Distance Education And The New Technologies

Abstract

I have this challenge to describe to you in ten minutes the world of distance education - an educational sector that is probably the fastest growing in the world, has some 867 institutions, uses, both experimentally or developmentally, every known communication technology and reaches out to about 10 million off-campus learners in their homes, work places, clubs and regular classrooms. The past and present successes of distance education itself are good reasons for a longer discussion but the future direction of the practice and its enormous potential to educate the world would warrant at some point, a more in-depth consideration by this audience because in one way or another, distance educators are going to be working with broadcasters even more intensely than they have ever done before. In the ten minutes I have, let me make 9 points - six on the application of the technology to education and three on its implications to the practice.