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Re: Drucker revisited (fwd)
kim--
thanks for this post.
the bumper sticker on my car says "Kill Your Television"
and i found this line below just too ironic:
-->... and there will not be many school children
-->who will not have had some television in their educational experience . .
tv is certainly "educating" our children today.
and the question is:
can the Web be expected to do better?
---bert
On Tue, 4 Mar 1997, Kimberly Ryan wrote:
-->
-->
-->---------- Forwarded message ----------
-->Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 17:11:19 -0500
-->From: "Neal, Ed" <emneal.ctl@mhs.unc.edu>
-->To: learn@listserv.oit.unc.edu
-->Subject: Drucker revisited
-->
-->Roger Akers' recent posting of Peter Drucker's prediction of the demise
-->of Universities was interesting. It reminded me of a book I have that
-->was published in 1966: Murphey, J. & Gross, R. "Learning by
-->Television. " New York: The Fund for the Advancement of Education. The
-->last chapter of this work is entitled "The Future of ITV" and it contains
-->some predictions that sound suspiciously familiar:
-->
-->@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
-->
-->In 1961, Lester Asheim summarized the predictions of a group of
-->outstanding ITV experts in a chapter appearing in Educational Television:
-->The Next Ten Years. For the purposes of this report those same experts
-->were asked in 1965 to update their expectations for the future on the
-->basis of their experience in the intervening four years:
-->
-->Although in 1971 the normal road to the college degree is still likely to
-->be residence instruction, it is not impossible that as much as 50 percent
-->of the college degree program will be available for credit via television
-->. . .
-->
-->Not every school, rural and urban, will have television by 1971, but
-->probably every *major* school, college and university will have at least
-->*one* closed-circuit system, and there will not be many school children
-->who will not have had some television in their educational experience . .
-->.
-->
-->Some adaptation of the Stoddard Plan will be typical: part of the day
-->utilized in the large television class, and the rest in
-->smaller-than-usual groups for discussion and socialization. The exact
-->proportion in television and non-television classes is not yet
-->determined, and certainly it will differ for different kinds of subject
-->matter and at different levels. But the future will probably see
-->something like 20 minutes out of the hour given to television at the
-->elementary and secondary levels, and 30 minutes at the college level . .
-->.
-->
-->The greatest changes will be apparent in teaching method. ETV will
-->spearhead the movement toward the better use of instruction materials of
-->all kinds, with the emphasis not on the gadget but on communication.
-->There will be a tendency for the discussion groups to be even smaller
-->than the present classroom, with ability groupings to facilitate the
-->discussion. The emphasis on ability groupings will lead to greater
-->attention to the most able students, with greater reliance upon
-->independent study and the development of responsibility for learning in
-->the learner himself.
-->
-->School buildings will be much more flexible and adaptable, with portable
-->soundproof partitions and similar features designed with ETV in mind . .
-->.
-->
-->The respondents predicted the continued growth in the use of TV for
-->direct instruction; flexibility and eclecticism in the use of
-->closed-circuit and broadcasting systems; greater and more reliable
-->support for instructional television in school budgets; an increased
-->number of expert practitioners; further reductions in the cost of ITV;
-->and greater regional cooperation and federal support leading to higher
-->quality. They expected to see libraries of videotapes and numerous
-->special uses for ITV such as international conversations for language
-->students via satellite, and preschool programs modeled on the lines of
-->Operation Head Start.
-->
-->A documentary on civil rights, the international programs beamed from
-->Telstar, Robert Frost reading his own poems, the unforgettable scenes of
-->President Kennedy's funeral or Pope Paul VI's visit to the United States,
-->the debate and teach-ins on Vietnam--it doesn't matter whether a student
-->views these by himself or with five or six of his fellows or in a group
-->of 100 or 500. But with instructional programs pinpointed in purpose,
-->and with TV integrated into the classroom and made flexible, ITV could be
-->used for individual as well as mass instruction, and for highly focused
-->purposes in between."
-->
-->@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
-->
-->Of course we know that all these predictions came to pass and that
-->Instructional Television transformed American education in the 1970's.
-->One final note: A previous chapter, entitled "ITV at the Crossroads,"
-->begins with a 1966 quotation from Lester Nelson, the Acting Director of
-->the National Project for Improvement of Televised Instruction. Nelson
-->wrote: "We're at the crossroads. We've got the hardware. There's more
-->government money available than ever before, and more is promised. We
-->have the chance to do more educational good in the next five years than
-->in the past fifteen."
-->
-->*************************************************
-->Ed Neal (ed_neal@unc.edu)
-->Director of Faculty Development
-->Center for Teaching and Learning
-->Campus Box #3470
-->University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
-->Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3470
--> Ph: (919) 966-1289
--> Fx: (919) 962-5236
-->*************************************************
-->Human history becomes more and
-->more a race between education and
-->catastrophe. H.G. Wells
-->*************************************************
-->
-->
-->
========================================================
Bert J Dempsey, Assistant Professor
School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
CB 3360, 100 Manning Hall
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3360
Phone: 919-962-8066 (direct)
Phone: 919-962-8366 (to leave voice messages)
Fax: 919-962-8071
Office Hours: by appointment
Email: bert@ils.unc.edu
Home Page: http://ils.unc.edu/~bert/
========================================================
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