Just what is e-learning, and how can it help you in your day-to-day life? These are good questions, and important. That's because learning, and especially e-learning, is all about you - the student. It's about learning in your own time, style and manner.

So let's take a moment to consider what e-learning isn't. It isn't heavy-going textbooks. It isn't classes you have to worry about attending regularly, and on time. It isn't rote instruction, or long verb tables.

E-learning is about flexibility. The opportunity to learn when you want, and fit your own learning programme around an often hectic daily routine.

It's also about taking learning back from the instructors and textbooks and giving it over to those with the best understanding of each learner's unique needs and capacity: the learners themselves.

E-learning courses are interactive. They engage and enthuse the learner. Lessons are user-friendly and content-rich.

Perhaps most usefully, courses are designed and supervised by qualified teachers and experts. Unlike teachers in a classroom who must juggle up to forty students at any one time, e-learning course providers are able to answer questions quickly and directly. A tutor is never more than an e-mail away. In short, each student matters.