NAEB Newsletter (Dec 1958)

NETWORK NEWS —Bob Underwood There are a couple of matters which need some at¬ tention from network members. The first is a double- barrelled matter: your orders for the first quarter, 1959, and for the 1959-1960 in-school offering. Orders coming in on time really help our schedule which is set up well in advance and depends upon the coopera¬ tion of all member stations. Generally, if your order is late we can honor it without delay from the extras we run for each dubbing. However, you always run the risk of our being out of extras; when that happens you must pay for the extra dubbing ($2.00 per reel), and you go on our extra work list. Inclusion on this list inevitably means a delay in your getting your pro¬ grams. In other words, we’re trying to make it rough on those who order late. Your cooperation in this par¬ ticular field is quite necessary, and’, frankly, we haven’t heard too many valid excuses for late orders. To help yourself as well as us, please order on time. If your order for the current offering is not in yet, please attend to it today because you are late! Secondly, will you please give careful attention to the packing of tapes being returned to us? We have begun to lose tapes in the mail due to the boxes com¬ ing open. Please remember that if your tape return shipment is lost in the mail (a rare happening unless the box opens) you are responsible for the tapes lost. We cannot give tape return credit for lost tapes. We assume the responsibility if tapes are lost coming to you, and we hold you responsible for getting the tapes back to us. Please be careful and bind the box securely. Elsewhere in this issue there is an article about a proposed tape exchange between educational in¬ stitutions here and abroad. While this program is open to all educational institutions, I feel it is or should be of particular interest to network members since they have full recording facilities available. I urge you to give this proposal your consideration and to inquire around your institution to determine what departments would be willing to participate in such an exchange. I look forward to hearing from you about this. With the coming of the new year we here will be taking stock of things and, as a result, will be send¬ ing out some memos regarding several aspects of the network operations. These memos will contain infor¬ mation which every station staff should have well digested. Please retain this information for future reference. May we again remind non-network members that we have some series available for educational use, and we will, upon request, be happy to forward de¬ tails on acquisition and use of these series. Also, network members may wish to program some of our more successful past series. Several of these, too, are available under our usual terms. Please write for details. Lastly, we of the network staff extended to all NAEB members and friends our best wishes for the coming holiday season and good luck in the coming year. ETV WINS OVER OTHER TEACHING METHODS IN TEST ETV won out over “old-fashioned” teaching methods in the first scientific test of results, held in Detroit, Michigan. The victory was clear-cut, with proof that TV cuts down tardiness, absenteeism and bad be¬ havior, and with TV also bringing better progress in learning. The report on the experiment was made to the Detroit Board of Education by Dr. Robert S. Lanston of its Department of Instructional Research. About 3500 pupils in three elementary, three junior high and three senior high schools were en¬ rolled in TV courses; a “control” group was selected from comparable students who were instructed in the usual manner. All were tested both before and after the TV courses. The experiment continued for a year. All TV classes improved over the “control” classes, Lanston reported,. He cited classes in American literature, 8th grade science, elementary science, world history, in all of which educational television was the victor. NEW IDEAS . . . An excellent idea has been relayed to Headquarters, and we are now passing it on to you. If you can use it, it would make an interesting program. It is soon to be adopted by KING in Seattle. It is an on-the-air program in which a group of citizens—different ones each week—meet with some of the station management and talk about the sta¬ tion’s programs and program policy. Viewers and listeners can ask why the station does this or that or why it does not do something else. This sort of program has many advantages. First of all, you can make your audience feel more a part of the station in this way. Not only can those who participate feel this way but, by inviting letters from other viewers and listeners to be answered on the air, everyone in the audience can be made to feel a vital part of the station. Secondly, this gives management a chance to state its point of view and to clear up many little- understood factors in broadcasting - especially educa¬ tional broadcasting. Also, by selecting opinion leaders in the community to participate on some of 4 NEWSLETTER