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

How Shall We Judge Them ? NEW MEDIA AND TEXTBOOKS EXCERPTS FROM AN ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY William E. Spaulding X HE NUMBER and variety of educational experiences we can offer school children today are not limitless but they seem to be approaching that state. Since the nature of the experience is determined by the medium we use, we must know our media and the role that each can best play in the educational process. While we must await the results of further research before we can make precise judgments regarding the unique and most effective role of different media, we can reach a number of useful tentative conclusions by analyzing the characteristics of the media. But first, what can be said for or against the language of the printed page as a means of communication in contrast to oral language? By contrasting the two, we get at the most basic characteristics of a vWde variety of instructional materials from books to television since most of them use predominantly one form of communication or the other. What is to be said for printed language? First on the plus side: Because it has relatively permanent physical being, you can do a lot of things with it that you cannot do with oral language. You can study it whenever you please, wherever you please, as fast or as slowly as you please, as many times as you please. There is no other form of communication which is so imiversally available. There is no other which so readily invites the analysis, comparison, and thoughful criticism of the ideas of another, or of one man's ideas in immediate juxtaposition with the ideas of other men. Written or printed language is usually a far more precise and refined form of communication than oral. The writer has plenty of time to consider what he wants to say and just how he wants to say it. He can check himself as he goes, rewrite, edit, revise as mucl as he pleases. Now what about its disadvantages? They are fairl) obvious. Printed language has to be read and for mosi people reading is a conscious effort. It calls for higher degree of concentration than most listening There is nothing inherently compelling in a page oi type. In fact, it is often described as cold and uninviting. Printed language offers none of the clues to meaning which we get from oral language. The speaker's emphasis, his infections, his pauses, the volume ol his voice all help us understand what he is trying tc say. So do his facial expressions and the use he makes of his hands. With the possible exception of marks of punctuation, type has none of these aids to meaning. The advantages and disadvantages of oral language as a means of communication are at least implied in any analysis of printed language. The bright side of the coin for one is in general the dull side for the other. So, to state the advantages of speech we can parallel the disadvantages of print. It is easier to listen than to read and a great deal can be heard and understood with no very conscious effort or great amount of concentration. Meaning is reinforced by facial expression, gestures, intonation, emphasis, etc. The live teacher, talking to a group of live students whom he can see before him, can, to some extent, measure the effectiveness of his communication by their behavior, bv their facial expressions, and by their oral responses if they are in\'ited to respond. And he can revise his commimication on the spot when he feels it needs revision. This advantage, however, is denied to the teacher on television, radio, disk, or tape. 710 Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — December, 1962