I just posted the most recent piece in my series of columns, “Educational Technology Points of Inflection.” It explains where educational video is in its development life cycle.
The machine Thomas Edison said would replace the textbook.
Thomas Edison exclaimed as early as 1913 that “It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture.” He also predicted that motion pictures would replace the textbook and that schools would change drastically. Despite the incredible advances in digital video of the past 25 years, which meet or exceed the exponential increases of Moore’s Law, Edison’s pronouncements remain unrealized. Furthermore, the time of exponential increases in basic capabilities might well be coming to an end, “the significant positive slope of the linear portion of the development curve suggests that significant, even amazing, advances likely lie ahead for video as an effective educational technology.”
You can read the entire piece here: “Educational Video on the S-Curve of Video Technology Development.”
I retired as a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) in 2016 where I was Associate Professor of French and Instructional Pyschology & Technology. I arrived there in 1992 after my retirement as a Lieutenant Colonel from a 20-year career in the US Air Force. Most of that time was spent on the faculty at the US Air Force Academy (USAFA), during what I call my first career. For over forty years I have been creating interactive video applications for supporting language. The lab at the Language Learning Center at USAFA engaged in ground-breaking efforts conducted within a mentored learning setting. The lab’s work involved the development of technologies and instructional design strategies for the use of video in the language acquisition process as well as with architectures that support online learning and facilitate learning about learning.
I have a BA in Political Science from BYU, an MBA from the University of Missouri, and a PhD in Foreign Language Education and Computer Science from The Ohio State University. At the Air Force Academy I was a key member of the team that designed what was then the largest interactive videodisc-based learning center on a college campus. When I retired from BYU I directed the ARCLITE Lab, which was involved in the creation of online learning materials for language learning as well as video and interactive technologies for learning.
