Say what you will about online education, its benefits become apparent in times of crisis, when it is inconvenient or impossible for a student to travel to a university or college.

After Hurricane Katrina, thousands of students were left in the wake, with no resources to continue their education. Then online education stepped in.

The Chronicle of Higher Education offers an excellent article on distance education:

One possession Ms. Morris made sure to bring along when she evacuated was her laptop computer. And that has become her college classroom.

She took a full load of courses online at no charge during the fall semester, thanks to the Sloan Semester, an effort by 153 colleges to use distance education to keep hurricane-displaced students on track academically. The innovative relief effort was set up with remarkable speed and urgency.

Within days of the storm's devastation, a catalog of courses was up and ready for registration, through the leadership of the Southern Regional Education Board, which has 16 member states, and the Sloan Consortium, which promotes standards for online learning (The Chronicle, September 6). The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation gave $1.1-million to support the project.

Many of the participating colleges had to make emergency pleas to their governing boards to let them waive tuition for the online programs. The courses were delivered on an accelerated schedule that began on October 10 and is scheduled to end on Friday.

Stories like this make even traditional-minded professors like yours truly grateful for modern technology.