I'll reflect on and absorb the H818 academic stuff in due course - somewhere in the reading a couple of authors were mentioned so while the pressure is low I've been reading Lawrence Lessig 'Remix' and re-reading, possibly for the third time, Martin Weller's 'The Digital Scholar'.
Open Learning is with us.
Whilst more people globally will get a slice of the tertiary education pizza, there will still be those that who are stuck on the edge with the crust while the 'privileged' few get the real substance. This applies between 'first' and 'third' worlds, but also locally in an education catchment area - when it comes to the democratization of education through e-learning some are more equal than others through having the kit, accessibility, inclination, support and opportunity.
Speaking with a school friend I'd not spoken to since we were 10 or 11 we got onto those OU broadcasts in the middle of the night, and then the BBC 'Trade Test Transmissions' - how else could we possibly know anything about how the stain glass windows were made for Liverpool Cathedral on how animals were rescued during the flooding of the Zambezi?
Repetition, rich content and a dearth of anything else to watch.
In sharp contrast 'open' today, and TV too means everything and anything. How can anything stand out?
Because the search engines offer it, because of branding and association, through word of mouth through your social and other networks i.e. as a consequence of the nature of your 'connectedness'.