Technology has a greater, more widespread impact on various facets of daily life than ever before. New technological developments now aid in routine, everyday tasks such as mail delivery, shopping, and even vacuuming the floor. One extremely common routine that technology is aiding in secondary schooling. In fact, many public and private schools at all levels are beginning to offer distance learning, or non-classroom settings such as virtual classes and video conferences that cover the same curriculum that a traditional classroom would. Students would benefit from from distance learning through online classrooms or video conferencing because these methods of learning offer remedies to personal issues that stem from classroom learning, provide an easier alternative for those who may have difficulty getting to school, and it can allow students to work at their own pace instead of the pace dictated by a classroom setting.

A benefit of schooling through distance learning can be seen in those with personal issues that stem from or are triggered by a traditional classroom. For example, many students have challenges such as social anxiety, ADD, or Asperger's which can be affected by large crowds or groups of people, aspects that a standard classroom offers. These large gatherings may make those affected very anxious or nervous, unable to focus, or susceptible to emotional or verbal outbursts. By moving the classroom to the home via distance learning, many of these problems brought on by large gatherings are eliminated because the student is now in the comfort of their own home, family, and possibly a couple other students, yet they are still obtaining the same education and life skills that a classroom would offer. In fact, they may even learn quicker and more successfully because of the elimination of these problems. These people with social disabilities would benefit from distance learning because it would resolve problems that occur at school which possibly hinder their learning.

Another benefit that distance learning has over traditional classroom settings is the elimination of difficulties stemmed from getting to and from schools that may affect the students' education or daily lives. This benefit can be seen in rural areas of the country where the commute to school in the nearest city may be as much as fifty miles, with the added time of bus stops for every student who lives along the way. In these cases, the school day may only be seven hours, but a commute of up to ninety minutes in each direction can make school a time commitment of as much as ten hours every day,

not to mention extracurricular activities that can take up even more time.

This is a serious burden on the daily lives of the students, especially with the need to complete homework and even just relax. Additionally, in some places, such as the Mid-Atlantic, one snowstorm of twenty inches or so can close schools for a week or more due to the lack of equipment to handle those occasional storms. This lost time can limit and hinder students' education simply because they are unable to get to school. Distance learning, so long as power is on, can heavily limit or even eliminate the impacts of such weather events or long commutes by taking away the commuting aspect of school so that the students can stick to the ideal schedule to maximize their education. Distance learning benefits these groups of people by providing an efficient and routine schedule that students can maximize their education on.

A third positive outcome of distance learning is the allowance for students taking part in these programs to work at their own pace. With traditional schooling methods, students are placed in classes of as many as thirty peers all trying to obtain the same education and lesson within the time constraints of the class. As with any large group of adolescents, some students will quickly catch on, while some will take longer to grasp the material. However, when one teacher is controlling a classroom of thirty different learning paces, they have to attempt to find a happy medium to teach the curriculum, and they are additionally limited to the constraint of a 45- to ninety-minute class period. This leaves the quicker students bored and unsatisfied while the slower students are left to struggle to continue to catch up to the teacher's pace. This issue is especially prevalent in an AP or college level class, where there is a lot of material thrown at the students at once. With distance learning, however, students have the benefit of learning at their own pace. Because of the eternal availability of the internet and email as well as abundant resources both in virtual classrooms and on the web, students are able to quickly tackle the subjects that come easy to them while also able to slow down, ask questions, and get additional help on topics that they struggle on. By not having to conform to a teacher's pace, students are more likely to succeed at their own pace, which is encouraged through distance learning.

Traditional classroom learning may be what nearly everyone in the country is used to, but what may come easy or familiar to one person may not always be easy to another person. A good alternative to many of the problems brought about by a standard classroom setting is the development of distance learning based on new technology,

Among the benefits it has are provision of a more comfortable environment for students with learning or other disabilities, elimination of problems brought on by long or challenging commutes to school, and the ability for students to learn at their own pace to maximize their understanding of the material, all while learning the same subjects they would learn in a classroom All in all, while classroom learning has proven to be effective in years past, there are many additional benefits of distance learning, and because of this, it can be expected to expand further in the coming years.       