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Educational Experiments and Change

Alternatives to traditional higher education emerged in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s. Trends such as escalating college costs, a renewed interest in nontraditional education by a more mobile population, and success of Britain's Open University paved the way for numerous experiments in higher education (Gerrity, 1976).
Programs such as the University Without Walls, external degree programs, and imitations of the British Open University were encouraged by large grants from the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.

The instructional technology movement was defining its purpose during the late 1960s and moving further away from equating instructional technology with audio-visual devices (Reiser, 1987). In 1970, the Department of Audiovisual Instructional changed its name to the Association for Educational Communication and Technology, and defined educational technology as "a field involved in the facilitation of human learning through the systematic identification, development, organization, and utilization of a full range of learning resources ....(AECT, 1972, pp. 36-37). The same period saw an increased attention to instructional technology and "systems" approaches to the design of instruction based on theories of cognitive psychology and individualized instruction (Reiser, 1987).

Distance education programs which exist today have a wide range of approaches. The CALS program offers independent study courses through computer networking and relies heavily on computer-based student contact and feedback. Nova University offers computer-delivered instruction; and the students communicate with instructors through electronic mail, attend some concentrated centralized class sessions, and meet in weekend cluster groups. The Mind Extension University offers undergraduate and graduate degrees through cable networks, and it supplements video courses with texts and other collateral materials.

In summary, the history of distance education shows a field that appears to be in a constant state of evolution, that is supported by theory, but in need of research which can fill many unanswered questions. The historical view of distance education shows a stream of new ideas and technologies balanced against a steady resistance to change, and it often places technology in the light of promising more than it has delivered. History shows nontraditional education trying to blend with traditional education while striving to meet the challenge of constantly changing learning theories and evolving technologies.

An even greater accomplishment (Wood and Wylie, 1977, p. 209) was that the MPATI project got educators from the six-state region to work together to select curriculum and to design and produce "the best example of an agreed-upon body of inter-institutional curriculum materials." And finally, it succeed in organizing hundreds of autonomous school districts to work together for a common educational goal.

The number of educational television stations grew more rapidly in the 1960s and, by 1972, 233 educational stations existed (Carnegie Commission, 1979). Ohio University, University of Texas and the University of Maryland were among the earliest universities to create networks to reach for both on-campus and off-campus student populations (Brientenfield, 1968), and many universities were considering how to bring distance learning to select student populations.

By the mid 1960s, much of the interest in funding instructional television had abated, and the Ford Foundation shifted its support to public television. Much of the blame was placed on the mediocre quality of the instructional programming which was often little more than a teacher delivering a lecture (Reiser, 1987).

The 1967 Carnegie Commission on Higher Education concluded that "the role played in formal education by instructional television has been on the whole a small one... With minor exceptions, the total disappearance of instructional television would leave the educational system fundamentally unchanged" (pp. 80-81). Reasons given for instructional television not being adopted included teacher resistance to television in the classroom, the expense of the television systems, and the inability of television alone to meet the various conditions for student learning (Reiser, 1987).

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, microwave technology developed, costs went down, and universities began to set up microwave networks to take advantage of the Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS) authorized by the Federal Communications Commission. The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education predicted that, by the year 2000, more than 80 percent of off-campus and 10 to 20 percent of on-campus instruction would take place through telecommunications (Carnegie Commission, 1972).

Systems utilizing ITFS technology were able to reach regional campuses and other universities, but it remained a closed circuit concept (Wood and Wylie, 1977) reaching only the sites linked to the system and not the general public. It did appear that, for the first time, distant students were considered part of the extended classroom, and television existed to access those not able to come to campus (Dean, 1982).

In fact, the 1990s are experiencing the emergence of digital media which has the potential to blur the lines which separate various media, as predicted by Baltzer (1985).
The issue of media vs. method is likely to continue to be debated in relation to distance education, but there is no doubt that distance education is different from other instructional approaches. A study by Gehlauf, Shatz and Frye (1991) on the reaction of teachers to the teaching experience in the traditional classroom compared to interactive television shows teachers wanting to cling to more traditional approaches but finding these methods not as effective, teachers feeling the need to be better organized, and feeling the need for training for distance education teaching.