Online education does not belong to correspondence or self-study. With the development of science and technology and the popularity of the Internet, online education, as a new educational model, has gradually entered people's field of vision. However, many people's cognition of online education still stays in the category of traditional correspondence and self-taught examination. In fact, online education is a brand-new form of education.

First of all, correspondence and self-taught exams are both traditional educational models. Correspondence education refers to learners' distance learning and examination in educational institutions by means of letters, mails or express delivery. Self-taught examination refers to learners' self-study, self-registration to take the examination and obtaining academic certificates through the examination. Both of these education methods require learners to complete tasks and exams within a specified time, but they cannot flexibly and independently arrange learning progress and time. On the other hand, online education is different. It adopts the distance education mode based on Internet technology. Learners can freely arrange their learning progress and time according to their own time and ability, and are not limited by region and time.

Secondly, the teaching resources of online education are more diverse. Traditional correspondence education and self-taught education are limited by conditions and have relatively few teaching resources, while online education can make full use of the advantages of the Internet and integrate various teaching resources. Learners can obtain a large number of multimedia teaching resources such as video, audio, pictures and words through the network, and also participate in online discussion, interactive communication and other teaching activities to make teaching more vivid and vivid.

Finally, the quality and effect of online education have been further improved. The traditional correspondence and self-taught education lacks real-time interaction and personalized guidance, and the teaching effect is relatively poor. On the other hand, online education can improve the teaching quality and effect through online interaction and personalized guidance, and learners can interact with teachers and other learners in real time to get more personalized guidance and support.

To sum up, online education is not only an extension of traditional correspondence and self-taught examination, but a brand-new form of education. It adopts the distance education mode based on Internet technology, and the teaching resources are richer and more diverse, and the teaching quality and effect have been further improved. Network education will become the new trend of education development in the future, providing convenient, efficient and high-quality education services for more learners.