ABSTRACT
In this chapter we reflect upon our experience of Project @THENE (Accessing Technology for Higher Education and New Enterprise), a distance learning programme designed to enhance access to information technology-related higher education for mature black women, which uses the multimedia technologies which are its subjects of study as one of the modes of delivery. We consider the extent to which the use of new technologies for educational purposes may contribute to the breaking down of social inequalities in access to higher education and in relation to the acquisition of technical knowledge and skills. We contrast the rhetoric in current educational policy documents about new technologies and social change with our experience of using new technologies for educational purposes, pointing to the considerable challenges and tensions – economic, technical and pedagogic – faced by learners and tutors attempting to operate in a virtual learning community. The image of tending to the tamagotchi arose in a project meeting where a colleague likened the needs within a distance learning group to those of her son’s electronic pet, for which she was responsible during school hours.
