Information and communication technologies  are a diverse set of tools and resources used to communicate, create, disseminate, store, and manage information. These technologies include computers, the Internet, broadcasting technologies Radio and television, and telephony.

The Open University of the United Kingdom, established in as the first educational institution in the world wholly dedicated to open and distance learning, still relies heavily on print-based materials supplemented by radio, television and, in recent years, online programming. Similarly, the Indira Gandhi National Open University in India combines the use of print, recorded audio and video, broadcast radio and television, and audio conferencing technologies.The term computer-assisted learning  has been increasingly used to describe the use of technology in teaching.

There is increasing interest in how computers and the Internet can improve education at all levels, in both formal and non-formal settings.Older ICT technologies, such as radio and television, have for over forty years been used for open and distance learning, although print remains the cheapest, most accessible and therefore most dominant delivery mechanism in both developed and developing countries.

Education according to Dieter Lenzen, president of the Freie Universität Berlinbegan either millions of years ago or at the end . Education as a science cannot be separated from the educational traditions that existed before. Education was the natural response of early civilizations to the struggle of surviving and thriving as a culture.Adults trained the young of their society in the knowledge and skills they would need to master and eventually pass on. The evolution of culture, and human beings as a species depended on this practice of transmitting knowledge.In pre-literate societies this was achieved orally and through imitation. Story-telling continued from one generation to the next.