed from the nearby educational TV station. DL in the Internet Age More recently, DL has evolved into the age of the Internet, with a variety of online programs and formats that range from posting text on websites to real-time streaming of audio and video.