| HE Higher Education (2008) | |||||||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||||||
| While government aims to increase online access for UK citizens, there is still a large group for whom the only bridge across the ‘digital divide ’ is Digital TV. The eLearning Place (TeLP) project has created a learning environment to which courses can be published simultaneously to DiTV and the Internet and accessed through personal accounts offering interactivity through chat and messageboards. Insight into the potential of DiTV was provided by feedback from a self-selected sample from the significant number of unsolicited potential learners who located The eLearning Place by browsing. Having registered, these people were invited to provide further information about their DiTV learning interests and needs. While DiTV has to overcome i) the shortage of available content published to the new medium, and ii) the technological limitations of current set top boxes before it can compete on a par with Internet access, a productive intermediate niche for DiTV can be suggested. The tailoring of content to ensure its suitability for the DiTV medium is one important consideration. Another is to use DiTV as a medium to involve excluded groups in learning by providing ‘taster’ courses for potential learners in an informal learning context. Such provision will enable learners to gain confidence and motivation, as well as information that will pave the way to their participation in more formal kinds of learning. | |||||||||||||||
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