Online learning has become a serious transformative force in American higher education. In both its pure and "blended" forms, it is rapidly becoming part of the mainstream of postsecondary learning. However, myths and misconceptions fueled by media reports, misguided critics, and overzealous advocates are creating a distorted picture of the online learning's current reality and future potential. Although overall media coverage of online learning seems to be improving slowly both in accuracy and in tone, much of what is reported about online learning by the mainstream and even the trade publications does not reflect what is actually happening.

This article describes 10 of the most common myths about online education. Most of these myths are used to support critical, in some cases fierce, opposition to online learning. Each of these myths has one or more common elements that are customary reactions to significant innovations: extrapolating overgeneralized and false conclusions from single cases; unsubstantiated assertions that established practices have what emerging practices lack; a stubborn clinging to established practices that fails to recognize or understand the capabilities of the innovation; or simple investment in the status quo. A few of these myths have been used to support an overly rosy prognosis for online learning; like all significant innovations from railroading to retailing on the Web, online learning has no doubt been oversold in certain instances. Beyond the hype on both sides, online learning is becoming part of the mainstream of American higher education, certain to reform it in several significant ways and with the potential for some truly far-reaching positive transformations.

Defining Online Learning

A host of terms are used to describe teaching and learning that do not take place in a traditional classroom setting-distance learning, distance education, distributed learning, e-learning, independent study, and others. The overlapping definitions and sometimes conflicting uses of these terms confuses the outside observer and sparks debate even among experienced practitioners. Online learning is defined here as courses that are Internet-enabled-e-mail, Web pages, course management systems, etc.-and utilize information and communications technologies. The term includes both fully online courses (sometimes termed "cybercourses") and a full spectrum of online/classroom "blends," where online learning is used to complement "'in-person" (or face-to-face, sometimes abbreviated f2f) classroom instruction (or vice versa). I use the term blended learning here for the latter type of online learning.