television, it's different. We see the thing just the way it is happening. There's no chance for them to leave anything out, or to put anything in. We'd spot any funny business like that. So, when you see something on television, you know that's just the way it is.

Not only do children tend to take television somewhat more seriously than they do other communications media, but parents seem to be generally agreed that their children "learn lots from watching TV." Thus, even without any promotion on the part of the school, community support for the use of television in education is given.

Considered as an instructional medium, precisely what is television"visual aid" or radio? Is it the radio-broadcast counterpart of the sound film, or is it "radio with pictures"? The teaching-films specialist might say it is the former. The educational broadcaster would consider it to be "just an improved version of what we've been doing for the past 30 yearsbroadcasting." To the classroom teacher long accustomed to using films, it seems at first to be something of an improved, self-projecting sound film that is ready for instant use at the flick of a switch, and which does not require rewinding and repacking films for return shipment on or before a specified penalty deadline. To the teacher already using radio systematically, it is "radio with built-in illustrative materials." All agree on one point, namely, that school use of television should make it possible to take much of the "required course-of-study content" out of the realm of academic abstraction, and invest it with the attributes of living reality.

Interestingly enough, however, teachers usually discover, when they start using television programs with their classes, that even this newest of mass communications media is not wholly without its limitations. True enough, teachers accustomed to using films find that they can turn a television program on or off without all the chores involved in using films, but it comes as something of a surprise that, as in the case of using "live" radio broadcasts, each progi am has to be used at the time it is on the air, rather than at the particular time the class group is ready for it, and that the teacher does not have an opportunity to preview a program before showing it to the class group. More serious still, they find that a television program cannot be stopped for questions or class discussion and resumed again from that point as can be done when using projection materials and recordings. Teachers accustomed to using radio find it somewhat easier to adjust to the use of television programs, since they have long been familiar with schedule matching limitation of broadcast media. As a consequence, most of them tend to regard the educational potentialities of television rather highly.

Considered from the standpoint of program production, television seems closely related to the sound motion picture. Certainly its end productthe picture that appears on the screen of the viewing tube-is not unlike what appears on the screen in the case of the sound motion picture.

Moreover, television broadcasting makes liberal use of sound motionpicture films and, in its "live" broadcasts, it employs many of the camera techniques of film making. However, with "live" television programing, camera pickup must proceed continuously from the start of a broadcast to its conclusion. There is no opportunity, as there is in film production, to produce a show one scene at a time, previewing the film of each scene before starting production of the next one, and doing "retakes" wherever desirable. Neither is there any opportunity to edit out portions of a show in process of being telecast, or to add to action sequences. Production of "live" television broadcasts is subject to the same exacting requirements as the production of "live" radio broadcasts. Thus, it appears that educational specialists experienced in producing educational radio programs must, at least in the initial stages of educational TV program development, be prepared to undertake the major portion of the responsibility for "live-broadcast" programing, borrowing liberally from the experience of professional teaching films producers for the staging and camera techniques needed to supplement their aural broadcasting "know-how."

Perhaps, then, the question of whether considered as a medium of instruction, television is properly to be classified as a "visual aid” or as "radio" is academic. As has been pointed out already, it offers certain of the advantages claimed for the sound motion picture, and certain of those claimed for radio. Similarly, it suffers certain of the limitations identified with each. An attempt to fit it into either one or the other of these two categories might even have the effect of limiting television's potential usefulness in the schools.

More Than a Visual Aid

Television then is neither visual aid nor radio- -as an instructional medium, it is independent of both. Selection of the instructional medium to be applied in any particular instance, then, becomes a matter of comparing the three with respect to how well the unique advantages and limitations of each fits the conditions under which any given teaching job must be done. Thus, the primary emphasis is on the teaching purpose, rather than on instructional media, themselves. Instead of the attitude, "Lucky me, to have such a powerful instructional medium at my command! Wonder what I can use it for today?" the teacher's orientation becomes one of: "This is the specific instructional job that has to be done! Which one or ones of the instructional media immediately at my disposal will enable me to accomplish it with the greatest dispatch?” This does not mean that active identification with the work of any one of the established instructional-media organizations is to be discouraged. On the contrary, it must be said that it is largely due to the careful and methodical work of such professional groups that these instructional media

have been brought to their present stage of development. It is especially important, however, that the individual classroom teacher, instead of limiting himself to mastery of any one single medium, undertake to acquire a working knowledge of all of them.

Finally, educators would be well advised not to make the mistake of underrating television's educational potentialities. True enough, it is still a relatively new medium, but there is a steadily mounting accumulation of evidence that it can and does serve worth-while educational applications. Teachers who have used television programs with their class groups report marked improvement in attention, and better-than-average retention of program content. Other teachers who use home TV-program viewing (either voluntary viewing or assigned viewing) as a basis for classgroup discussion and analysis invariably report improvement in interest. Most reports of television-program use claim a noticeable increase in eagerness, on the part of students, to participate actively in group discussion and analysis of topics of current interest.

