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

'OXZECflLST DA VI and the Future by Robert C. Snider X HE future of the audiovisual movement and the future of American education are so closely joined that it is difficult and perhaps futile to consider their futures as isolated entities. Today major changes are taking place in American education and all of these changes will directly influence our own field of audiovisual instruction. Although some of these changes have been developed and pioneered in schools by audiovisual specialists, many of them are changes that have germinated elsewhere and are growing to have considerable effect on audiovisual instruction. More and more audiovisual directors today are concerned with problems of adapting new technological developments to the teachinglearning process. Whether we in the audiovisual field have been leaders or followers in our relationship to the total educational movement is basically an academic question. The important point is that we are an integral part of the teaching profession. Our future role as leaders and specialists within this profession can only be predicted in terms of how effectively we are able to relate ourselves to this profession and to new developments within this profession. In relating ourselves to the teaching profession, we have an increasing responsibihty to serve as a bridge between technology and teachers. Since it was established 36 years ago, the Department of Audio-Visual Instruction of the National Education Association has been building on a solid foundation, for it is a part of the teaching profession and in recent years its growth has been phenomenal. In the past decade DAVI has become a firmly established, autonomous department of the NEA with its own annual national convention, its own periodicals and a membership that is rapidly approaching the 5,000 mark. ( During the past nine years, DAVI membership has increased by more than 400 per cent. ) An excellent liaison between DAVI and the teaching profession exists in a working relationship between DAVI staff members and the total NEA headquarters staff in Washington. The executive secretary and others on the DAVI national staff also serve as staff members of the NEA Division of AudioVisual Instructional Services. This NEA headquarters unit has two basic responsibilities: to promote the effective use of audiovisual materials in the schools of the United States, and to provide audiovisual services to other NEA units. Because of its relationship with the NEA, our professional audiovisual organization has an open channel of communication with the teaching profession and its many units, making possible a rapid and efficient mutual exchange of information. As an NEA department, DAVI, of course, is able to work directly with the 700,000 NEA members as well as with the other 29 departments, 13 divisions, and 26 commissions and committees. These combined NEA units, incidentally, are the largest publisher of educational materials in the world, a fact of some importance to DAVI. DAVI uses two important means of informing its members of new developments in education, its publications and its conventions and conferences. A good example of the latter is the forthcoming national DAVI convention at the Netherland Hilton hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio, February 29 to March 4, 1960. With its theme, "Concentrating Educational Forces," this convention is expected to attract 2,500 people to hear such speakers as Ernest O. Melby of Michigan State University and John E. Ivey, president of the recently-established Learning Resources Institute. An added attraction will be more than 115 commercial product exhibits including such new developments as teaching machines. liARLY in 1960 DAVI will pubHsh a significant volume. Teaching Machines and Programmed Learning: A Source Book, edited by A. A. Lumsdaine and Robert Glaser. DAVI's decision to publish this collection of major papers is a result of the great interest its members have in the two concepts mentioned in the book's title. And this interest on the part of DAVI members may well be a guidepost to our future. In a recent paper on technology and the instructional process, James D. Finn, presidentelect of DAVI, refers to what he sees as the coming role of the AV director in relation to teaching machines and programmed learning: "It is my position that the audiovisual field is in the easiest position to help integrate these mechanisms properly into the instructional process. They are not primarily audiovisual; they are primarily technological. The audiovisual field, I think, must now suddenly grow up. We, the audiovisual speciahsts, are, of all educational personnel, the closest to technology now. We must, I think, become specialists in learning technology— and that's how I would redefine audiovisual education." You may or may not agree with Dr. Finn. Whatever your opinion, DAVI has a forum for it. The future of DAVI is the future of the audiovisual field, and your active participation is needed in both. Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — December, 1959 64S