The academic reputation of distance education (DE) has traditionally suffered from the use of inefficient one‐way communication styles. Numerous new technologies have been developed to overcome this problem. Primarily Internet‐based, these range from text‐conferencing and ‘blogging’ to real‐time audio/video‐conferencing. Traditional academics still tend to regard DE as a poor secondary option for students, however, and many of their criticisms remain justified, for many technologies are inaccessible to the students and their pedagogical uses are inconsistent. To this day, the pedagogy and technologies of DE are imperfectly bridged. The present paper will describe the pedagogical implications of traditional and new technologies and the prospects for an uniquely Asian DE approach.

distance education, technology, pedagogy