These effects might be accounted for, in part at least, by the attentioncompelling novelty appeal of television. It is possible, also, that part of this apparent effectiveness of television in stimulating intellectual curiosity of students might be explained on the hypothesis that teachers, by virtue of their believing television to be an exceptionally powerful instructional medium, tend, unconsciously, to expend the extra amount of effort needed to get superior results. Be that as it may, there can be little doubt that television is already exerting a powerful influence on public thinking in relation to education. Children, already accustomed to viewing television at home, tend to look upon its use in school as an extension of one of the more pleasurable aspects of their out-of-school world, and, in consequence, come to like school better. Hence, they tend to do better work, to make better marks, and, finally, to become more facile in telling, at home, what they have learned at school. The final link in our self-perpetuating circuit of cause-effect sequences, of course, is that parents, gratified at being able at long last, to get some tangible indication as to what their children are learning at school, and assuming, since these reported learning experiences are often linked up with television viewing, that television is the all-important tool teachers need in order to make their work maximally effective, become all the more eager that their schools use television.

Part II. What Schools and Colleges

Can Do With TV

ANY ATTEMPT to trace the usual course by which the use of tele

vision comes to be established as an integral part of the over-all instructional program of a school system or college must consider it from two separate standpoints-that of instructional uses of television programs believed to possess educational significance, and that of production of television programs aimed at serving specific educational purposes.

Use of Television Programs

Usually, school use of television programs begins informally with class-group discussion of the programs children see during out-of-school hours. In some instances, the teacher encourages such discussions in an attempt to identify any newly awakened interests that can be used as the basis for class projects and units of study. In others, the teacher is interested in discovering whether or not the pupils have acquired any new understandings that can be applied to class work currently in progress to supplememt conventional types of instructional materials. In still others, the spontaneous interests of pupils in discussing their out-of-school television viewing is utilized as a convenient means of access to clues as to individual and group motivations. In some instances, teachers use these discussions of television programs as an opportunity for helping young people to examine, compare, and evaluate the ways in which they are being affected by this aspect of their every-day environment. All of these have one thing in common: they utilize out-of-school program viewing that is entirely voluntary on the part of children.

Very early in the course of using television, however, this type of television program use gives way to a somewhat-more-systematic type where the class-group discussions are based on planned out-of-school viewing. In some cases, the study assignment given a class may include questions concerning topics with which it is expected forthcoming telecasts will treat. In others, pupils are advised to watch forthcoming

telecasts for any information or commentary on specified topics. Instances have even been reported where out-of-school television-program viewing has been assigned as homework.

Finally, as the teachers in a given locality develop effective instructional techniques for use with television programs, and as television programs designed to serve specific instructional purposes become available locally, a more advanced type of television-program use gradually evolves, where complete instructional routine to be used in any given subject area and at any given grade level is planned specifically to fit a particular program or program series, in much the same way as has been done in the past with respect to radio programs.

Teachers who have had an opportunity to use television programs with their classes invariably comment on the effect which viewing such programs appears to have in encouraging spontaneous class-group discussion. In the past, teachers have found it difficult to draw some pupils into group discussions; today they report that every member of a class group is eager to "tell what he saw on television" and to express his reactions to it. The appeal which television holds for young people even well upward in the junior high school grades, is so great that simply making a conventional rote-learning drill into a simulated telecast can often "work magic" in relation to the mastery of required subject content.

Precisely how far into the future this novelty appeal of television will continue to be an effective factor in motivating the learning efforts of young people, nobody can say. Certainly, some decline in its motivating power is to be expected. Fortunately, however, the claims for television's educational utility do not rest on this basis, alone. Already, television has amply demonstrated its ability to provide certain types of worthwhile instructional content not readily available from any other single source. This is especially true in the case of public events which offer exceptionally high of-the-moment educational potential, but the continuing value of which appears insufficient to warrant the expense of filming them. Some of these, of course, can be reported adequately by radio. (In fact, it is here that radio has made one of its greatest contributions.) In other instances, radio would be inadequate because important visual aspects necessary to the ready comprehension of the event cannot be translated convincingly into words and non-verbal sound. For reporting events of this nature, television has shown itself to be without equal.

For certain types of content, television has been found to be more effective than any other single communications medium. For example, in the case of telecasts in which persons prominent in public life are participants, the individual viewer is able not only to follow their respective "officially stated" opinions of the moment; he can watch their facial expressions and their gestures-note momentary tensing of facial