Online learning has started to move into the mainstream. Stamford, MIT and others have been offering online classes for years but in the past few years the idea really stated to take off. While it may seem obvious that the Internet might provide a great conduit to educate, it has taken dozens of years for the approach to gain traction. As online education improves there are clear signs of disruption in the traditional education system. Udacity CS344 - Introduction to parallel programming The model for online courses is a powerful one. A single set of materials can be created once and distributed at almost zero incremental cost. Some courses are self paced and fully automated. Others are supported by a teacher and staff that grade submissions, provides help on forums and may hold group chats. Some colleges/courses are experimenting with a hybrid model that leverages the Internet to deliver the portions of the course best suited to it, such as lecture notes or pre-recorded le