College correspondence classes have been popular since the late 1800’s. The 1930s lead to use of radio broadcasts to help educate not only paying students but as a general education source for the masses at large. Radio was also used in a classroom setting, where prominent professors would broadcast lessons to classrooms, leaving local teachers to do nothing more than preparing the broadcast and keeping order in the classroom.
Today, schools and training programs typically use distance education via advance technologies. Colleges with more than one thousand students are typically called mega-universities. There are more and more mega-universities as personal computer become commonplace in homes. In 2013 virtual schools and universities offer full curriculums including accredited certificated and degrees. The first fully virtual university to be granted regional accreditation earned it in 1996. Nursing unit clerk courses as well as medical transcription courses are two of the most common choices for online learning. Over twenty percent of all college students today participate in at least one online class, four percent of these students take all their classes virtually.
There are two types of online learning, synchronous learning requires all participants to be online at the same time, much like traditional classroom learning. Typically video conferencing, video streaming and VoIP software are used to communicate. Meeting software has made virtual learning more organized and certain programs are used throughout a majority of online courses.
Asynchronous learning is an independent study format. The professor uploads all the course material and the student is expected to study when they can. Asynchronous is the older form of distance learning. Traditionally message boards, email or other contact methods are provided for students to question material and discuss problems with their professors. Since Medical Transcriptionist courses usually involve learning to use special software and working from home, this makes this sort of training well adapted to this sort of learning.
Often the two types of learning are combined. Students may be required to view a lecture in real time, but have assignments that can be completed at the leisure. Virtual worlds, digital games and web-casts tend to use both types of learning to educate their students. Students may also use simulations for their exercises, for example modeling a busy hospital in Nursing Unit Clerk courses.