Are You Synchronous or A-synchronous?

Posted by ERUDIO in Inspiration on Sep 29th, 2010

So you’re sure you understand the term “distance learning.” On-line education, right? What if that’s not all it means? What if you still don’t realize all the possibilities to enrich your life?

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.-Oliver Wendell Holmes

Do you have any idea how many postsecondary institutions offer distance learning programs? Or how many are around you, where you live, or on the web? And what type are they?

Sure, “distance learning” can be very simply defined as: “a formal education process in which the students and instructor are not in the same place.” But there are two divisions of distance learning, two very different types for you to choose from.

Classes may be defined as “synchronous or asynchronous”.

What does that mean? “Synchronous Internet-based technologies” means simultaneous or “real-time” computer-based instruction. “Asynchronous Internet-based technologies” refer to courses not based on simultaneous computer-based instruction.

Synchronous distance learning uses video, audio, or computer technologies, or by correspondence (including written, and technology like CD-ROM).

Distance education includes courses and programs that were formally designated as online, hybrid/blended online (combination of online and in-class instruction, with reduced in-class seat time for students), plus other distance education courses and programs.

professor giving a digital presentaion

In the 2006–07 US academic year, 66 percent of the 4,160 2-year and 4-year Title IV degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the nation offered college-level distance education courses. The overall percentage includes 97 percent of public 2-year institutions, 18 percent of private for-profit 2-year institutions, 89 percent of public 4-year institutions, 53 percent of private not-for-profit institutions, and 70 percent of private for-profit 4-year institutions.

Sixty-five percent of US institutions reported college-level credit-granting distance education courses, and 23 percent reported noncredit distance education courses. There was a total of an estimated 12.2 million enrollments (or registrations) in college-level credit-granting distance education courses in 2006–07. Of these enrollments, 77 percent were reported in online courses, 12 percent were reported in hybrid/blended online courses, and 10 percent were reported in other types of distance education courses.

In 2006–07, there were approximately 11,200 US college-level programs that were designed to be completed totally through distance education. 66 percent of these programs were reported as degree programs and the remaining 34 percent were reported as certificate programs.

Total number of 2-year and -year Title IV degree-granting US postsecondary institutions, and percent that offered distance education courses, by course type and institutional type

Today there are so many ways to achieve your next step up with higher education.

woman sitting on bed

The types of distance learning bring a flexibility to your brain enhancement as never before in human history. Scholars today compare the historic breakthrough of the internet to the Medieval invention of the printing press, when books became available for the first time in mass quantities for everyone who could read.

Whatever form of distance learning is best for you, “synchronous or asynchronous”, you live at a time of historic educational opportunity!

Don’t let the world of knowledge pass you by. Learning is everywhere around you! Grab some now! Educate, educate, educate!