HAS EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION ARRIVED?

After nearly 20 years of educational television, it can still be argued that ETV has not yet ‘arrived’ in the sense of being an accepted, taken‐for‐granted teaching tool. Although production standards are high, both technically and educationally, and although applications of television to learning are well established, television has certain limitations and deficiencies as a presentation medium. This paper discusses these shortcomings from the stand‐points of large‐group viewing, in lecture theatres and classrooms, and of individual study, and suggests that technical developments now in sight could overcome the limitations, to allow ETV to become the normal presentation medium in education and training     

TELEVISION AS AN EDUCATIONAL AND OUTREACH MEDIUM FOR OLDER ADULTS

This paper examines the medium of television as a means of education and outreach for older adults. It looks at positive and negative potentials of television. Particular attention is given to public television, cable television and videotapes. The viewing patterns, social and psychological functions of television, and the programming preferences of older adults are explored in terms of their relevance to educators and service providers.     

EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION, 1969‐1979

The author, Principal of a College of Education, reviews the changes that have occurred in educational television in the past ten years in Britain, and the reasons for these changes. If educational television has had a raw deal, some at least of the responsibility for this lies at the door of its own practitioners, who need to try to look ahead with greater foresight to the coming decade.     

SOME UNIQUE EDUCATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TELEVISION AND SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

The author attempts to distinguish those unique educational characteristics of television which separate it from other media and which have implications for teaching and learning: distributional and social characteristics, control characteristics, and symbolic (audiovisual) characteristics. The discussion is based on published surveys and on research carried out by the author and his colleagues at the Open University. Ten key issues are identified which relate to the question of how people learn from television, as distinct from other media.     

SOUTH AFRICA ‐ EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION IN ACTION

The article briefly describes the television facility at the University of the Witwatersrand and the work of the Central Television Service, which is threefold; producing teaching/learning/research/documentary material for a university of 84 departments, over 11,000 students, and an academic staff of approximately 900; producing material for the University as a corporate body, i.e. material of historical and/or sociological significance in interview or documentary form; producing material, financed by the private sector, for ‘black’ education ‐ in industry and in the school. This is pioneer work which presents a unique challenge and enormous difficulties.     

THE IMPACT OF TELEVISION IN THE SOCIAL CONTEXT

Studies which purport to demonstrate the adverse effects of television on the behaviour and moral standards of young people are consistent in that they refer to the media in isolation. It is frequently forgotten that television is merely one of many cues available to the child. Parents, peers and the demand characteristics of situations are more important as determiners of our social behaviour.

Experimental studies have demonstrated, however, that some children are more prone to be influenced by television than others, variables such as intelligence and the lack of a specific competence being of importance. Experiments are discussed which demonstrate that the extent of a child's pre‐experience affects the amount he is influenced by filmed models, and also that working‐class children are more influenced than their middle‐class counterparts because of their more limited experiences. It is suggested that a child's experiences “innoculate” him against the influence of television. Studies which show that children from relatively deprived home backgrounds are less able to fantasise and therefore are more vulnerable to the impact of television support the idea that the more deprived the child's own environment the greater the impact of television.     

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COLOUR IN LEARNING FROM EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION

The author reviews recent research comparing both the relative learning gains and relative attitudes of students using colour or monochrome television material. It is concluded that all users of educational television should resist the temptation to spend large sums on colour television equipment merely because colour is now widely preferred by society at large.     

RECALL OF BRIEF TELEVISION NEWS ITEMS: EFFECTS OF PRESENTATION MODE,PICTURE CONTENT AND SERIAL POSITION

An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of presentation mode, picture content and serial position upon the recall of brief television news items. Fifteen items were presented in either video or audio‐only mode to 40 subjects. Within the video mode, five items contained film footage, five contained still pictures and five consisted of the newscaster only.

Recall of the items was significantly better following video presentation than after audio‐only presentation; and in the video mode, film items were recalled significantly more often than still picture items, which were in turn recalled significantly more often than no‐picture items. Significant serial position effects occurred across all items in the audio mode, and over still picture and no‐picture items, but not film items in the video mode.

The results are discussed in terms of various imagery hypotheses.     

EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION IN THE RESOURCES PLANNING INFRASTRUCTURE OF LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITIES

This paper summarizes some of the findings in the first part of a three part IBA Fellowship study on curriculum decision‐making and educational television in secondary schools in England, Wales and Scotland. It focuses on the local education authority (LEA) context in which teachers and others make decisions about using educational television programmes to serve curricular goals. Four LEAs were selected for detailed study and interviews were conducted with officials and teachers to investigate the relationship between LEA decisions and decision‐makers and school decisions and decision‐makers.     

LEARNING POTENTIAL ASSESSMENT AND ADAPTATION TO THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT: THE USEFULNESS OF THE ACFS FOR ASSESSING IMMIGRANT PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

The objective of this study was to test the usefulness of dynamic assessment for determining cognitive abilities such as classification, auditory and visual memory, pattern sequences, perspective taking, verbal planning, learning potential, and metacognition in immigrant preschool children with and without competence in the dominant language (Spanish). One hundred seventy‐six preschool‐children were distributed in three groups according to the cultural background of their parents (native Spanish/Spanish‐speaking immigrants/non‐Spanish speaking immigrants). The children were assessed by means of the K‐BIT, the Application of Cognitive Functions Scale (ACFS), and metacognition, language competence and academic performance estimates. The results show that although there are initial differences in execution between the two groups (Spanish/immigrants), there are no differences with regard to learning potential. The study also demonstrates the importance of behavioral, attitudinal, and metacognitive variables in children's test execution and academic performance.     

TELEVISION AND THE DEAF

Few television programmes are designed for the deaf viewer, partly because the potential audience is small, partly because production problems are manifest. In this paper, first delivered at the 1979 Conference of the Association, two speakers describe the development of series of television programmes tailor‐made for the profoundly deaf, and their usage in a school for such children. The first part of the paper is by Tony Wise, the last part by Ray Hill.     

THE CELTIC LANGUAGES AND TELEVISION

The article proposes the subtitling of English television programmes in the Celtic languages and of Celtic language programmes in English in order to serve the Celtic speaking minorities in Britain and to produce an appreciation of the Celtic languages among English speaking viewers. Parallels are drawn between the proposed British bilingual project and those in other countries for deaf viewers and for speakers of minority languages. Results of a survey of English and Welsh viewers are reported, and difficulties such as viewer resistance, cost, etc., of implementing a bilingual subtitling program in Britain are discussed.     

TELEVISION IN EDUCATION AND TRAINING

It gives me great pleasure to be with you this evening as part of your Annual Conference. The Conference theme. Television in Education and Training, is a demanding one, but one to which we are all able to contribute from our different backgrounds and experiences