Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

Are You Ready For The New AV Aae? by Harvey W. Marks J_ HE other evening, I, along with possibly thousands of other persons, got a "kink" in my neck watching a bright hght move across the sky. Every 123 minutes, Echo I Satellite makes a complete orbit of the earth. It is so regular that its exact schedule can be published in advance. Here is a large inflated balloon carrying no instruments, no transmitters, no recording deviceslaunched into space for just one purpose: to provide a means of long-distance radio, telephone, and television transmission. Actual use of Echo Satellites for this purpose is still in the future. But, before long it will be possible for a person to sit in his home in Cairo, Illinois, and watch an event taking place at that moment in Cairo, Egypt! Echo I Satellite is only an experiment of what is to come. It holds the potential for real educational use, however. Today in the mid-section of our country a more practical experiment is being made. High over the farm-lands of Indiana, a specially equipped plane circles. This is no ordinary plane, for it has been modified to become the first flying television station. But most important of all, it is an educational television station. It covers an area of hundreds of square miles where school children (and adults as well) gather around their TV sets to receive instruction from some of the country's finest instructors. Now it is possible for people even in the most remote areas to have the finest educational facilities. These are but two examples of the tremendous changes that are about to take place in the area of education. Page after page could be written in recounting the many new educational devices that are now available, as has been done in recent issues of this magazine. Last week it was the sound motion picture— yesterday it was the language lab— today it is air-borne television— tomorrow it will be teaching machines— and next week— what? New things are being developed so rapidly that today's teacher is hard pressed to keep up with them all. Pupils are learning more in less time than ever before in the history of mankind. They have to! There is so much more to learn, and yet there are no more hours in the day or days in a week than there ever were. Not only education, but industry and the Church has benefited by these technological changes. Today Florida real estate is being sold in every state of the Union— or at least, it could be!— by means of the sound filmstrip. Insurance salesmen are coming to realize more and more that their best selling tool is the compact little unit that combines a projector, rear projection screen, and record player. Personnel managers of department stores are saving hours of time training new clerks in the intricacies of filling out order books with the help of the over-head projector. There is no such thing as a sales meeting without a variety of audiovisuals: motion pictures; filmstrips; flannel board; the newer "hook and loop" board; opaque projector; over-head transparencies (many of them now animated), and many other techniques. Churches in many parts of the nation are following the lead of the insurance salesman, and are taking their story right to the homes by means of the little sound filmstrip. Sunday school pupils are learning more during summer months in spite of the absence of vacationing teachers through an expanded use of motion pictures. New people are being brought into the Church by means of special film series, visualized Bible studies, and similar activities. No longer are missions in other lands just a name, but are a living arm of the Church, known and understood by its people because they have been there through the medium of the motion picture. Many new improvements have contributed to make more effective the presentation of the message to more people in less time— and more pleasantly. Strip-in threading and push-button controls have made the operation of the projector, both motion picture and still, easier for the untrained. The introduction of the aspheric type condensor lens has made possible the doubling of the amount of light on the screen from the same lamp. New types of lamps with various kinds of built-in reflectors make possible the use of lower wattage lamps with improved illumination. Development of better rear projection screens that give more uniform illumination, even under difficult circumstances, have helped to make projected audiovisuals more usable. New types of amplifiers— of phonograph pickups and photoelectric cells— of higher fidelity speakers and microphones, have all improved the standards of the projected picture and sound. The quality of the productions themselves have beeni so vastly improved that they have been taken out of the catagory of the amateur, and have become quite professional in both content and technical quality. In the future there will no doubt be light weight tape recorders made possible through the use of transistorized amplifiers and more efficient, but small 330 Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — July, 1961 '