There exist two commonly held views regarding the use of multimedia and Internet technology within learning environments. Many educators believe that the presence of content material on CD-ROM or the Internet will help students reach their learning goals, and students "like" multimedia and/or Internet based delivery. This paper explores these views through analysis of the design and development of an eLearning solution. The paper concludes as follows. The use of a supported eLearning environment for the subject "Issues in the Design and Delivery of Multimedia" provided students with a valuable learning resource. While students enjoyed ease of access, intellectual challenge and willingly contributed to the online fora, the majority of high level discussion and complex reasoning still took place within the on campus classroom. Within distributed learning environments, multimedia and Internet technology provide a vehicle for the transmission of content material, in the same way print materials, and audio/video cassettes have traditionally done. Technical capabilities aside, it matters little whether content is delivered via CD-ROM, the Internet, audio or video cassette, or even print based materials, as these technologies merely provide the substrate to the learning resource. Unless the subject structure and content is based on sound pedagogical theory, and sits within a coherent, supported learning framework, it will make no difference whether cutting edge multimedia and Internet technology have been used. The content will make little sense to the learner. (Contains 11 references and 3 figures.) (Author/AEF)