This article discusses the use of technology of distance education in the teaching and learning process in higher education. The technology of distance education is defined as a system of methods, specific tools and forms by means of which the content of the education is transmitted and the goal-directed implementation of the aggregate set of pedagogical procedures which regulate the activity of the students, the structure and development of that activity, is effectuated (Andreev 1999, p. 139). Of the great diversity of present-day technologies that are used in the teaching and learning process, the technology of distance education represents a modified technology that is more in keeping with the needs of the times, the basis of which consists of intensive, independent work that makes use of modern computer systems and means of communication and transmission of data. A brief analysis of the components of the technology of distance education shows that the technology can be used in the traditional educational forms of the teaching and learning process. At the same time, the technology of distance education makes it possible to raise the level of independent effort on the part of both the students in the regular daytime form of instruction (information support of the process of the students' direction of their own learning activity, comprehensive learning methodology support) and those who are enrolled by correspondence (in which the students have access to learning methodology and administration and management information thanks to the appropriate technologies and technical tools).