A History
of
Distance Learning
The
Rise of the
Telecourse
(Part 1 of
3)
by
Judah
Freed
As
far back as when American Philo Farnsworth was
developing the first viable television technology
in the 1930's, the dream was that the new medium
would help justify the belief of Burke and
Jefferson that an educated populace in any genuine
democracy can and usually will make reasonable
decisions about governing themselves .
Yet when commercial TV was
launched shortly after the end of World War II, the
driving force was earning private revenues, not
procuring public enlightenment. Still, the dream
survived.
Most agree the first true
educational television program was Sunrise
Semester, based in Chicago. From 1959 into the
early Sixties, Sunrise Semester featured a single
broadcaster, a teacher, standing before a class
with a camera shooting over the heads of the
students. Yet the effort was not economically
sustainable, and the effort soon ended.
Here we find the central
question for educational media. Lacking government
backing, how can educational media ventures pay
their own way?
Seeing the writing on the
chalkboard, California funded a two-year task force
(1970-1972) to design the television course or
"telecourse" of the future, an effort led by Coast
Community College vice chancellor, Dr. Bernard
Luskin. Authorized under the Title I community
service provision of the U.S. Higher Education Act,
the project involved all California community and
state colleges along with the University of
California. Working in 1972, the task force
predicted many of the technological innovations
that today we take for granted, including
development of the digital compact disk.
Luskin's task force
defined a telecourse as a complete course of study
in a given subject, not adjunct curricula like a
single movie, filmstrip, slide show, audiotape, or
vinyl record. Students are separated from the
teacher, standing or sitting before a camera in a
classroom or studio somewhere else, in real time or
not. Provisions must be made for such teaching
functions as answering student questions, giving
and grading tests, reporting student progress to
the school. All curricula must meet established
academic standards.
Assigned a team to develop
telecourses according to the new design, Luskin
applied a relatively simple business model that
still has value. Colleges and universities using
the telecourse would pay a licensee fee to the
telecourse distributor, which paid telecourse
producers, copyright to be negotiated.
Coordinating the
development, distribution and licensing of
telecourses was assigned to a brand new
institution, Coastline Community College, which
arranged for classes with top instructors to be
broadcast by public television station KOCE to
colleges, universities and libraries in Orange
County. Having no physical campus, Coastline was
the first "virtual college." By 1976, backed by
grants from Kellogg and other corporations,
Coastline was serving 18,500 students within a 150
square mile area of southern California.
About the same time
Coastline entered the telecourse business, so did
Dallas Community College. The key difference was
that Dallas started producing pre-packaged
telecourses on video tape for export to other
colleges. Their vision called for students choosing
from a menu of instructional material that they
could view any time, as opposed to only being able
to see a program on the day and time broadcast.
(The Dallas effort forecast the later call for
"video on demand" in preference over "appointment
TV.")
Responses from colleges
and universities taught Dallas that telecourses
based too closely on current events and the latest
research were soon out of date. Production and
distribution costs may never be recovered. They
evolved a policy of producing telecourses that
could hold up year after year, now called an
"evergreen" title because the material stays fresh
through many seasons.
Observing the success of
Dallas Community College in getting telecourses to
pay their way, Coast began producing and licensing
pre-packaged telecourses for use by other colleges,
their customers.
The California model
spread across the country, repeated during the
Eighties in Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, and
Florida. Each college added a variation on the
theme as the demand for college telecourses grew
year by year.
Observing this trend, the
quasi-government Public Broadcasting Service (PBS),
already invested in the children's television
efforts that produced Sesame Street with "Big
Bird," began producing full telecourses. The love
affair did not last, however. Dismayed by constant
budget shortfalls, in the late Eighties, PBS
settled on being a provider by satellite of adjunct
educational content, single programs and series
like Bill Nye: The Science Guy, which local PBS
stations can buy outright or license to air at
specified times for use by local schools and
colleges.
American efforts were
inspired and instructed by the distance learning
successes of British Open University, University
College Dublin, and state ETV efforts in Sweden,
among others, guided by the educational television
unit of the European Broadcasting Union, under
Rober Winter. He's backed development of a
pan-European satellite education network, a
world-class model system.
The seeds of industry have
been planted. Today, about 240 consortiums of
public and private educational and creative
enterprises in the U.S. are producing telecourses,
licensed by about a thousand colleges and
universities using the material as a regular part
of their degree programs. A parallel video
production and distribution industry has sprung up
serving the staff training and development needs of
corporations and businesses worldwide. A
substantial, variegated marketplace.
Go
to Part 2
For
More Information on Distance Learning:
Visit the: Online
Resources Page at ADEC
|
(c)
1999
by
Judah Ken
Freed.
Based upon the book, Financial
Opportunities in Educational
Television,
Financial Times Media & Telecoms,
London, 1998.
(ISBN 1-84073-016-1)
|
.
|
