Distance education

Distance education is a form of education in which students are not required to physically attend the place of study. In this system of education students receive the study material (in person, by mail, email or other Internet facilities), allowing the educational act New techniques and strategies student-centered learning itself are used, so it encouraging self-education and self-management, ie, is a flexible and self-directed education, whose main tools are the technologies of communication and information. Learning developed new communication technologies is called e-learning. The most currently used for this type platform is Moodle.

Moodle is a learning management system open source (LMS) used by educational institutions, companies and NGOs to create effective distance education programs. There are already around 75,000 organizations using Moodle in more than 200 countries, offers the study to nearly 60 million students.

Depending from the school, students can physically go for tutoring or classroom tests must be performed. There is distance education for any level of education, but the most usual is being conducted for college.Another feature of distance education is the use of information and communications technology (ICT) to form communities or networks of study where individuals can interact, promoting the educational use of social networks, forums and virtual platforms to discuss various issues and also acquire knowledge and modern tools. It is also essential to have a new vision of the roles of teachers and students in this type of study, the teacher ceases to be the protagonist, becoming a facilitator of the educational process and gives way to the student, which must have a firm commitment to their own learning process.

One of the universities of distance education is the oldest Federal Teacher Training Institute of Mexico, founded in 1945 and considered the world's largest regular school because for historical reasons for country had to train more than 90,000 teachers in education primary service that lacked the title to exert teaching. Then there are the University of South Africa, which has been offering this service since 1946. In the UK, the larger the Open University, which was founded in 1969. In Spain, the National University of Distance Education (UNED) started its activities teachers in 1973 and a year later, in Germany the FernUniversität Hagen was founded. These four universities have over 100,000 students, which is possible thanks to the low cost involved in distance education.

The Open University in Mexico System was driven by Dr. Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, With approved by the University Council on February 25, 1972 Statute and Regulations adopted on 2 December 1997.A since 1997, was established Coordination Open and Distance Education University (CUAED) 

Among the history of distance education are correspondence courses, which were initiated by the need to provide education to students in remote locations, where it was not possible to build a school. Such courses are offered at primary and secondary level, and they often were the parents who supervised the educational progress of students.

Currently, there are several factors that determine the growth of distance education, 3 among them:

- Reducing the cost of computers and telecommunications.

- Greater opportunities for people to access the technology.

- Using friendlier as multimedia interfaces.

-  increased demand for education.

- The creation of new educational institutions, as well as the increase in higher physical facilities (classrooms), is not proportional to population growth.

- High cost of classroom education.