The Social Agenda for Distance Education

Abstract

Until the turn of the century, the discourse of distance education was essentially about access: trying to reach the underserved populations and the second chance and non-traditional learners and helping developing countries educate large numbers of learners with limited resources. But Dr. Mark Bullen argues that with the emergence of online learning in the late 1990s, this social agenda of distance education has given way to a more functionalist and technologically deterministic agenda. (Duration: 6:25) // Issues in eLearning & Distance Education Video Series, by Dr. Mark Bullen, Education Specialist for eLearning at the Commonwealth of Learning. Produced by the Commonwealth of Learning, July 2014. // Resource contains a video link as well as a document of the transcript.