This paper discusses four major developments in the use of media at the Open University: (1) the move from radio to audiocassettes; (2) use of broadcast television vs. videocassettes; (3) increased use of interactive video; and (4) CYCLOPS tutorials, which provide immediate two-way communication via the telephone together with visual pictures.…

This paper reviews the use of different audio-visual media in distance education, including terrestrial broadcasting, cable satellite, videocassettes, audiocassettes, telephone teaching, viewdata, teletext, microcomputers, and interactive video. Trends in distance education are also summarized and related to trends in media technology development.…

Focusing on why computer-controlled videodiscs are not more widely available in British schools, this brief essay considers questions considering the issues of funding for hardware, videodisc production costs, and technological difficulties. Promotion of such technology by the National Interactive Video Centre, the British Broadcasting…

The Open University from its inception in 1969 has been a technologically based university. It uses technology to deliver high quality, specially designed teaching materials to large numbers of adult students throughout Britain, and increasingly abroad, who study at home. The Open University's teaching system has remained basically unchanged since…

The presentational power of television gives it unique teaching characteristics and it is a source of a wide variety of learning material that would be unavailable to learners in any other way. For instance, it can be used to: (1) demonstrate experiments or experimental situations; (2) explain principles involving movement over space and/or time;…