Technology Innovations and the Development of Distance Education: Korean experience

Research indicates that information and communication technologies have the ability to provide a rich learning environment in a flexible, effective, and interactive manner provided careful design and implementation approaches are adopted. This article examines the Korea National Open University's (KNOU) four recent technology initiatives and the major design and implementation strategies of those initiatives, and evaluates those strategies with regards to the development of distance education. KNOU's experiments have clearly proven that even though there can be little doubt that technology has had a considerable influence in the development of distance education, it is instructional design, not technology, that is at the center of quality distance education. In addition to instructional design, instructors' facilitating skills and learners' self-directed study skills are also important in improving the effectiveness of distance education.