Tune In Tomorrow: New technology and higher gas prices are driving a boom in online education across the United States - Stefan Theil, NEWSWEEK

Long gone are the days when "online education" meant little more than digitized correspondence courses. Today it features videos and podcasts, blogs and live chats, Webcams and wikis, and online courses are becoming ever more popular. This fall, more than 4 million students in the United States will take at least one course online, says Frank Mayadas, an expert on education technology at the Sloan Foundation in New York.